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Mt Somers via Sharplin Falls, Mt Somers village

Mark Eaglesfield

Mt Somers the mountain vs Mt Somers the village. Red spot is the trailhead.

Screenshots of the NZ topographic map are licensed as CC BY 4.0 by Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).

Mt Somers (Te Kiekie; 1688m) is a mountain next to the Canterbury Plains and the Hakatere (Ashburton Lakes) regions of Canterbury, South Island.

The easiest trailhead for reaching the summit is Sharplin Falls, to the east. It is also an access point for the multi-day loop trek around the mountain. The track to the summit diverges off of the southern portion of this loop track.

The nearest place to buy food and petrol is the village of Mt Somers, which is about a 12-minute drive to the south. A hamlet called Staveley may offer closer accommodation.

Time

DOC says it takes 5 hours to reach the summit. I wonder if they are assessing it differently from their normal timing. They might think that a mountain easily reached from Christchurch will attract less fit hikers.

It took me about 4 hours to reach the summit, including breaks. I am usually slower than the DOC time on long hikes.

My whole trip was around 9 hours, including a long break on the summit.

Unfortunately AllTrails doesn’t offer an average time (at the moment).

Screenshots of the NZ topographic map are licensed as CC BY 4.0 by Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).

Route

Round-trip, AllTrails reports an elevation gain of 1245 meters and a length of 10.3 kilometers.

Sharplin Falls parking lot is at the end of Flynns Road. The last portion of the road through the woods is somewhat narrow; I wouldn’t want to encounter a campervan there. So, please don’t bring your campervan to the trailhead.

From the parking lot, I followed the track south along the south face of the mountain, through a forest and then an area surrounded by bushes and occasional trees. After I turned right to ascend the summit track, the bushes gradually gave way to tussock.

Parts of the summit track are steep and loose. The track disappears temporarily, and multiple options spaced a few meters away from each other are plausible routes. I slipped at least once on the way down, despite using trekking poles. (Or was it because I was over-relying on the trekking poles?)

The final five minutes or so along the narrow ridge/spur to the summit are somewhat exposed.

The summit is wide and gently sloping, making it easy to walk around in a loop and find an isolated place for a picnic.

I finished the last of my four Powerade bottles at least an hour before reaching my car. This was on a hot, dry summer day. If I were to do this hike again, in those conditions, I would take five or even six bottles.

If 1 is an easy track, and 4 is using hands and feet on exposed rocks, I give this track a 3 on much of the summit track, and a 2 on the rest of the summit track. The portion of the multi-day loop track between the parking lot and the summit track turnoff is overwhelmingly a 1, with a few places that are a 2.

Looking north.

Looking west over the broad summit slope. The Clent Hills, featuring Mt Barrosa, at center.

Looking south.

Hunting

Most of the route is in a hunting area. Hunters are forbidden to “discharge firearms near tracks, huts, campsites, road-ends or any other public place.” I have hiked in more than 30 hunting areas, and only passed hunters twice - this wasn’t one of those hikes.

Here is the DOC topomap with all hunting areas visible.

Commentary on the Canterbury Plains

I’ve never liked the Canterbury Plains. For me, there’s something irreverent about the plethora of straight lines inherent in intensive agriculture. Brian Turner’s poem Crossing the Canterbury Plains sums up the problem of a place ‘where a leaf may be blown for a hundred miles, and end up somewhere much the same.’

Carl Walrond, New Zealand Geographic, 1999.

My major complaint about the Canterbury Plains is the nitrate pollution in the water (caused more by runoff from dairy farms than anything else). But I understand Walrond’s point, too.

Other pages about this hike

Pages about other hikes to the summit of Mt Somers

The multi-day loop which doesn’t go to the summit

Other hikes involving Mt Somers (disorganized)

Nearby hikes

Pages about this region