A few weeks before this photo was taken I had joined the New Zealand Alpine Club. My plan was to learn a few winter mountaineering skills and maybe later climb some of the higher peaks in Nelson Lakes National Park. I had seen from the club’s website that some people were planning a trip to this region for the winter solstice. I decided to tag along in the hope to start off my learning process. A few days before mid-winter there was a lot of snow fell in the area, this made it quite hard to make progress in certain sections along the route we took.
On the return journey after spending a night in Angelus Hut we were making our way back to the car park along a ridge. I stopped here to take a photo of the conditions we were up against. The snow was over a metre deep here and with the weight of my pack my feet sank right to the ground from time to time. I had to use my ice axe to spread my weight and push myself out with my hands. The walk which normally can be done in 4 hours took about 6.5 hours on this day.