This is the Pyke Creek located in the upper Haast Valley, draining the Brewster Glacier, by the popular Brewster Hut track.
Upper Pyke Creek
There is a serious (and undescended) alpine canyon just below the glacier lakes: The water pours down glacially polished bedrock, through numerous drops, with hanging potholes. A quick look at google earth suggests around 30 – 40 absiels…
A very committing and lengthy project for motivated teams!
Lower Pyke Creek
First descent 2004, by Alain Rohr and friend Andrea from about the 500m contour.
Alain reported “v3a3III*, approximately 3 absiels to 25m” and “A lot of boulders before the last absiel, in a nice small gorge. Nice entrance”.
In February 2020, a team of 4 from the Wanaka Canyon Rescue Team partially descended the canyon in the search for a missing hiker. They placed some bolts during the descent, but were extracted by helicopter from partway down the canyon with the deceased hiker.
Photos below are mostly from the Wanaka SAR Facebook Page, from the search in 2020. Looking at the imagery, we the grade is more likely to be a4.
This canyon has had few descents. Any group descending this canyon can’t expect to rely on anchors from the first descent, or the SAR operation. So the next groups through must be prepared as though it was a first descent, and take more rope and anchor equipment than suggested by the anecdotes.
Water level imagery
This canyon is fed by the Brewster Glacier, so expect colder conditions than rain fed canyons.
Also remember that the water levels for glacial fed canyon behave differently to rain-fed canyons. Without recent rain, flows are higher when the temperature is higher. These peaks happen on a yearly (late summer) and daily (late afternoon) basis.
The images below show the difference between high flow and low flow. The canyoning images above probably portray a medium to high flow given the time of year and day.
