Mt Potts Conservation Area

Despite the hut being so comfy and hard to leave, there's much to explore and soak in at the Mt Potts skifield area. The Rangitata river fans out below you to the south with the Two Thumb & Ben Mcleod Range - lit up beautifully at both dawn and dusk.
Further up the basin there is a tarn nestled in a hollow that was frozen solid, but I'm guessing would be a clear turquoise colour in summer.
The back ridge at around 2000m offers fantastic, panoramic views all around and is relatively easy to travel with some very gnarly looking peaks far beyond.
I didn't get too far here - too busy soaking in the views, but I did sidle around the back of Mt Arthur to have a look to the north west up the Lawrence River valley -steeper mountains up there and big river flats.
The Potts Ranges & Big Hills Ranges north/north-east actually looked like very similar terrain to the Molesworth, open easy travel tops feeding down into broad head basins with interesting valleys below.
I made sure to maximize my time on the ridges as I expect it's rare to have a windless day up there and watched the sun go down and the moon rise before crunching down on the crispy snow to the warm hut on dark.




Eastern basin with some cool stripey snow.


Lovely ranges looking north, would be very interesting to explore.


The Clyde River to the left and the Lawrence River centre.


Looking up the Lawrence River.


The Potts Range stretching to the north. If there wasn't a cosy hut to greet me I'd be off along this.


Last light at pt2068 behind the hut.


Moonrise before heading down.