"We had October 13th and 14th to climb Mt Taylor during our honeymoon. Unfortunately, the weather forecast predicted high chances of precipitation for both days, mostly during the afternoon. Since we came all the way across the Pacific Ocean, we decided to give it a shot anyway. We started around 9AM on Sunday morning to get a head start on the weather. The trail markers say 6 miles (10km) to Double Hut, however my GPS said 5.5 miles. What ensued was a very chilly & overcast, yet enjoyable & gradual hike. There were waterfowl and rabbits about. We had a river crossing which made us take off our boots. Water levels were above my knees so Asaka crossed higher upstream. We reached camp before noon. Double Hut is a very nice hut with a fire pit, several mattresses, food hangs, a water source and a nice toilet. Asaka wasn't feeling good; a combination of jet lag and other things, so she slept almost the entire day. I spent time scouting out the following day's route, attempting a fire and organizing our packs. It rained ever so slightly in the afternoon, but nothing serious. Due to wedding distractions, I forgot to bring headlamps, rain pants, gaiters, a stove and a water filter, alth..." — seancasserly • Oct 14, 2019

"Left Christchurch around 4 pm arrived at the lake heron car park by 6, took us roughly 1 1/2 hours to double hut (1 river crossing). dinner, bedtime. we left the hut at 4 am the next morning making good progress up the river as there is very little snow yet. we followed the right/ southern branch of the swim river when we reached the ridge up to a big boulder on the true right of the river. there we hid our trail runners and warmed our feet before putting the boots on. gaining the ridge is pretty straightforward and a bit slippery, after about 200m the veggie patches lighten up and we had more and more snow patches so we decided to put on our crampons. the forecasted clouds weren't around yet. first stop was at point 1766 to welcome the sunset and negotiate the route. as the south facing slope shows signs of avalanche danger we decide to sidle up the north facing aspect of the ridge making good progress to point 2062. from there the way to the summit was quite straightforward. at the summit we were greeted with sunshine and very little wind. the hike out was long and quite stretchy as the snow got slushy at around 11am. once we got back to the riverbed we decided to stick to our ..." — ThomasDames • Jun 18, 2018

"My friends and I left Christchurch the afternoon before We drove to the lake heron car park and hiked in to double hut which took about 1 1/2 hrs. There is one river crossing about 15 mins before you get to the hut. The next morning we started at 5 and walked up the swim river, crossing it quite a few times. Once at the obvious ridge we slowly made our way up leaving our wet trainers behind. After one hour of steep scrambling we've had to put on crampons. I highly suggest an very early start as firm snow and ice make the hike much more enjoyable. Great views from the top." — ThomasDames • Oct 18, 2017