Aoraki / Mt Cook Video

It's taken a couple of months, but I think I may actually have some time now to start posting video from New Zealand. Here, at least, is a first installment. It was taken from our day hike in Aoraki / Mt Cook national park. When we reached the end of the trail at the Hooker Glacier lake, there was this awesome continual cascade of clouds of the ridge and into the valley. Clouds formed and dissipated over Mt Cook itself, too. I caught it in a time lapse of stills using the GoPro. When I distilled the stills into a video it looked pretty neat, but I wanted to add a little context to it.

 
Hopefully Gaelic Storm won't be too upset that I pulled in one of their songs. These guys are great, and ought to make a southern swing sometime.

New Zealand Day 40: Hilary's Much Less Enjoyable Tongariro Crossing

After Alex's spectacular hike of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, I had been hoping to have a chance to do this walk as well. I watched the weather for the last week of our trip and it looked like today, Friday, would be the best. There's a hiker shuttle from Taupo, almost an hour and a half away, so I reserved a spot on that so that B and my parents wouldn't have to spend several hours taking me to and from the trailhead and would have the car for the day.

The shuttle was supposed to pick me up at 5:30 in front of our holiday park. When it got to be 5:55 with no shuttle, I was starting to think about going back to bed! But then it showed up and we had a quiet drive into Tongariro National Park. Much quicker than with the campervan last month!

When we arrived at the trailhead, I was pleased to see that the volcanic risk was normal.

It was spitting a little bit of rain and therefore was a bit chilly when I hit the trail at 8 AM. Some of the other folks in the parking lot were wearing quite...interesting ensembles for something called an Alpine crossing, including shorts, Converse sneakers, jeans, and cotton sweatshirts. Seriously—just because the logo on the sweatshirt says North Face doesn't mean it's safe for hiking!

As I started up the trail, I saw that the valley below was bright and sunny.

Looking up was cloudy...

...but I was hopeful that after climbing a bit I'd break through the cloud and there would be sun above.

Like Alex, I was really impressed by the trail work!

Sadly, it turned out that once I hiked into the cloud, I never came out of it. Eventually I topped out at Red Crater, but couldn't see anything but cloud in every direction. I had planned to hike up Ngaruhoe, but decided that heading off into a white-out to climb an unmarked trail up a volcano was perhaps not a very good idea. Plus, why bother with no view? If I'd had a car at the trailhead, I probably would have turned around at this point, or sooner, as it was clearly not my day either weather-wise or health-wise. I'd felt a bit sick to my stomach overnight and hadn't slept well at all. It was cold and rainy and there was no view. I was not happy.

But, on I tramped, slow and steady. Eventually I headed down a steep scree slope and saw my first view of the day. Look! The Emerald Lakes!

Even prettier once I got closer:

It was a good thing Alex had taken all of those photos, as at least I could imagine all the awesome stuff that was off in the clouds somewhere.

Eventually I came down onto the shoulder of the mountain and got out from underneath the clouds. Then it got lovely!

This area had some beautifully colored rock, mineral-stained I think, as well as some steam vents.

And this is the steam vent left over from the eruption in 2012.

I took a lunch break at the Ketetahi Hut and was able to warm up now that the sun had returned. Then I headed down the long run-out, eventually ending up in the woods for the last few kilometers. 

Once at the trailhead, I settled down to wait for the shuttle to return. Happily, I had packed my Kindle and had a good book to read. The shuttle came back a little early and everyone booked on it was already off the mountain (probably because the weather had been so crummy that no one did the side hikes up Ngaruhoe or Tongariro). I got back to Taupo just after 4 and ran into the final issue with my not-very-good hiking day...the public showers had just closed. Arrgh!

So, all in all, not a spectacular day. I will hope to return on a lovely day in the future! Sometimes you just need to chance it, though...the risk just didn't pay off today.

B had a great day with my folks in Taupo, including lunch at L'Arte Cafe and mini-golf. Once I returned we headed towards Rotorua, our destination for the night. On the way, we stopped to show my parents Huka Falls and the blurbling Mud Pool, favorites from earlier in our trip! The mud was just as entertaining the second time. I love that place.

Greeley Ponds

Even though I am back stateside and working full time once again, I can't let Hilary and B have all the fun! In the middle of last week, some weather passed through that did almost nothing around Concord, but dumped upwards of one foot of snow in the Whites. So come the weekend I pulled out my backcountry skis and cold weather gear, put Jasper in the back of the station wagon, and headed north.

I searched through our library of outdoors literature to find a trail that would be:

• fun on skis, because I haven't gotten to do much of that this year
• not groomed trail, because frankly I would just embarrass myself trying to properly cross country ski or, worse yet, skate ski. jasper may not be welcome on groomed trail, anyway
• not heavily traveled, because who wants to be doing the same thing as everyone else
• not too technical, because even though they're technically backcountry skis, I have neither the equipment nor the ability to do serious telemark skiing through the woods without breaking something
• not too far away, because even through the best stuff is in the notches, I don't want to spend hours in the car for this

I found a nice looking candidate just off the Kancamaugus Highway, about 75 minutes from the house: Greeley Ponds. There is a well-used hiking trail from the main trailhead, but also a little-used ski trail that parallels it on a gentle ascent to a pair of ponds nestled between Osceola and Kancamaugus peaks. The ponds freeze predictably (especially during this winter!), which would allow some skiing out in the open. From the trailhead to the far end of the ponds and back would be perhaps 5 miles.


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From Snowshoe Hikes in the White Mountains by Steven Smith, 2000

In planning the hike, I had the choice between 40s with a chance of rain on Saturday, or 15 and mostly sunny Sunday. I chose the latter, because it is still winter here and, dammit, I'm gonna enjoy it! It was chilly, but I prefer a nice clean cold to still-pretty-cold-in-addition-to-wet.

Jasper was excited to come along no matter what:

The hiking trailhead was packed with cars - folks headed up Osceola mostly. But 0.3 mi west I pulled up beside a solitary vehicle at the ski trail head. Jasper immediately began his usual snow-frollick:

Since the snowstorm a few days before, it looks like just one other person had come through, followed by some thawing on Saturday, a dusting overnight, and then Jasper and myself. There were also some fresh paw prints - a fox or coyote perhaps?

On the way up I ran into only a few people. One older fellow from Sanbornton caught up to me on skis, and we journeyed across the ponds together. He apparently comes up to this trail frequently, and is a veteran of many of the long thru-hikes in the U.S. He explained to me that the trail further south past the lakes eventually emerges in Waterville Valley ski area, but has been hard going since Irene a few years back. After a bite of lunch, Jasper and I headed back across the ponds:

Jasper's energy was much diminished on the way back. Even though he is largely impervious to the cold, there's no getting around the fact that it was only in the mid teens with some wind. Although I had scrupulously purchased some new booties for Jasper the day before, I neglected to actually put them in the car Sunday morning, meaning that Jasper and I had to stop occassionally to de-ice his paws. He was a good sport about it though, and I think he did have a good time. He was pretty tired - and snowy! - by the time we returned to the car:

While Jasper usually sits up and pants excitedly anytime he's in the car, today he konked out all the way home.

New Zealand Day 30: Avalanche Peak (aka Hilary's Big Day)

There are a number of wonderful tramps from Arthur's Pass, but the one that I had my eye on was a very difficult but very rewarding hike up to Avalanche Peak. My Frenzy guidebook referred to it as "arguably the finest day walk/tramp on the South Island...Definitely best alpine day-loop on the Island!...VERY difficult and fatiguing...shorter, but more difficult than the Tongariro."

Well, since Alex had his spectacular day on the Tongariro Crossing, I, of course, had to try this one. (All competition aside, though, I would've rather had him to share this with, though I also do like hiking alone sometimes.)

The weather was a go, and I left the trailhead at 9 AM on the dot. Heading up. Up, up, up.

In fact, the trail is so steep that when I asked for a map at the DoC site yesterday, the lady sold me one for 50 cents but told me it would not be useful at all for wayfinding on the trail because the topo lines were too close together. Luckily it is a well-marked track.

Yes, that says 4 hours to the summit. Just keep that in mind.

After about 10 minutes I came to the first viewpoint through the trees. This is Devil's Punchbowl Falls, the base of which is a much shorter walk from the other side of the pass. For me, it was both a lovely view and a way to measure how far up I'd traveled!

And here's the view easterly down the pass, showing the village and the railroad bridge. Trains came through a lot, which was really fun as we could see them from the cabin window. Mostly coal, the owner told us, though there's a passenger train as well.

I kept climbing for another ten or fifteen minutes and was able to check my progress against the falls and the village again:

So far, it seemed like a strong day hiking in the Whites. Fairly steep but completely manageable.

I crossed this lovely little boardwalk, which would never have been put on a tramp like this in NH! I would've been wading through the muck. I like this approach better.

Eventually I got high enough that the sun began to peek over the mountains on the other side of the pass. That's the falls there in the middle, I was just around treeline at this point.

It took me an hour to get to treeline (bushline, the Kiwis say), and I was able to text my parents from there to update them and let them know that all was well.

As I moved upward, I started to see these peaks in front of and to my right, off the shoulder of where I was hiking.

The falls is getting pretty distant now!

And I started to be able to see way back down the pass towards the river and flats we drove by yesterday.

As I was ascending across the shoulder, I came upon a small metal structure that served as a nice place to prop the camera for a photo. You can see the track continuing behind me.

The last steep section at the end, 20 or 30 minutes, was quite tough. Very steep and rocky, and my calves started complaining a bit.

Eventually my track (which was poled...they use poles here instead of cairns when above treeline) intersected with the track coming up the other ridge, and I got ready to cross this final summit ridge:

It reminded me a little bit of Crib Goch on the Snowden Horseshoe in Wales, though shorter and the lack of rain certainly made it safer!

I joined two other guys at the summit, 2 hours and 5 minutes after leaving the trailhead. That includes about a ten minute break at treeline for drink/snack/photos/texting reassurances. Take that, book time!

It also turned out that the snow field on the peak behind me in this photo, Mt. Rolleston, turned out to be a glacier. For the last hour or so of the walk, I first saw one face of the peak, then a little more, and eventually started to think, "maybe a glacier?" By the time I summited, it was clear, confirmed also by a check of the map. Neat!

This is a view up the pass. All the cloud was coming in from the west coast and would evaporate over the village. I sat at the summit for an hour and a half and the view in that direction got clearer and clearer.

I knew that my folks and B had gone to Hokitika on the West Coast and wouldn't be back until at least 3, and decided that sitting at the summit taking in the views was a lot nicer than sitting back down in the village!

It was an amazing day, clear in almost every direction except looking across the west coast side of the pass, where it was that terrific peaks-poking-up-from-clouds as far as the eye could see. And it was warm (I put on my polypro over my Tshirt and that was plenty) and not a bit windy. What a delight!

The couple of guys who were there when I arrived left in opposite directions after a little bit. Turns out one of them had camped down in the village the night before and had been kept awake all night by the calling of kea (alpine parrots), and they'd also put three holes in his tent looking for food. He was planning to sleep in the hostel tonight. I heard one at one point on my hike, but still hadn't seen one of the critters.

So I was alone on the summit for at least half an hour, maybe longer, which was even better. I took lots of photos and then just sat there for awhile.

Eventually (yes, I reapplied sunscreen while sitting up there—the hole in the ozone layer is right over NZ!) I decided it was time to go down. I'd been a contrarian on the way up: the DoC folks and most books recommend ascending the steeper Avalanche Peak track and descending the slightly gentler Scotts track, but Frenzy as well as the owners of our motel recommended going up Scotts and down Avalanche. Frenzy had a well-reasoned argument, which was that the views from Scotts were better and since you'd have to stop anyway to rest, you could turn them into photo stops, and also the views will be more fun on the way up since you won't have had the amazing 360 view from the summit yet. So I came up Scotts.

This left a descent along Avalanche.

First, I picked my way off the steep summit ridge and knob. The "track" comes down to the right of that scree field, this photo was taken from the Avalanche track shoulder.

Once on the shoulder, I could look down into the valley and see the village again.

The track kept to this ridge all the way down to treeline.

The clouds kept retreating into the distance, opening up better and better views of the pass towards the west coast. You can see both road and railroad running along there.

Once in the trees again, I discovered the downside of this route: the footing on this section was absolute crap!

Yes, those are medium-sized-to-large rocks, all over the trail. Completely unstable. Too big to just walk over like gravel, too numerous and small to step over/avoid. Yuck! Honestly, I am the queen of loop walks—I hate retracing my steps—but I wish I'd gone both up and down Scotts. Really.

I fell on my butt a few times, banged up my ankle once, and said a bunch of bad words. I tried both with and without hiking poles and am not sure if they helped me be more stable or just made the torment last longer. Blech.

At one point I lowered myself down a ten foot rock wall. Yikes! I suppose coming up this trail would be easier than going down it.

Finally, towards the end, I got close to the falls, which made it a little nicer.

And then, just like that, I was done! It took me 2:05 to get down, exactly the same as on the way up. I think there were 15 or 20 minutes worth of short breaks there...I wasn't in a hurry and stopped pretty frequently for photos when above treeline.

I was trying to figure out which way to go (the trail essentially ended in someone's backyard, and there was gravel track leading both left and right to go out to the main road) when I checked my phone and saw a text that said, "B advises at bottom of trail turn left one minute to see bridge and waterfall."

So I did!

All in all, a spectacular walk and a wonderful day. I still can't tell you what the best day walk on the island is because they've all been terrific.

After checking out that little bridge, I went into the Wobbly Kea cafe (who could resist a name like that?) and struggled to decide between sweet and salty treats. Sweet won, but should it be carrot cake or ice cream? Then I saw that the carrot cake came with ice cream. Jackpot! It was delicious.

Then I went to sit on the front steps of the hostel, just down the street from the Telecom phone booths that also serve as free wifi hotspots, to do some internet-y stuff. Suddenly, I heard raucous noises from the air, looked up, and saw a couple of kea flying around. Finally!

Eventually the rest of the crew returned from Hokitika, where they'd found a fabulous playground for B, visited the bookstore, had a yummy lunch, and returned to the delicious ice-cream place that we'd found on our first West Coast swing.

We met up at the DoC centre, where I did a little souvenir shopping and B handed in her Junior Ranger booklet, earning another badge (she had gone on a short walk before leaving for Hokitika). In the parking lot outside, a kea swooped very close to us, showing off its beautiful colors. Sweet as!

We then settled into the car for a long drive to our night's lodging in Hanmer Springs. B napped, I dozed, and eventually we pulled in to the lovely Forest Peak Motel and settled in for the night. Once again we seem to have found a great place. The basic requirement now that we are traveling by car is that there be two sleeping spaces (as B goes to bed first, and M snores). Mostly we are also finding places with small kitchens and bathrooms, which is a plus but not necessary. We ignore the televisions but make good use of wifi where we can find it.

New Zealand Day 25: Back to Wanaka!

We woke at our freedom camping site, reached very late last night, to discover that it was actually quite beautiful! 

Then we headed up the road into Wanaka, which I am now referring to as my future New Zealand home. With the return of good weather, Alex and I saw the opportunity to cram in a couple more great hikes before he heads back to the US, and we were all happy to go back to Wanaka. 

We parked the campervan right on the lake in town, where there was an enormous horse show setting up, and left my parents and B to enjoy the town for the day. Alex and I took my parents much smaller van and headed out of town for the Raspberry Creek trailhead—about an hour ("if you are willing to drive fast on washboard gravel," said my guidebook) to the northwest of town. The road went to gravel pretty fast, with this warning:

It was a lovely day, but we had to keep the windows closed because of the dust kicked up by the car in front of us!

Pretty soon, we reached the first ford. Yes, ford.

Luckily the river was low and the van made it through just fine.

Once we finally reached the end of the road in Mt. Aspiring National Park, we set off on the Rob Roy Glacier Valley Track. My Frenzy guidebook called this the second best day walk on the South Island, so we were eager to compare it to our Key Summit and beyond hike two days ago, as well as the Hooker Valley Track at Aoraki/Mt. Cook that we are hoping to do tomorrow.

The views sure started out well!

We headed up fairly steeply through some beech forest. This was our first glimpse of the Rob Roy glacier that we were climbing up towards:

This area was posted as being dangerous due to potential rock fall. You think? We went through quickly and did not end up being crushed by an enormous boulder.

Then we popped out of the glacier and were treated to the view of hanging glacier and waterfalls pouring over the sheer cliffs beneath:

It was a whole glorious ampitheater. 

After having a snack, I laid back on the nice warm rock and almost fell asleep while Alex took pictures. Eventually he got me back up again to get some photos of the two of us. We've graduated from Alex's arm length selfies to the little stick pic device that my dad brought.

I could've stayed there and looked at the glacier and waterfalls and snoozed all afternoon, but we had places to be, so after about forty minutes we got ready to head back. The only thing remotely disappointing about the walk was that I was really hoping to see kea, the sassy alpine parrots of the Southern Alps, and there weren't any in evidence today.

On the way back down we got some photos of these beautiful little purple shiny butterflies that were flitting about the cow pasture, because I thought B would like to see them.

The trail was quite smooth, except for this one obstacle in our way right as we came within view of the carpark again:

She moved out of the way without incident, however, and we carried on back to the van and thence to Wanaka. 

My mom had made a lovely chickpea salad and we had a lovely little picnic on the lakeshore for supper. Part of the entertainment was a paraglider nearby who was on the ground but doing some technique work—kept hoisting his parachute and turning it one way and another (and once, into a tree). 

Then it was time to leave Wanaka again...sad, but we were headed for another spectacular place. I had booked us into the closest full-service campsite to Aoraki/Mt. Cook, about two and a half hours away. After we pulled out of Wanaka, I got a text from my parents in the van behind saying that they wanted to fill up their gas tank before it got dark. 

It turned out, though, that we were headed out into the middle of nowhere. About half an hour later we came across a petrol station, but it was closed and we can't pay at the pump here in NZ because our credit cards don't do the chip-and-pin that is the standard here (and should be in the US, but that's a separate rant). So we continued on up and over a fairly low mountain pass. Night fell, more than an hour passed, and eventually we pulled into Omarama. Everything there was closed, too, but Alex and my dad figured out how to pay using the debit cards with PINs. Whew! I was starting to google for freedom camping sites in case we had to bed down there and get fueled up in the morning.

From there it was less than an hour to our campsite, the Glentanner Park Centre. We found a spot in the dark and then I was up for another couple of hours doing laundry, which we desperately needed. Alex and I didn't go to bed until after 1, though B slept through a good portion of the drive and we just popped her up into her loft bed when we finally parked.