The Mythical Tramping Track

We have been befriended by a work colleague, a renaissance man who is former head of Dunedin Search and Rescue, an experienced mountaineer in these parts and in parts abroad, an electronics engineer and flamenco guitarist who built a home that evokes the comfortable and communal feel of our Tenth Mountain huts back home. I was lucky to be invited on a trip into the hinterland with he and his 18-year old son Robert, knowing I would be in good hands and seeing things that one just doesn't get to see on a Great Walk. Because this web-log isn't meant to out the people we know, suffice it to say that this man's initials are B.R.U.C.E. P.A.R.T.R.I.D.G.E. We were to sleep at a hut one night, climb onto a ridge and traverse high across glacier and mountainside, drop down to a high saddle overlooking Milford Sound, traverse across another peak, and drop down again through a place called Gifford's Crack (watch the moss!), bivy under an enormous boulder. The next day we would saunter over and pick up a track, heading jauntily down the creek and thusly to the car. After battling the cheeky keas (gorgeous and bold mountain parrots that will leave with your mustache if you're not careful) for possession of the stove, we got a nice start and had a beautiful clear day, as B.R.U.C.E. put it, an "absolutely cracking day". The climb up onto the ridge was a bit grunty; from that perch I looked down between my toes to the road below (pic). We then climbed free up a steep ridge, put on crampons and summited a minor peak. After lunch we headed onto the glacier, crossing a snow bridge at the end that provided some extra interest for me (pic). Then over a ridge, descending snow, ice, and rock to the saddle below, a perch from where we could see down into Milford Sound. We looked at our route across to Gifford's Crack, looked at the sinking sun, and decided we wouldn't be sleeping under that rock but on the ridge instead--a good decision. Our progress had been a weeee bit slower than expected, a hint that the weekend might become slightly extended, heh heh. It had been a fantastic day of rock and ice and crystal clear vistas. After some hunting we found reasonable bivy sites (pic), cooked up dinner, and watch the sun sink into the West, lighting up Milford Sound with beautiful light, curious in that the yellow light lay only as a band across the horizon below a deepening azure sky (pics, top and below). A nice reward for our days work. Next day we were up and away with bars for breakfast, knowing a long day awaited. We immediately spent time route-finding, realizing after getting it figured out that we needed to decide whether to bail and take a 2 hour stroll down to the hut or a long day around on the planned route. Live large, or live small. Well, you only live once, whatever the size. We kept going. Around the mountain, down Gifford's crack, sometimes using the tussock as the only available handholds, then a late lunch in the sun, a hello to Lake South America and the rock bivy that was our intended night's stay, and on towards the track that would take us 5K to the car. No worries. Time twisted and stretched out before us as we wound our way around a lake in fantastically beautiful terrain. Oopsie--between us and that track now lay a bog and an enormous, hillocky, rubble-strewn area that was clearly swarming with orcs. Our goal became to reach the established track before dark, and we would then head down using our torches (flashlights). Well, we did it--made the track at dark, that is. However, we discovered that the "track" . . . wasn't. Long disused, the former track was now overgrown, boggy in one place, steep and pitted in others, having sunken into the stuff of legend. As a heavy dew settled, we beat our way along the "track" through masses of vegetation that drenched our pantses. In places the track had eroded back to big drop-off steps and the grasses would mask these steps. In other places one might step between grasses through 3 feet of air and then to the ground below, a so-called "hole". So the three of us proceeded down the track in the dewy dankness of it all, the leader lurching onward with a litany of "rock", "hole", and "step" to warn the others. Many side trails were visited. We went squelching right straight through a bog. On one occasion, W.E. even got turned right around and headed straight back up the trail. The temptation to stop and bivvy again was skirted as Hicke had not alerted MAC of the possibility of spending an extra night, and knew that she would either rejoice or worry excessively, either being bad--so we would get to the car, drive 2 hours and phone home around 10p. Hmmm--we finally stumbled across two swinging bridges (pic) and reached the car at 3:30 am, a walk/climb of some 21 hours with minimal stops for food and water. The body is capable of a lot more than one supposes. Despite the mythical track, or maybe because of it, it was a memorable weekend and one that I, B.R.I.A.N., would never trade away.

The Mushroom Farm

To us, coming from an arid climate, New Zealand is an enormous mushroom farm, as evidenced by these shrooms found on the Kepler Track. In reality there are sunny wine-growing areas and Dunedin often has sunny days and moderate rain (intermediate between Seattle and Denver) which is spread fairly evenly across the seasons. But back in the deep cool forests and in all of Fiordland and the West Coast, moss hangs from the trees, water courses freely and clear, and shrooms sprout all over. The Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers grind on down from the hinterland, almost reaching the ocean. It's quite bizarre, for me at least, to be in a cool, coastal rainforest and around the corner is an enormous glacier. Fiordland is one of the wettest places on the planet. The mountains rise majestically above the fiords but it can be nasty-nasty in the high places. I've discovered that there is colorful and descriptive language for rain that we lack in the arid parts. The sequence for rain severity goes something like this: spitting, tipping down, raining, chucking it down, throwing it down, and absolutely THROWING it down!