An Epic Adventure -- Mt. Somers Track

There are too many amazing tracks in New Zealand for me to afford to waste another weekend just hanging out at Ilam apartments like I did the previous weekend to this one. Although I had a good time at the Forestry ball that I got to go to, I would have rather spent my time in the unknown and beautiful landscape of this country. And so this past weekend I set out with Mike and Ryan (who bought a car "Big Bertha" for the sole purpose of backpacking around New Zealand) Drew and Henry. We planned to go to the west coast but due to a large, impending storm that was to hit Sunday night we chose to stay closer and I suggested doing the Mt. Somers track that four other friends were planning on doing. And so it was set. We loaded into the car and set off...
And two minutes later we had a flat tire as Mike ran into a curb... After putting on the doughnut we set off again...
And then we ran out of gas in the Bivuoac parking lot... So we ran to the gas station, filled up and then set off again..
And then the car wouldn't start...
We pushed the car out of the way of other customers and then miraculously it started! Apparently Ryan forgot to push some sort of magic button that just prevents the car from starting... Some button. Anyway, we were finally off.

Haha.....

The drive was pretty quick and before we knew it we were setting up our tents, making a fire by the trail head and having a good time. We were surrounded by cows, and their poop, but could care less because the amazing night sky was worth it in the middle of nowhere. We hit the sack pretty early and I was in charge of kicking everyone awake the next day at 6:30 am....

The night was freezing to say the least and none of us wanted to get out of our sleeping bags but reluctantly we did and packed up. It was SO COLD. But of course as soon as we headed out we were immediately sweating a ton because the first hour of the hike was straight up hill. And I mean straight up hill because kiwis don't know the meaning of switchbacks. I was soaked and felt bad being the only girl that I was keeping the boys back and was afraid that I would keep us from accomplishing our goal of summiting Mt. Somers that day. Fortunately I stopped very little and pushed myself as hard as I could and kept up the boys. We made it to the start of the summit track earlier than expected and decided to go for it. We dropped our packs and headed up the mountain. 

The track was not pleasant on the way up. It was deep snow at the start and then turned into a scramble up tons of rocks and boulders. And to add to that I had difficulty breathing... fun times. 

After about an hour of climbing this is what I started to see and realized how worth it this was about to be.

The higher I climbed and  every time I would reach over one ridge I would literally yelp at how beautiful everything was around me, I absolutely could not believe it. The clouds are below you and you are sitting on top of the world....

The group at the summit!

Reaching the summit was probably the most amazing and rewarding thing that I have done in such a long time. It's such a struggle climbing up so high but at the same time the beauty and splendor surrounding you makes it all so indescribably worth it. It's a feeling that cannot be replaced by any other sort of activity, I'm addicted. Can't wait to climb my next mountain. The climb down was straining on the knees and was equally as difficult as the climb up but now we had nothing to look forward to at the end... After picking up our packs we had another four to five hours of tramping ahead of us and I was already exhausted but we tramped on. And on, and on... And it seemed to never end. Although the views were breath taking and it never ceased to amaze us how different the landscape could be from one hour to the next on the same track. We went from a snowy mountain to dense forest to rainforest... Unfortunately the last three hours had a ridiculous amount of up hill treks and I was dead tired. I was sweating so much that I had a constant taste of salt on my lips. I had passed hitting my wall of exhaustion and somehow pushed myself forward simply knowing that there were four guys behind me that wouldn't let me stop. The last thirty minutes were the worst though. We reached a point where we literally had to crawl up on all fours to get up and at the top we all were close to being in a state of passing out right there on the rocks. And it was beginning to get worrisome because there was an intense fog on top of the mountains and it was nearing 6pm. Fortunately, five minutes after the head lamps got whipped out Ryan yelled that he could see the hut and we all burst out screaming with joy. 

There is no better sight than a hut in the distance... Here is the hut the next morning. 

And to our greatest surprise ready to greet us inside the hut were Phil, Andrew and Brian who had set out on the same track as us but in the opposite direction and had gotten to the hut a couple hours before us. We spent the night away attempting to make a fire (and failing), stuffing our faces, and having great conversation.  That day we had done a total of 10 hours of hiking... The longest day of my life. I slept like a baby in the marvelous warmth of the hut..

The next morning we set out around 9am and had no idea what amazing views we were about to have. Although our legs were sore from the day before we kept up a pretty good pace. 

Also enjoyed our lunch by some sweet water caves :)

We made it  back to the car right as we were getting hit by some snow clouds and were happy to have completed the entire track, summited the mountain and not gotten stuck in the up coming storm. All in all, best tramp I've done yet. They just seem to be getting better and better.. Spring break is next! :)

Cedar Flatts

So I may have thought that my first tramping escapade was unbeatable, but this past weekend’s trip to the west coast was a little more adventure than any of us could have hoped for. Since the tramping club was doing it’s annual pub crawl on Friday night, few of them were planning any one night backpacking trips for the weekend, so me, Andrew and Hayley decided we would go out on our own. At the club meeting one of the officers told us of one of his favorite trips in all of the South Island down a track called Cedar Flatts which leads to a hut and some even nicer hot springs than the ones that we visited the previous weekend. We were totally pumped to have another awesome weekend and immediately that night rented our car and convinced Brandon and Craig that they should come along with us. And after some coaxing and convincing they eventually agreed to join.  

We planned on waking up early Saturday morning and getting on the road by 8am but unfortunately things started getting hairy from the start. When we all woke up we got news from Andrew that the car battery was dead because he had left the lights on all night. So we had to wait half an hour for someone to come jump our car. So setting off an hour later than expected we were now behind schedule. Then the scenic ride which we expected to take only two hours ended up taking closer to three and a half… and Andrew unfortunately got a speeding ticket going through a small town. The ride itself was great though, interjected with bad radio signals we provided a lot of our own singing and entertainment. 

Finally we arrived at the trail start and set out on our journey. It was a beautiful, beautiful day but we were already quite behind schedule. We set off around 1:30 pm and knowing that it gets dark in New Zealand around 5:30 / 6pm we had to book it to get to the hut before dark. Thankfully we had a map with us and we felt pretty good about getting there on time. We stopped frequently at the beginning to take pictures which we would later look back on regretfully…

And then things took a turn for the worst.. About forty minutes into the hike there was a fork in the trail, one route "The Flood Route" being a completely vertical rise up, and the "Main Valley Route" which we decided to take that continue as a more flat path. Unfortunately the Main Valley Route ended up leading us to a river with no site of our next orange triangle signalling our path. We assumed (incorrectly) that if we would just follow the river upstream we might find the next triangle and so we headed up stream clambering over an annoying rocky shore for a good thirty minutes. Then we finally realized that things just didn't seem right. We checked out our map, backtracked along the shore and still couldn't figure out what was going on. Finally we realized that we should have actually taken the Flood Route and we all trudged back to find it again. Now we had lost at least another hour with this ordeal but once we were finally on the flood route we figured we would be fine and so we marched on with high spirits. 

The Main Valley Route that we spent way too long walking off track on...

And we walked on, and on, and on..... and every time we would stop for water we would hypothesize that we really must be getting close now. And then it got darker, and darker, and darker .... (we saw an actual Kiwi in the wild!) and darker... and darker...And then we started getting a little worried. Andrew and Brandon whipped out their head lamps and the rest of us resorted to using the flash lights that were on our phones (NZ phones are thankfully equipped with those). So now it's 6pm, it's dark, we think we're on the right track and it's getting cold fast. Our spirits are still pretty high as we're trying not to worry one another but each us are personally praying that the hut shows up soon. We also have to hike much slower since we can't see and much of the path is covered in roots and slippery, mossy rocks. 

Finally we think we see a light far ahead on the dark and hope that it is our hut. Unfortunately as soon as we see this light we come out to another rocky river shore and we can't see anything past a few feet in front of us. Our trail ends here with no orange triangles in sight and we have absolutely no idea where we are supposed to go. The hut seems so close (if the light we see is indeed from the hut) and we do not know if we are supposed to cross the extremely wide, rushing river to get there or if we missed some turn off the path, or if the trail continues further up or down stream. Basically, we are lost and confused and starting to get super cold. The guys leave me and Hayley next to the last trail marker and head out in different directions in an attempt to find a way out of this mess...

They are gone for close to half an hour and Hayley and I are reprimanding ourselves for being stupid enough not to bring any tents in our assumption that we would find the hut...

Finally the  boys come back, and thank god they are bringing good news. They were about to return saying that they had not found anything and that we would have to trudge back all the way to the car (which would probably take 7-8 hours in the dark) but somehow one of them shone their light on something shiny and it turned out to be an orange triangle. We were SO relieved. We headed onward to the track and then came to the sketchiest suspension bridge you could imagine. In the dark, gripping my phone flash light in between my teeth we all clambered on the bridge. As soon as the first person went we realized however that it was ridiculously shaky and so only one could go at a time, and it was a looooong bridge, so myself being at the end of the crew had to wait a good long while before I could get across. On my way across I paused for a moment and looked up. The sky was so insanely clear, and rushing water below my toes, the feeling of being so small in the middle of all these mountains... it was a great, eerie feeling but one that I will never forget. 

As soon as we stepped off the awful bridge the hut was in sight and we all fell into hugs and just extreme, utter joy that we weren't going to freeze that night. The hut, if you could call it that was one room with one set of bunk beds but we couldn't have cared less. We were inside, and alive, and warm!

 Attempting to make a fire...

Alive! And warm...

Always travel with a wine bag, or two...

There was quite a bit of sleeping bag jumping involved...

The next morning we reluctantly awoke pretty cold and realized that all of our hiking boots were absolutely frozen and still wet. We slowly packed up and head out of our humble abode into the frost covered environment outside...

The bridge was even sketchier when completely covered in frost. Nice and icy, perfect for slipping off of....

Since the night before we had been to elated to have found the hut to want to check out the hot springs we decided to find them that morning before we set out. They were not quite as big as the ones the weekend before but they were super warm, and really hard to say good bye to...

 Hanging out in the hot pools...

So warm....

On the way back the hike was great since we could actually see our surroundings and didn't have to worry about making it before dark. Our seven hour hike out turned into a four hour hike back... It was ridiculous. But now we learned our lesson about always leaving on time, and always bringing tents even when planning on staying in a hut, because you never know what the heck you are going to run into in the New Zealand bush...

 Made it back! 

The storm clouds visible as soon as we stepped out of the trees. So glad we got out in time before experiencing any of that...

Otehake Hot Springs - Tramp Number One

So two weekends ago marks the beginning of my tramping experiences in New Zealand. And it was hands down the best way to kick off the tramping season. I honestly think it must be illegal to have as much fun as we had on this trip. The tramping (back packing) club at the university plans trips basically every weekend and they are a super easy and cheap way to get rides to amazing places all around the country. The Otehake hot springs trip is an annual ordeal and so about thirty people signed up this year. 

We left on an early Saturday morning for about a two hour drive, that lead us into the windy roads and snow capped mountains of Arthur's Pass. Before we left we were warned that there would be several river crossing through out the hike for which all of us newbie trampers were a little worried about. And as soon as we saw how cold and snowy it was around the peaks of Arthur's Pass we started getting anxious and preparing to freeze the night away in the snow... 

But! To much relief and deep sighing once we finally reached the start of the track we realized the trail was going through the valleys of the Pass which were not snow capped at all.

The group before we set out!

 But this is where the river crossings began.... dun.. dun. dunnn... The first one was honestly the worst. You think that there is going to be some sort of way to keep your feet moderately dry... False. But once you come to terms with the fact that your shoes, socks, and your pants up past your knee are going to be soaked it's not that bad :) 

Having way too good of a time to even care if I'm getting soaked. 

Hayley and I braving one of the last river crossings, holding on to each in some sort of attempt to not slip on the wet rocks and fall into freezing water. 

The rest of the trail aside from the river crossings was also pretty exciting. In New Zealand all trails are marked with these sketchy little orange triangles that are not super obvious or easy to see. Some parts of the trail were sinusoidal curving up and down for much longer than would be desirable and for a lot of time we had to tramp across annoying rocky shores which were a haven for ankle twisting and tripping over ones' toes. 

An example of what most of the trail looked like...

After somewhere between four to five hours of hiking and wading in freezing water the trek finally came to an end and we were at our wonderful destination of the amazing Otehake Hot pools - so, so, so worth possibly risking getting frozen toes just to reach the sweet as hot pool. We set up camp on some raised ground right next to the springs and spent the rest of the night enjoying the warmth of the springs and admiring the clear New Zealand night sky.. 

About half the group chillin in the hot pools. 

Hayley struggling to put her feet into the water at first because our frozen toes were going into shock at how warm the water suddenly was. 

Life is soooo GOOOOOD. 

The next morning the biggest struggle after waking up was coming to terms with the fact that we now had to put back on our soaked wool socks and our soaked hiking boots and trudge back to our car, with no hot pools to greet us at the end.  :(

Zak and I sticking our soaked feet in the springs before we were forced to head out...

In conclusion, this trip was amazing, and made me fall in love with this country and people even more. Can't wait for my next tramp! :)