2009 Expedition: Arthurs Pass National Park

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November 25, 2009

We said goodbye to Geoff and Jilleane before we set out for Arthur’s Pass with Lynne. We’re fortunate she decided to come tramping with us over the next week for several reasons. First, her driving means that we’ll get exactly where we want to get today without the uncertainty of hitchhiking. And secondly, because she is very pleasant company.
We drove all morning and part of the afternoon to get from St. Arnaud to Arthur’s Pass, stopping only to do grocery shopping for the next week. When we arrived in Arthur’s Pass, we figured out where to leave the car and took a shuttle the five miles to get to the trailhead at the Waimakariri River.
It was late when we started hiking at 4:45pm, but we only had a four-hour section to do to get to Carrington Hut. The shuttle driver asked us a few questions about our plans, but I admitted to him that we only had a vague idea of what we were going to do since we’d just got off another trail yesterday and hadn’t had much time to plan. He made an off-handed comment about the fact that people starting this late in the day usually knew what they were doing. I wasn’t offended, though, since we don’t seem to know completely what we’re doing a lot of the time anyway, but things always seem to work out for the best.
So there we were, four hours from the hut, from dinner, and from shelter from the rain, which was beginning to fall. Now, when I said that the trailhead started at the river, what I mean is that the trail essentially was the river. The Waimakariri is a very wide and rocky braided river that separates into many channels that spread out and come together in a maze of irregular increments. This would be our terrain over the next four hours.
Within the first five minutes in became obvious that not only were our feet going to get wet, but we were going to be doing some deep river crossings through some relatively swift moving water. So I embraced the wetness, and plowed right into the cold water, as any good New Zealand tramper would do. This was quite a change for me, since I typically like to keep my boots dry when possible. But the thing about going through water all day is that your feet actually end up being quite comfortable when they’re THAT soaked. Your feet warm the standing water inside your boot and they only get cold when you go back into the water and fresh cold water enters. And blisters become no problem at all when there’s that much water. Blisters only seem to form when there is a slight amount of moisture inside your boot… strange. It actually felt pretty liberating to just walk through the river, not stopping to think about wet feet. I began to enjoy the crossings.
We traveled like this, walking on the rocky sand bars when possible, but crossing the river channels frequently, upwards of 30 times, sometimes with the moving water coming almost waist-high. Eventually, we turned away from the river to a bit of forest track that led to Carrington Hut. There we cooked our late dinner and didn’t even really bother with trying to dry out our boots since tomorrow will almost certainly have water crossings as well.

November 26, 2009

Using Carrington Hut as our base because it sits at the confluence of three valleys, we were going to spend today hiking up to the Barker Hut. Barker Hut sits at the end of the western valley from where the White River flows. It wasn’t very far on the map, so I assumed it would be a short day walk, but it turned out to last quite a bit longer.
Within 20 minutes of walking, the three of us came to a point where the track crossed the river. Since it was a fairly fast moving waterway even at low levels, there was a cable car, which can get people across safely. The cable car was actually more of a metal bucket big enough for only one person, and the means of powering the device was a hand-crank at either side to move the cables. So we each crossed the river this way, riding 30 feet above it on a rickety old wire cable car while someone on the end spent a fair amount of energy cranking away.
After that, we meandered our way up the valley, following the edge of the river most of the way. Near the end, we climbed up and away from the river as it gorged steeply around this section. After another swift water crossing, a climb up a rock face and some slippery speargrass, and crossing a few large patches of snow, we arrived at Barker Hut with its beautiful view down the valley we had just come up. We had lunch there, enjoying the sights of the nearby glaciers, and then headed back down since it was already well into the afternoon.
The climb back down took us slightly less time, but was still slow with all the rock hopping and water crossings. We decided to cross the main river on foot instead of using the cable car on the way back and saved ourselves a little time this way. Back at the hut, I remembered that I should have put sunscreen on this morning, but overall today was a fantastic walk despite the sunburn, one of my favorites for scenery so far this trip.

November 27, 2009

Today, we planned to explore up the second valley from the Carrington Hut. We intended to climb up a narrow gorge up to Harman Pass and then go as far as we could up to Whitehorn Pass, one of the higher alpine passes in Arthur’s Pass National Park. As we soon discovered, our plans would end up being stifled.
We again took the cable car across the White River, but took much less time to complete this compared to yesterday, since we had a much better idea of what we were doing. Beyond that, we climbed up the gorge, crossing the river several times, mostly when we came to an impassible rock face on the side of the river we were on. As we climbed higher, we encountered more and more avalanche slides that we had to cross. The gorge was very steep and narrow, so the slides appeared to sometimes stretch a thousand feet up into the peaks on either side. But we continued to push on over them, hoping the gorge would widen higher up and become easier to travel through.
Eventually, we came to a snow chute that was simply too steep to even consider crossing. I felt that it was a shame to have come this far up and be so close to the first pass only to turn around, but the thought of slipping and falling onto the rocks in the icy river below was not one that appealed to any one of us. So we turned back.
Turning back when we did ended up being a good thing since the rain that had been light until then intensified, making everything even more slippery. We crossed the river to get back to the hut by foot, though we probably should have taken the cable car. The rain was already making the water level rise, but we all made it across and spent the rest of the day dry inside the hut. I’m hoping the weather clears up so that we can explore the third valley tomorrow. This area is so dependant on weather since the tracks up the valleys essentially are through the riverbeds.

November 28, 2009

Today ended up being a long day, mainly because we changed our plans and didn’t want to spend a night in civilization quite yet. The weather report we had gotten from DoC indicated that the next few days were going to bring us some bad weather, so we packed up our stuff and planned to get back to the car and then drive to Kaikoura on the east coast where the weather might be better. On our way out of the valley, though, we met a party of people who informed us that the weather would in fact be very nice for the next few days, so we changed our plans once more. We planned to get back to the highway, walk a little ways up the road, and do a two-night track down some other valleys in the Arthur’s Pass area.
Following the braided Waimakariri River out of the valley that we had followed in three days earlier, we had to cross the same points. The difference now was that with the rain from the previous night, the water levels were higher and it was moving faster. The three of us linked together for stability when we crossed the main vein, and this is where disaster struck for me. As we crossed the deepest part, the way I was standing caused the rushing water to stream high up onto me, all the way to the level that I had my camera bag attached to my backpack. Having no choice but to hold my link in the human chain and continue through the river, I could only watch in despair, as my camera got soaked. On the other side of the water I quickly took it out of the bag to inspect it. The water dripped out for some time, and I removed the batteries and memory card to attempt to preserve them, but I decided to dry it out completely before attempting to turn it on again. I should have ziplock bagged it. It was my own fault.
Back at the highway, we hitched a ride to the next track and began walking. To my disdain, the sign said five hours to the hut, but we only reached this sign after an hour of crossing two more rivers. It was already 4pm by this point, but not wanting to recross the rivers and hitch a ride back into town for tonight, we decided to go ahead since it was bright and sunny.
This new track took us up a valley along a river and then climbed high up the steep sides through moderately dense forest. We managed to make great time, despite being tired from the long day, and got to the Edwards Hut just before 7pm- in only three hours instead of five. Here we enjoyed a good meal and are looking forward to a more “normal” day of hiking tomorrow. Hopefully the camera will be dry and will work.

November 29, 2009

What a terrible day to be without a camera. It was a nearly cloud-free day with spectacular alpine scenery, but unfortunately, I will personally have no photos of it. I’ll have to rely on the photos Lynne will take. It was interesting, though, to spend an entire day free to enjoy the sights without ever being distracted with camera settings.
The day began with following the Edwards River upstream towards the first saddle of the day. It was fairly easy walking as we were already above the tree line; we only had to deal with the knee-high tussock and the river itself. Within two hours we reached the Taruahuna Saddle, which was basically a huge pile of sharp rocks ranging in size from pebbles to car-sized that spanned the width of the valley. This saddle was created in 1929 when an earthquake caused the entire side of a nearby mountain to fall off all at once, which was why the rocks were still so sharp and exposed. Despite happening 80 years ago, the event is still very recent in geological terms.
After crossing this, we turned immediately to the east to cross another saddle leading towards a different valley. This one was a huge contrast to the first saddle since we had to climb up a nearly vertical slope of loose rocks and scrub grass for 400 feet to get to the top. In many places, it was only by grabbing clumps of sturdy grass that I managed to keep from falling down the huge drop we were climbing up. Occasionally a rock would slip that was near our feet and I would find it very unnerving to watch it bounce all the way down to the valley floor. I did not want to take the quick journey down like those rocks, so extra care was taken with each step and every handhold.
From the top of the saddle, we then climbed down the next valley, following a creek through a steep gorge. This mode of travel is what I call “River-bashing,” since we pretty much just climbed through the river, over boulders, and spent about as much time in the actual water as scrambling alongside it. Just when we came to a place where the gorge widened out and I figured we were done with the rocks and scrub which had been cutting my legs to bits, I said out loud, “Thank God that’s over.” But then I realized that our route turned yet again up a different gorge and creek where the only difference would be that we were now going upstream instead of down. So we pushed on, climbing up this valley, with our path alternating between dense scrub brush and being in the water. The saddle we reached at the end of this valley was a lot lower, so it was a good one to end on. From that point (our third saddle of the day), we descended the last valley down the Hawdon River, which was really only a creek about eight-feet wide this high up. Our path down crossed the river 15 times over the course of 15 minutes (I counted) so my feet were soaked the entire day. Actually, Arthur’s Pass National Park has almost no bridges over any streams or rivers, so wet boots are quite normal.
All in all, it was a great day of hiking. And though the legs are fairly beat up from all the river travel, the scenery was absolutely amazing the entire way.

November 30, 2009

The path out from Hawdon hut to the road-end was flat and rather uneventful. Once we got to the highway, Eric and I waited for Lynne to hitch a ride back to her car and then come back to get us. Then, we all drove to Christchurch where she dropped us off at our friends Jim and Helen’s house. Here, we plan to spend a couple days resting and planning out the next few weeks of tracks.
On a very positive note, the camera seemed dry enough to attempt to power it on, and to my amazement, it seems to work! I’m very happy about that.

December 1 & 2, 2009

We spent December first and second at Jim and Helen’s house in Christchurch. They’re friends we met tramping over Christmas during our last trip to New Zealand two years ago. Being able to stay with them made it sort of feel like I was at home. Being on the road so much and in a new place everyday can wear on a person, so I appreciated the hospitality from these friends very much.
We spent the two days updating the website, checking email, drying and cleaning our gear, and just enjoying a home setting for a bit. And in a very fortunate happening, I was able to get Eric and myself two spots on the Milford Track in just two days from now. This is the most famous Great Walk in the country and it is next to impossible to get on without booking many months in advance. So our plans have changed and we will be undertaking the ambitious task of hitchhiking approximately nine to ten hours worth of driving over the next two days to get to the track.

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