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Published: August 27th 2007
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The Copeland Track is a tramp (Kiwi for a hike) that heads directly inland from the west coast, crossing the Southern Alps via the Copeland Pass and passing into Mt Cook National Park. At this time of year it’s a full-on alpine trek, requiring ice axe and crampons to go the full 50kms or so across the Main Divide. We were just going for the relatively easily accessible Welcome Flat Hut, 17km’s in and with the incentive of free hot pools when we got there! Having been warned by the DOC (Dept. of Conservation) warden at Franz that some cars left at the track start had been broken into recently, we were paranoid about leaving the truck and all our possessions. We decided to drive 500m down the road and head off down a random gravel track that lead to the river, hoping that anyone looking for trouble would just check the normal car park and not notice us. We also shut all the curtains and made it look like we were still in the van, but despite all this we left fearing the worst having heard how bad this trashing of tramper’s and tourist’s cars had got in NZ.
The first challenge was the crossing of Rough Creek, not that deep but difficult to find a route that we could take without taking our boots off. Once over that all the other rivers had swing bridges, but as these were really only there for use when the rivers were in flood, they were positioned upstream, each requiring a detour from the main path that if avoided saved about an hour’s walking overall. As it turned out all the other crossings were passable, the rivers being quite low, due to the recent lack of rain and a lot of the water being trapped as ice! The ice however did make rock-hoping at the river crossings rather exciting and a few kilometers of the track right beside the main river was just as bad, causing Lexa much stress and frustration. We both survived this horrible section and after 3.5 hours walking we stopped for some lunch in a freezing hut the size of a garden shed, signing into the visitors book, as it is good practice to record your movements just in case things should go wrong later.
Carrying on, it took us another 3 hours to get to Welcome
Flat and the rather substantial hut that would be our home for the night. In the summer it would be booked out, but today there was only one other couple there and three mad fools that for some strange reason were bivvying a few hundred metres away under a nearby rock overhang!!?? I got the fire going, thinking that it would be nice to return to it after a dip in the Douglas Hot Springs. You probably know that NZ has a fair amount of geothermal activity and as well as the famous sites such as Rotorua, there are hundreds of naturally occurring hot springs, some of which like this have yet to be commercialized. The water emerged from the bushes at a scaldingly hot temperature flowing through a number of pools dug into the ground and slowly cooling. So, with a crystal clear sky we walked through the amazing hoare frost, tip-toed across the frozen ground between the pools and made ourselves comfortable in the talcum-powder-soft mud. There we relaxed after our long walk, watching the sunset over Mount Cook range at the head of the valley (3754m/12,388ft) and a raft of stars appearing in the sky.
Returning
to the hut the fire was still going, but not giving out much heat and no amount of encouragement seemed to make much difference. Anyway, after a hearty meal and the entertainment of the other couple trying to set fire to one of the benches with their stove, we moved two mattresses from upstairs to right in front of woodstove ready for the cold night ahead and got in our sleeping bags wearing most of our clothes. The fire only kept going for a couple of hours and after that the temperature really dropped. The high roof of the hut didn’t help and I reckon we would probably have been warmer in a tent, either way neither of us got a huge amount of sleep!
Having forgotten to get our swimmers in from the line outside, we found them the next morning frozen and looking like cardboard cut-outs. No problem, a 2 second dunk in the hot springs sorted them out and did a nice job of preheating them before we went for our morning dip! Although it was another glorious day, we were aware of a forecast of bad weather to come, so we started to head back
out, retracing our steps of the day before. Everything went well, we successfully traversed the icy sections, which had got a bit worse and were making good time and then about 2 hours from the car park we crossed paths with a guy walking in and the serious look on his face told us something was up. His first words were “Do you own a Mitsubishi such n such…cos it’s been broken into”. Well our hearts sank, although it wasn’t our car (it was the poor buggers who had just spent 3 nights sleeping outside under that rock) we spent the next 2 hours fretting that they had found our van too and we would return to find it trashed and half our kit gone.
We just couldn’t get it out of our minds for the rest of the walk and kept fearing the worst, so when after 6.5 hours walking we stumbled across the road bridge and down to where we left the van, Lexa made me go ahead to see if it was alright. Thankfully it was untouched and we felt a huge sense of relief and very glad that we had decided to hide ourselves away.
It was a rather stressful end to a fantastic walk, but once back in the van cooking dinner and having decided to stay the night we began to relax, helped by a beautiful sunset over the hills.
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stuart glencross
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Do you need a guide for the copeland pass
Do you need a guide to walk over the Hooker Glacier, when attempting the copeland pass?