2009 Expedition: Nelson Lakes

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November 18, 2009

Today was our first day of real hitchhiking where we intended to cover a decent amount of distance. After organizing our backpacks, we made our way to the main road to go south from Nelson. The first ride took ten minutes to get, but the second, third, and fourth were longer. It took us three and a half hours altogether to hitch about 100 miles, which wasn’t terrible since much of the roads were through not well-traveled areas. The final ride that took us into St. Arnaud was interesting, as it was a German couple in a tiny rental car that allowed us to pack into the already cramped backseat. With packs across our laps and scarcely enough room to breathe, we were just grateful to get to our destination.
In St. Arnaud, we checked out the Department of Conservation office to get a final weather report for the five-night trail we’ll begin tomorrow. The weather outlook as of now is fine, but we’ll prepare for anything. It was just very nice to hitchhike in sunshine today, since rain like we previously had would have made for no fun at all.
As a side note, since today was fairly uneventful, we’ve already started to run into people a second time after previously meeting them somewhere else in the country. When we were leaving the Heaphy Track yesterday, the shuttle that picked us up was dropping off Dan and Crystal, the two New Yorkers we had met around Mount Ruapehu on the north island. They were just starting the Heaphy Track. Also, with Cole and Matias, the CU Boulder student and the Italian guy we met at Perry Saddle Hut, it turned out they had been on the Southern Crossing in the Tararuas just one day ahead of us. We remembered seeing their names in the hut books and then got to meet them on another track a couple hundred miles away a week later. Weird.

November 19, 2009

I was reminded today of why Nelson Lakes National Park is one of my favorite places in New Zealand. It’s just a beautiful park with a great diversity of landscapes. My memories of it from last time also include six of seven days of sunshine, so that probably helps as well.
Today we got a ride up the hill to the start of the track from the German couple that had brought us to St. Arnaud last night. They stayed at the same hostel with us, and they said it was no problem to give us a lift this morning. So we all piled into the tiny rental car once more in clown-car fashion and headed off.
The hiking today was a stark contrast to what we’d done previously on the Heaphy Track. Where the Heaphy was graveled and cleared of tree-roots for much of it, the tracks in this park are much more rugged or “natural” as some might say. We spent about six hours today, picking our way through beautiful, mature forest, the first two hours climbing upwards, then the last four hours going down about 2000 feet to end at Sabine Hut, situated at the head of Lake Rotorua. There were a few good views along the way, but most of the walking time was spent watching my feet as I dodged large rocks and stepped carefully over the maze of beech tree roots.
At the hut, I was contemplating going for a swim in the lake, but the three-foot long eel I saw swimming just off the jetty changed my mind. Apparently they’re known in this area to bite swimmers occasionally. So I instead contented myself with watching the sunset from the end of the jetty… out of the reach of eels.

November 20, 2009

Our hiking today took us from the mouth of the Sabine River at Lake Rotorua, all the way to the headwaters at Blue Lake. It was a long and hard day of walking, but following the river all the way made it a very pleasant walk. We passed two fishermen and their guide along the trail within the first hour and then saw no one else for the remainder of the day.
The Sabine Valley is very steep on either side, which made for several impressive waterfalls along the path. As we climbed higher towards the head of the valley, we began to pass avalanche chutes, some quite wide. The final two chutes still had snow all the way down to the river, which looked pretty fresh, so we had to cross these with care. Conventional wisdom says you should climb up higher to cross the snow where it is more solid, since the snow always has melt-water running beneath it. But we were tired and couldn’t be bothered with additional uphill walking, so we just crossed near the bottom and hoped we wouldn’t fall through a weak spot. We were fortunate and had no problems with this strategy, and the only trouble came on the steep slope just past the snow where a rock gave way from under my boot and sent me sliding down the hillside towards the angry looking river. Again, I was fortunate and my hand found some plant roots to grab hold of to stop me from sliding any further towards the drop-off. After collecting myself, we continued on to the Blue Lake Hut.
The very cold water of Blue Lake provided an invigorating clean up and refresher. We’ll be spending two nights here since we want to explore a little further up the valley during the day tomorrow.

November 21, 2009

I woke up late today and had a leisurely morning in the hut. We had no necessary hiking to do today, so there was no rush. The idea of doing absolutely nothing instead was very appealing, but we decided around noontime to actually get out and do some hiking.
We climbed up the moraine behind Blue Lake and walked through the boulder field to reach the bluffs that overlook the larger Lake Constance. This lake is one of my favorite places in New Zealand, so I was really glad to be able to visit it once more. We planned to walk along the bluffs on the side of the lake to get to the head, but after standing for a while and overlooking the lake, we changed our minds. A combination of sore muscles from yesterday, the howling wind, and the threatening rain clouds all played into the decision. We’d seen the lake; that would be enough walking for today.
Back at the hut, I passed the afternoon reading and conversing with three new hut residents, Geoff, Lynne, and Jilleane that showed up late in the afternoon. The clouds fulfilled their earlier promise and dumped for the rest of the evening.

November 22, 2009

When I opened my eyes around 5:30 this morning I could see that the rain and clouds had left the area, so I decided that this would be a good morning to go watch the sunrise. It was a great decision, since the morning colors around Blue Lake were amazing.
We left the hut earlier than usual as well, and began the descent down the Sabine Valley. The rocks and tree roots were still wet from last night. This would cause the major problem of the day for me. About ten minutes down the trail, a rock I was stepping off of turned out to be more slippery than I had thought. My feet went out from under me as I fell awkwardly down the slope. As my ribs hit a large boulder with the entire weight of my body and pack behind it, I heard a sickening snapping sound- not a sound I wanted to hear, especially being a two-day walk from civilization.
After an initial assessment, I determined (or hoped) that the snapping sound had been one of my walking poles, which was laying in two pieces beside me, and not any of my ribs. This explanation seemed to fit since I didn’t think the pain was intense enough to be from anything being broken. So Eric and I kept going, agreeing to just monitor the situation throughout the day.
Soon we came to the two avalanche chutes that we had crossed on the way up the valley two days earlier, which were frozen on top now because of the chilly early-morning temperatures. We opted to walk between the snow and the river, under the ice overhang that is created by the melting. It took very little time to scramble over the boulders and chunks of ice, but halfway through the first chute I got a very uneasy feeling that this was a dangerous spot. Visions of tons of ice collapsing on us made me hurry all the more. The second snow chute was much smaller, so we felt slightly better about crossing it this way, but still did not linger while doing so.
From there on, the path became easier. It took us longer to cover this section going downhill than it had taken to go uphill, but this was due to the slower pace after my fall this morning. By the time we arrived at Sabine Hut in the late afternoon I felt tired, but reasonably sure I had escaped the day without any major injuries

November 23, 2009

When looking at the track for today, which started a few feet from the hut, I couldn’t help but feel a little hopeless… or extremely hopeless. The track began as a nearly vertical climb away from the lake and through the forest towards the summit of Mount Cedric. To give a proper understanding of how vertical I mean, the initial elevation change was 3000 feet over a horizontal distance of about 9000 feet. That’s a 30-degree average slope. It was this way all the way up to the summit, but beyond that it was two more hours crossing along an exposed ridgeline gaining an additional 1000 feet. The views were amazing once we pushed through the tree line into the alpine tussock, and we were lucky enough to have a rain-free day to do this section. The clouds did hang in the sky, and eventually would come down to surround us, but not until well after we reached the Angelus Hut.
Once we had come to the highest point of the day, we crossed to the other side of the ridge and began sidling down it towards the alpine Lake Angelus. Since we were now on the east side of the ridge and fairly high up elevation-wise, there were a good number of snowfields we had to cross- some at very steep angles, dropping a long way down. We crossed these by kicking foot holes into the soft snow of midday, and I mainly tried to not look down during this process. But soon we came off the snowfields and crossed a few boulder fields before arriving at Lake Angelus, which sits in a massive alpine basin. High rock faces circle the lake and Angelus Hut sits very near the shore. It is an incredible setting, the best I’ve seen in Nelson Lakes National Park and probably the nicest during the trip so far.
We are sharing the hut with Geoff and Lynne, who have been with us during the previous two nights, as well as four other people. Not bad for a very popular hut, which during high season is typically at or beyond its capacity of 36 people. And, as an extra special point for this hut, we have the honor of being some of the very last people to ever stay here since this 40-year old hut will be torn down next week for a new one that will be built by next year. I’m glad we got to see it before then.

November 24, 2009

A combination of the fire making it too hot in the hut and a mouse I could hear running around made it difficult to sleep last night. So I was glad when morning came and I could be more productive since I was awake anyway.
We left Angelus Hut around 9am with Geoff and Lynne. The walking was relatively easy as we gained very little elevation and mostly stayed up on the ridgeline. We crossed over rock outcroppings and patches of snow, being harassed by the wind the entire way. Eventually, we came to the end of the ridge where we descended to the car park and the end of the track. Jilleane, the third member of Geoff and Lynne’s tramping group who had gone out a different way earlier in the morning, was there to meet us with the car. We all crammed in and rode back down the mountain to St. Arnaud. There, we got a large motel unit for the five of us where we’ll spend tonight before heading our separate ways. Geoff and Jilleane are heading back to their homes to return to work, and Lynne is coming with Eric and me to Arthur’s Pass for a few more days of hiking since she is still on holiday. (Technically we are going with her since she is the one with the car.)
We passed the afternoon in St. Arnaud by doing some much-needed laundry before going out for dinner at the only restaurant in town. Then, after playing a bit of cards I retired to bed, happy for the temporary reprieve from “roughing it” on the trail.

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