Just felt my first earthquake! Small but undeniable…what a strange feeling. The whole house just shook a bit.

The clouds had obstructed the summit as I looked back across Lake Manapouri from the water taxi.

“Did you have a nice tramp, then?” asked Mike, who was steering the puttering motorboat.

“Yeah, I just climbed Mt Titiroa,” I said, trying to sound humble and non-chalant, but secretly hoping for a response of surprise or congratulations.

“Ah, I see”, said Mike.  As the only mode of transportation from the mainland to the start of the Manapouri tracks, he was obviously used to taxiing the handful of people who climb the mountain every week.  But for me, it was a big deal.

Since arriving in Te Anau at the beginning of December, I have been enticed by one mountain that stands out from the sea of peaks that surround the horizon.  For the most part, all of these mountains share the same characteristic bush-clad foothills and tussock-covered alpine sections, with some gnarly black rock extrusions at their apexes.  Except for one.

Mount Titiroa is capped with barren white rock that glistens in the sun.  It often is mistaken for being snow-capped long after the summer sun has melted the last of the previous winter’s snow from the areas peaks.  It is this unique appearance that first attracted me to Mount Titiroa.

So in my free time, I’ve been doing a bit of research about the mountain.  It lays within the south-eastern edge of Fiordland National Park, rising almost directly from Lake Manapouri, another beautiful glacial lake just 20km from Te Anau.  A few weeks ago, I went on a day hike around Manapouri up to a lookout 300m above the lake, and stared directly at Titiroa’s bald peak from across a valley.  At that moment I decided that while I’m in the area, I need to climb this mountain.

From the Lake Manapouri Circle Track overlook.  Mount Titiroa is the peak in the foreground, center left.

After talking to a few people, I discovered that it isn’t the easiest mountain to climb.  Sure, it doesn’t require ropes or climbing equipment, and you don’t need crampons or an ice axe, but it does have one setback: there is no trail to the summit.  There is a track that leads to the Garnock Burn, a river running through a hanging valley at the foot of the mountain, but to reach the peak, you have to bushwhack.

So I picked up a topo map and a guide book and began to choose my route to the top.  Once I saw that my schedule allowed for two and a half days off last week, I decided it was time to climb it.  I packed up my backpack and set off for Manapouri on the morning of Wedesday 20 January. The weather forecast wasn’t perfect (rain), but it looked as though by mid-afternoon Thursday it would clear up.  As I drove, the sky was overcast, but I was in a good mood.  It had been a few weeks since I’d been out in the woods, and I was excited to see more of this area’s scenery.

At 10:00AM, I thanked Mike for the lift across the lake, arranged for him to pick me up in two days, and took off down the track.  It was a pleasant stroll through the verdant bush, and although it was overcast, the sporadic views across the lake were rewarding.


Looking across Lake Manapouri from the start of the trek.

After an hour or so, the track began to show signs that it wasn’t as highly used as the Great Walk tracks I had trekked last month.  It was muddy.  Very muddy.  I spent some time trying to avoid the pockets of mud, hoping to keep my socks dry, but soon I encountered an unavoidable problem.  The track was completely submerged…knee deep water for as far as I could see…I was walking into the lake.  I doubled back to make sure I was on the right track.  Sure enough, I could see the orange blazes on the submerged trees ahead. I had no choice.  It was time to lose my dry feet virginity.

I took a deep breath and splashed along the track, laughing out loud as I felt the cool water slosh into my boots.  This is real NZ tramping now!  It felt great.


The “Track”

After a few hours, I reached the lakeside Hope Arm Hut, stopped for a bite to eat and set out on the final marked ascent to the Garnock Burn.  I spent three hours climbing from the lake along an even lesser-used and muddier trail, but now that my feet were wet, stomping through the mud became enjoyable.  I chuckled every time I got slurped into a mudhole, and at one point, I slipped in past my knees, clumsily emerging like Swamp Thing with thick black goo covering my entire legs.  It was awesome.

Around 3:30, I arrived at Garnock Burn and said goodbye to the track.  This wide, tussocky river valley was similar to many others that I’ve been to in Fiordland, but as I made my way along the riverbank, staring up at the steep bushy face I would have to navigate, I realized that is was different in one way: I was the only one here.  I spun 360s and pondered the fact that, in all likelihood, I was the only person in the entire valley, as well as the surrounding peaks.  The solitude engulfed me.


The Garnock Burn Valley

But I soon snapped out of it, realizing that I still had quite some distance to cover, and that I haven’t even gotten to the hard part yet.  I whipped out my topo map and discovered that I would have to ford the Garnock Burn.  It wasn’t too difficult, being only knee high at its deepest and not too swift, but it was a reminder that I was crossing the threshold into the untracked territory…had this been a Great Walk, there would have been a bridge.


Fording the Garnock Burn

Once across, I stumbled through swamplands for awhile trying to find the small creek that I would follow through the steep bushy section of the lower North face of Titiroa.  Eventually, I found the stream, and quickly spotted a series of rough deer trails that criscrossed through the woods.  “This won’t be so bad,” I thought to myself, and I began to bushwhack up the hill.  But soon it got steeper.  And steeper.

Before long, I was struggling to find the deer tracks, and instead was crawling on all fours up the mossy hillside, the creek cascading into waterfalls the further up I went.  The bush wasn’t thick, but it was difficult to traverse.  I had a 40lb bag on my back, and at times was pulling myself up by holding on to tree trunks.  I’m serious…it was steep.

This didn’t bother me at all, in fact, I loved it.  I was exhausted, but it was a great feeling.  I felt as though I was the first to climb this hill, even though I was constantly flipping open my guidebook to see what the recommended route was.  The description was short and non-chalant. “The route climbs directly up the face through open bush to a rocky outcrop on the skyline, Pt 915 meters.  The small bluffs encountered can be easily skirted”.  I read this over and over.  Easily skirted?  Nothing about this ascent was easy, in my opinion…I’ve either misjudged my tramping ability, or I’m lost.

After three hours of steady climbing, my legs were shaking.  I was truly exhausted, it was beginning to get late, and it looked like it could rain any moment.  My spirit began to dwindle a bit.  As I climbed higher, the bush got thicker.  At times, I was thrusting myself through thick groves of small beech trees and manuka scrub, and I could feel myself starting to get frustrated.  Luckily, around 7:00PM, I broke free of the bush and out onto spongy spider-fern and tussock grass.  I was finally above the bush.


Exhausted after a full day of tramping.  Where can I set up camp?

I continued climbing, eager to find a flat place to settle down.  But the hill just kept going up.  My guidebook named a few good places to camp, and I found them on my topo map, but travel was much slower than I expected.  After another two hours of walking, I had managed to reach some of the gravelly tops I was expecting to see.  It was otherworldly.  Huge, strangely eroded boulders littered the steep hills, appearing like stone sculptures.  The ground beneath me was no longer tufts of grass, but a light white gravel, at times as fine as sand. In fact, in some places the steepness of the hill and the sand underfoot made it feel like I was traveling along a beach, which I’m sure any beachgoer can attest to being slow travel…and this beach was slanted at a 45° angle.


The steep “beach” of Mount Titiroa

I spent some time admiring the unique landscape, but I was running out of energy.  I soon found a flat tussocky cirque to set up camp.  Relieved, I pitched my tent, cooked a quick supper and collapsed in my sleeping bag, depleted after nearly ten hours of the most difficult hiking I’ve ever done.  

In the morning, I awoke and realized how beautiful that campsite was the I had chosen.  As I sat in the vestibule of my tent, I overlooked the entirety of the southern part of Lake Manapouri, as well as the sourrounding countryside, Lake Te Anau and the town of Te Anau.  I made coffee and ate breakfast and scanned the rapidly moving clouds for signs of rain.  It wasn’t the blue sky, panorama-view-type-of-day I was hoping for, but it seemed like it wouldn’t rain anytime soon, so I decided to make a go for the summit. 


My campsite on Mount Titiroa

Although my legs had the flexibility of frozen meat, I grabbed a few supplies and headed up towards the top of Mount Titiroa.  The clouds were moving in fast motion, and I felt as though I were watching time-lapse photography.  One second, it was intensely sunny and hot, and I would squint as I peered across the white gravel. The next moment, cool and misty, visibility limited to inches. 


Looking back towards my campsite from the approach to the summit.  Notice the blue speck to the right of the pile of rocks center foreground…that’s me tent!

I made my way upward, spirits high, and I soaked in the unique rock formations around me.  This mountain was truly unlike any other I’ve climbed here, and as I looked uphill towards the summit, shrouded in a mist of cloud, I pretended I was storming a medieval castle, about to battle a dragon.  Along the way, I let my imagination run wild, naming any vaguely reminiscent rock formation.


Whale or mitten?

Is that an elephant?  Or a tank?

Numerous times, I was fooled by false summits, thinking I’d reached the highest point, only to see another higher outcrop of boulders emerge from the clouds ahead.  Eventually, I ascended one of these summits and saw no higher point all around me.  Instead, I found a crooked, rusty metal marker.  The summit.  That boyish grin returned to my face.  I had conquered Mount Titiroa, and I did it all by myself.


Me at the summit

But then, I saw another pile of rocks, obviously higher than this “summit”.  Damn, gonna have to climb that too!  As I finished the last boulder scramble and stood up on the rock, the clouds had moved in, so my view was limited, but I didn’t care.  I laughed out loud and may have lifted my arms in exaltation.


Me at the true summit - the highest point of Mount Titiroa - 1715m.  Had to hurry up these rocks because the self-timer on my camera only goes up to 30 seconds!

I couldn’t spend too long on top.  It was already early afternoon, and I still had to make my way back to camp, pack up, and descend the steep bushy section to the Garnock Burn, where I would set up camp for the night.  So I did just that, saying goodbye to the gravelly tops and the nice campsite that I had.  It felt great to cross this peak off my list.

As I descended through the bush, I did have one small misadventure.  At one point, I discovered one of the “small bluffs” I was meant to skirt, but from above, and after trying to descend the mossy rocks found myself stuck 20 feet up from the ground unable to go any further.  I hung in limbo for a few minutes, all of my weight balanced between one foothold and a solid grasp on a tree trunk, and decided that if I could just slip my pack off and let it fall, I could descend the rest of the bluff unencumbered and retrieve it.

This was one of those mistakes that you can only learn from by trying.  I unhooked myself from my pack and attempted to ease it to the bottom of the bluff, but the height had skewed my point of view and it hit the ground with a loud thump.  I winced, but before I could make my way down to see if everything was okay, I realized a second fact that my point of view had distorted: the base of the bluff was still quite steep.  My pack began to tumble down the hill, gaining speed as it fell.  I watched it for a few seconds as it flipped down the mountainside, and then in an instant it fell out of view.  For another few moments I could hear it crashing through the bush out of site, but eventually that faded away to silence as well.

I hung to the bluffside in shock.  “Aw, shucks,” I thought to myself (only with a few more explitives) - did I just make a huge mistake?  I quickly scaled the rest of the cliff and started making my way down along the path of my tumbling pack.  When I got to the point I had lost contact with it I scanned the hillside, looking across boulders and fallen trees, until I finally saw it, embraced precipitously above a waterfall by some small beech saplings.  I sighed in relief, and went down to pick it up.  Other than an impressive dent in my steel water bottle, there was no damage.

I made it to the valley floor and set up camp amongst the tussock grass, which glowed a golden tint in the late afternoon sun.  After a nice dinner of rehydrated Morroccan Lamb, I settled down in my tent with a book and listened to the rain-like pitter patter of sandflies kamakazeing my tent fly.


Garnock Burn Campsite

Trekking Dinner

This is all the sandflies that were able to make it under my tent fly…I’m quite happy they weren’t small enough to fit through the mesh of that screen

The next day, I had an easy five hour trek out to the lake where I met up with Mike, and I made it home in time to take shower before going into work at the pizzeria.  Pretty nice little trek…

To view the rest of my photos, visit My Flickr Page.

Weather looked good & I had the day off so I figured I’d try to climb Mt Luxmore again. Forecast was wrong, I was still in the clouds :(

Nothing too exciting has happened since the last time I wrote a post, but in an effort to keep writing fresh content, I decided it was time to give y’all an update on what I’ve been up to these past few weeks.

There was Christmas, of course, and I assume that if you’re reading this you’ve also seen my cheesy, hastily-edited video, but if not, you can check it out below.  I had the day off on Christmas, and I spent the day video chatting with my family who, because I’m 18 hours ahead,  were having the annual Christmas Eve/Christine’s birthday dinner of macaroni and cheese and German chocolate cake.  It was a strange feeling to be sitting there virtually at the table, while they fed me cyber-cake (not as tasty as real cake), but it was nice to spend some time seeing and talking to the family. 

I spent the second half of the day baking bread and speaking broken English with an Italian guy who lives near me at the hostel.  Bruno is a middle-aged chef at the Dolce Vida, a local restaurant, and he likes to smoke cigarettes.  Because he doesn’t speak much English, our conversation was short and consisted of a lot of misunderstandings.  For instance, it took three repetitions for me to realize that “the waiter is shit” means that it is raining outside, not that his coworkers are incompetent. But he shared some wine with me and I didn’t have to work, so it was a pleasant little Christmas day, really.

I also had New Years day off, although I had to work until 10pm on New Years Eve.  Immediately after work, I decided to meet some friends from my wine-bottling days who were in the slightly larger, and more party-friendly, Queenstown…a two hour drive away.  I sped around the windy turns through the mountains, hoping to spend the first few minutes of 2010 among friends, and not in my car en route to the party.  On the way, I came within inches of hitting a sheep in the middle of the road.  And not a little lamb either…there was a full-grown sheep just wandering across the main highway, and I was lucky that my brights caught his reflective eyes early enough for me to hit the brakes and swerve around him.  After this incident, I slowed down a bit, and after my heart stopped racing, I laughed out loud, realizing that hitting a sheep in the wee hours of 2009 would have been an very unfortunate, but very New Zealand thing to do.

I ended up pulling into Queenstown at 11:55pm, miraculously finding a parking spot in under a minute, and sprinting from my car down towards the lakefront, where the entire town had gathered to bring in the New Year.  As I rounded the corner of the last block before the lake, I could hear a crowd of people counting down “three…two…one…Happy New Year!!!”.

But I was still half a block away…I missed it…by about ten seconds.  I got to the lakefront, completely out of breath, in time to see the first of the fireworks, and stayed down for the fifteen minute show, but I will always remember that I welcomed the new decade in a full sprint, by myself, in New Zealand.  Memorable in its own way, I guess. 

Anyhow, after the fireworks, I met up with my friends and went out to a crowded, modern bar.  While we were waiting outside, someone mentioned that I looked like Moses and soon half a dozen Kiwis around me were cracking biblical jokes.  I should have been offended perhaps, but I’m proud of my beard so I went along with it.  Queenstown is a much better choice for a New Years party than tiny little Te Anau, and I was happy to have made the trip.

The next day was slow and lazy, and a few of us went for a Polar Bear dip in Lake Wakatipu (it is supposed to be summer here, but it was cold and windy…and the lake temperature was frigid).  Later in the evening I drove cautiously back to Te Anau.

Since then, I’ve been making pizzas five days a week, and I must admit that I’m getting pretty good.  My pizzas are each a work of art, and I shed a small tear every time I have to take one from the oven and hand it over to someone else to be eaten…  But more importantly, I kind of like the job.  It is fast paced, so time goes by quickly, and it is surprisingly interesting to me.  I think that gaining some experience in the foodservice industry will be helpful for me getting future seasonal working/holiday jobs while I’m in NZ…and the 75% discount on all food is not too bad either.

My car is currently out of commission because it didn’t pass inspection, so I’m spending my free time doing some minor repairs to it to make it street legal again, but because I have no ride, I haven’t been able to do any big hikes on my days off.  Also, the weather has been crazy here, twice now the surrounding mountains have gotten unseasonably late snowfalls.  Although it makes my daily walk to work ten times more scenic, it has forced many of the tracks in the area to close due to avalanche danger, which is uncommon this late in the year.  I hope to get out and do some good day hikes in the next few weeks when I have a car and the weather improves. The numerous outdoor opportunities around me is, after all, the reason I’m staying in this area…about time I added another trek to my list.

Also, because I live directly across the street from the Fiordland National Park Visitor Center, I’ve begun to take advantage of their summer lecture series.  So far I’ve only been able to attend one lecture, “Above the Bushline - Alpine Vegetation in Fiordland”, which despite its enthralling title was quite boring, even for a science nerd like myself…but I’m looking forward to future talks on Electric Fishing, SCUBA Diving in Fiordland, and one on the new “self-resetting predator trap” that hopes to cut down on the number of introduced threats to NZ native birds.  If any are worth posting about„ I’ll be sure to write up a recap.

Other than that…nothing much is new.  Tomorrow I will meet with a landlord about possibly moving into a flat for the next two or three months…I’ll keep you posted.  And I’ve been busy watching The Wire, an HBO series about Baltimore crime that is as addicting as its crack cocaine subject matter.  If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out.

All for now folks, hope you’re enjoying 2010.

Happy New year from NZ! http://yfrog.com/3gwdbxj

Merry Christmas from the future!

It’s now the 25th of December here in New Zealand, and although I am having the time of my life, I sure do miss my family and friends this holiday season.

I wish you all a very merry Christmas…please enjoy my cheesy, hastily edited video…

Despite all of my efforts of avoiding it…despite running off to climb mountains and sail on ships…despite three months of almost continuous recreation, I’ve finally come to the inevitable conclusion that I need a job.

Luckily, almost immediately after completing the Routeburn/Greenstone Tracks, I was able to land a job in the tiny town of Te Anau, “Gateway to Fiorldland”, where I’ll be working in a café/pizzeria until March.  It isn’t the best job, really, I am only able to get about 30-35 hours per week, and it is minimum wage.  But I have plenty of free time, and I am a short drive from some of the most astounding scenery in the world, so I’ll try not to complain.

While in town, I am thinking about joining the NZ Alpine Club to try to get some experience with crampons and an ice axe.  I’m also considering volunteering some time to help with Takahe conservation.  The takahe is an extremely rare flightless bird (less that 200 in the world) that only survives in one small hamlet in the wild…the Murchison Mountains, which are across Lake Te Anau from where I’m staying.  I’ll write more about this later, because it is fascinating to me.  I’m also trying to pick up another job or build up my freelance web development portfolio…so if you know anyone looking for some website work, let me know.

Other than that, there isn’t much to do in Te Anau, apart from use it as a base to explore the surrounding wilderness.  As a town, it doesn’t have much to offer.  There is a line of touristy shops and cafés, a grocery store, and a Subway.  Oh, and there is a movie theater, which was built by a local helicopter pilot to show a 30-minute film that he shot with the help of some Lord of the Rings videographers.  The film is decent…stunning visuals with a good soundtrack, and no voiceover whatsoever…but it is really just a promotional piece to get tourists to pay him for scenic rides in his choppa.

Work itself is very straightforward.  So far, I’ve only made pizzas, but I may get some experience working up front as a barista, or as a server in the steakhouse next door (which is also owned and operated by my German boss).  Of the handful of other seasonal workers I’ve met so far, I am the oldest by about six years, and almost everyone else speaks German as their first language.  So hopefully I can pick up a little Deutsche while I’m here…

The other day, as I was making pizzas, a funny thought occurred to me.  When I was 15 years old, I got my first real job…working in a pizzeria up the street from my house.  Now, after ten years (and tens of thousands of dollars spent on a college education) I am working the exact same job.  Maybe that will be my plan in life…no matter what I’m doing or where I am, every ten years I will quit my job and make pizzas for a few months.

Once I had completed the Routeburn Track, I was still far from being done.  From the end of the track, it was 30km to the start of the Greenstone Track, which over the course of 32km would return me to my car.  Fortunately, the small community of Kinloch, and its oft recommended accommodation, The Kinloch Lodge, are situated exactly halfway between the Routeburn and Greenstone trailends.

It was noon when I reached the end of the Routeburn, and the weather was fine…sunny and warm.  I started walking down the gravel road towards Kinloch, which, at 18km away, would put my total walking distance for the day at nearly 25km (just over 15 miles) - more than I had walked the past two days combined.  However, it was a flat, easy walk along the road, and the views were great.  The previous evening’s snowstorm had coated all of the surrounding peaks with a fresh dusting, and the white summits glistened brightly against the blue sky.

After about an hour, I was passed by an empty track transportation bus, and I instinctively held out my thumb, hoping to cut a few miles out of the day’s trek.  A friendly lady pulled the bus over and told me to hop in, saying she could drive me to a fork in the road a few miles on.  I thankfully accepted the ride, and spent fifteen minutes idly chatting about the beauty of the area and about good places to look for work upon my return from the trek. 

She dropped me off and I was now a mere 9km from the Kinloch Lodge, which put me a few hours ahead of schedule.  I continued down the road, which ran along the delta of the Dart River, as it empties into Lake Wakatipu amid paddocks of grazing sheep.  After another 30 minutes or so, a pickup truck came bouncing down the small, gravel road and I again stuck out my thumb.  Not expecting to see any traffic along the route, I was perplexed when the truck pulled over and a young, tattooed Kiwi told me that he was headed to Kinloch as well and that he could give me a lift.  Hitching is actually a reliable way to get around this country, which I think is spectacular.

I made it to the historic Kinloch Lodge around 1:30PM, a good six hours before I had expected, and was happy to have the extra time to lounge around.  The lodge had been recommended to me a few times by different people, and I could immediately see why.  It was isolated, but set in a stunning location along Lake Wakatipu, and it has been providing comfortable accommodation to outdoors enthusiasts continuously since 1868, which is quite old by NZ standards.  It serves as a very nice hotel, a B&B, and a hostel, as well as an intimate restaurant with a great menu prepared John, the chef and co-owner, who along with his wife Toni, run the place with exceptional friendliness and hospitality.

I liked the place immediately.  After checking into my room, which I paid only $27 for, I was given a tour of the facility, which in addition to the restaurant/cafe/bar, included a self-service kitchen, showers, laundry, TV room with collection of DVDs, lounge with swappable bookshelf, hot tub, and a boot dryer.  This is a place that knows how to serve its guests.

It was almost completely empty when I arrived, so I sat around the cafe chatting with Ross, a British guy of about my age who worked for John and Toni.  I asked if they were hiring at the time, and was told that they are staffed for the season, but are always looking for WWOOFers to help out.  I filed that away in the back of mind, and set off to make use of the facilities.

I wasn’t expecting to be able to do laundry between treks, so I was happy to wash my smelly clothes, and I was even happier about the boot dryer, to which I added my  soggy footwear and mittens.  I spent an hour soaking in the hottub, another unexpected treat, and felt rejuvenated.

At 5:00PM, I went down to the bar to take advantage of happy hour, and then at 6:30 wandered into the restaurant for dinner.  The menu was small, and the dining area had only a handful of tables, but the food was extraordinary.  And it was reasonably priced, too.  I had an appetizer of stuffed mussels, the big NZ green-lipped variety, topped with garlic, butter, and breadcrumbs, and followed that with a delicious steak and fries…I even ate the garlic mayonnaise that accompanied the fries! The meal had been recommended to me by my roommate, an American named Marc Zuliani, who hails from the same place as the only other person I know with a last name that ends in -uliani…New York City.

Marc was a soft spoken and very friendly guy, and he had used the Kinloch Lodge as a home base for his own Routeburn/Greenstone journey.  He liked the place so much, he found it hard to leave.  After dinner, I joined him for a few drinks, and found out that he worked for Standard & Poor’s on Wall Street.  Aware of all the heat that credit rating agencies like S&P took for the current state of our economy, I was hesitant at first to ask too many questions, but I was curious what it was like to work for a company which had so many fingers from across the world pointing at it.

I won’t get into all of the details that we discussed, because I know that for some people finance is not particularly interesting to read about, but I will say that I learned a bit from talking to Marc, and that it was insightful to hear these things from the less publicized point of view.  That being said, Marc didn’t seem like someone who you’d imagine worked on Wall Street.  He was very well traveled, and had just gone skydiving that day.  We spent the rest of the evening exchanging travel stories, and he gave me some good advice for places to go in Southeast Asia (I hadn’t thought of Burma, but he said it was an interesting place).  And, best of all, he offered to give me a ride to start of the Greenstone Track the next morning, cutting another 12km out of my walking distance.

The next day, after sharing a filling breakfast with Marc and Ross at the restaurant, I paid my tab.  The previous evening’s beer and wine had made the trip a bit less economical than I had planned, but I was celebrating my birthday, I guess, so I could splurge a bit, right?  I then hopped in Marc’s car, and after a short ride along Lake Wakatipu, we exchanged email addresses and I was off on my own again, into the wilderness.

The Greenstone Track is not a Great Walk.  It is a much less trafficked trail than the Routeburn, and it stays mostly to the valley, lacking the spectacular alpine scenery of other hikes in the area.  However, I found the change refreshing and alluring in its own way. 

To begin, I saw only one other person the first day.  Even when I stopped by the hut, hoping to get a weather report, I found it completely empty.  The seclusion was refreshing. Also, unlike the Great Walks, camping is permitted anywhere along the trail, a very welcome freedom.

The majority of the track follows the babbling Greenstone River, which is often quoted as the most productive Brown Trout river in all of New Zealand.  It had the same crystal clear waters of the other rivers I’ve seen, but its isolation allows the fish to grow to massive weights.  As I wandered along its banks, I spotted a number of huge fish in the river’s many pools.  I don’t really know how to fly fish, but I desperately wanted to try, and wished I had thought about buying or renting one in town before I started the trek.

But even without the fish, it was a splendid hike.  I walked for hours amid partly cloudy skies, and the valley continued to open up around me.  The mountains got taller and spread further apart, and at times, the trail ran straight through the middle of the valley, making me feel tiny.  Cows grazed along the riverbank, and I found the scenery reminiscent of Wyoming or Montana.  I thought that horseback would be a more appropriate way to experience the valley.

I had gotten lost in thought, absorbing the scenery, and I forgot that I didn’t have a set destination for the night.  The beauty of freedom camping is that I could set up camp where ever I wanted, but the downside was that I needed to find somewhere suitable to do so.  By the time I started looking seriously, I was already pretty tired, and the pain in my left ankle had returned.

I looked on the map and spotted flat spot in the topo at the confluence of Steele Creek and the Greenstone River, and other than the fact that this location screamed sandfly, it seemed on paper to be a good place to pitch a tent.  I had to walk for almost two hours to reach Steele Creek, and when I got there, I noticed a large, modern hut that was explicitly marked “For Guided Campers Only”, and I assumed they wouldn’t want me setting up camp in the middle of their front yard, so I pushed on.

After another hour, the need to stop became urgent, and I found a semi-flat hillside and set up my tent.  It was strange, after all the hiking I’ve done in the past few weeks, this was the first time I had actually gone true backcountry camping.  In fact, it was the first time in my life.  I’ve always had a set destination, a predetermined grassy spot in which to pitch my tent.  In theory, I loved the individualism and self-sufficiency of it…but I had been walking continuously for over eight hours, and I just wanted to rest.  Sometimes, I prefer a bit of structure, I guess.

My spot was not too great.  It was not nearly as flat as I thought, and as I laid on my sleeping bag, I slowly slid into the corner of the tent.  In addition, there were sandflies everywhere.  I don’t know where they came from, out of thin air it seemed, but they were voracious.  I spent a good twenty minutes just killing the ones that had managed to make it inside my tent.  I slept for almost 12 hours that night.

In the morning, I felt better.  The views from my campsite were wonderful…I had the entire valley to myself.  And when I looked closer at my map, I realized that I had already hiked about half of the Greenstone Track.  As I plotted out potential camping areas for that evening, I realized that it was completely feasible to finish that day.  I kept this mind, and continued the journey up the Greenstone Valley.

After a few hours, I passed a number of people going the opposite direction, but then I was alone again.  And the valley began to get narrower and higher.  As I approached the Greenstone Saddle (which was virtually unnoticeable), I came to the shores of alpine Lakes McKellar and Howden.  At the far end of Lake Howden, I was done with the Greenstone and back on the beginning of the Routeburn, this time heading back towards my car.

When I was only an hour from the carpark, I decided to take the side trip to Key Summit.  I had already walked 15km that day, and I was exhausted, but the weather was great and the views from this short climb are supposed to be some of the best in the park. 

The hike up Key Summit was an ideal way to conclude my Fiordland tramping trifecta (or quadfecta, I guess?).  At 955m, it was by no means the highest point in the park, but the summit was perfectly situated to allow grand views of much of the same scenery I had been tramping through over the past three weeks.

Almost immediately, I broke out of the treeline and as I continued to climb, I could see the entirety of the Hollyford Valley and the exposed ridgeline of the Routeburn Track that I had walked in the snow a few days earlier.  To my left, I saw the imposing Darren Mountains, the granite epicenter of all serious mountaineering in Fiordland and backdrop to the Milford Sound, and to my right, I could see down the Greenstone Valley that I had just walked up.  In addition, I could see back down the Eglington Valley to Te Anau, which I would be driving to shortly.

As I descended from the summit down to my car, my childish grin returned, and I couldn’t help but think…what will be my next expedition?  Am I ready to try one of the more serious tracks like the Dusky or Hollyford/Big Bay?  I let my mind wander for awhile, and as I was about to leave the parking lot, I saw a man and a woman with backpacks holding out their thumbs.  Normally, I would have kept driving, but after experiencing such luck with hitchhiking myself, I decided I’d see if they wanted a lift to Te Anau.

The two friendly Israelis were cousins and had just finished the Routeburn Track.  We spent an hour talking about the traveling lifestyle, the state of Israel, and the differences between American and Israeli Jews.  The entire time, I kept thinking of a story my dad had told me about a time in college when he hitched a ride with a crazy Israeli.  These two were exceedingly friendly and easy to talk to - far from crazy, but my father’s experience was much different.  I remember him telling me that his Israeli never seemed to look at the road, and for some reason thought that the double yellow line was supposed to run down the center of the car.  I had to keep myself from laughing a few times when I thought of this.  Eventually, we reached town and I dropped them off to meet their fathers, who were traveling New Zealand on motorcycles.  As I left, I recommended that if they are ever on the north end of Lake Wakatipu, they should stop by the Kinloch Lodge.

New Zealand is a country known for its numerous beautiful hikes, and the government has set apart nine of the best in the country and designated them as Great Walks.  These special tracks get a little bit more funding, are much better serviced, and are the most popular outdoor destinations in the country.  Fiordland National Park, my base for the past three weeks, contains three of the country’s nine walks: The Milford Track, The Kepler Track, and the Routeburn Track.

Before I set off to walk the Kepler Track, I decided that I would like to spend my 25th birthday somewhere in Fiordland National Park, hopefully above the treeline.  The natural choice, then, was the Routeburn Track, the only of Fiordland’s three Great Walks I had yet to complete.  Similar to the Kepler, the entire second day of the Routeburn is above the treeline, and if the weather cooperates, it is regarded by some as the best hike in the country.

So, the day that I set off to hike the Kepler, I registered and paid for spots at two campgrounds on the Routeburn.  I would depart the 12th of December and spend the 13th (my birthday) walking the alpine section of the trek.  This plan was wonderful, except for one small detail…I didn’t finish hiking the Kepler until the 11th.

So, as I drove my car back into Te Anau after completing the 60km circuit of the Kepler Track, it occurred to me that I had to leave the very next day to hike the 32km Routeburn Track, which is not a circuit.  This means that on the 14th, when I’m done the trek, I will be in the next valley over (north of Queenstown) without any mode of transportation to return to Te Anau.

There are a number of companies that offer track transportation, but they are expensive, so I decided instead to hike back.  About 30km south of the end of the Routeburn, is a lesser known track called the Greenstone, which meanders along a river for 32km until returning to the carpark at the start of the Routeburn.  Perfect.  I now had a plan…immediately after finishing the 60km Kepler, I would do the 32km Routeburn, then 30km of roadside hiking to the start of the Greenstone, and then 32km back to my car.  150km in 10 days.  Shit, that is a lot of walking.

I spent the afternoon in town prepping for another week of backpacking, and decided that I would stay at a hostel instead of my usual campsite (in a van down by the river…)  On the morning of the 12th, I drove for an hour along the incredibly scenic road toward Milford Sound, and pulled into The Divide carpark to start my trek.

Conditions were similar to those when I started the Kepler.  It was raining, and the forecast seemed to call only for rain for the entirety of my six day circuit hike.  But this time, the weather didn’t affect my mood whatsoever.  As I climbed the switchbacked trail from the parking area, I began to plan out what I’ve come to name The Long Way Home, a hypothetical proposition that I’ve been contemplating involving a multi-year work/travel scheme to return to the USA via Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.  I still have a ton of research to do before I’m able to announce anything official, but as I tramped through the rain, I began to plot out vague timeframes and destinations:  Horticultural work in NZ, then travel the South Pacific.  Agricultural work in Australia, then travel Southeast Asia.  Teach English in Japan or Korea, then travel Nepal, India, and the Middle East.  Then work somewhere in Europe.  I daydreamed of the myriad possibilities for hours.

Time went by quickly with my mind occupied, and before I knew it, I had passed the first alpine lake, Lake Howden, and was well on my way to Earland Falls, a 192m high waterfall that plummets down the cliffs directly adjacent to the trail.  Because of all the heavy rains over the past few days, the waterfall was extremely powerful and I was forced to take an emergency route around the base.

Continuing on, I could tell that on a clear day, views from the trail would be spectacular.  Most of the first day was spent straddling the bush line, and there were numerous times where I would gaze out into the surrounding clouds and imagine what the views would be like on a nice day.

Eventually, I reached Lake MacKenzie, my campsite for the first night, and on the way I checked the weather report at a nearby hut.  Rain was to continue throughout the night and the following day, which I expected, but the last sentence caught my attention.  “Precipitation will fall as snow as low as 800m in some places.”  My campsite for the night was at nearly 900m…there was a possibility I would wake up under a dusting of snow!

I set up my tent, and as night approached, the rain continued to fall and the temperature steadily dropped.  I struggled to make dinner (a dehydrated meal of Spaghetti Bolognaise) with my hat and mittens on.  I talked briefly with two German guys, a French Canadian, and a guy from Basque (not Spain), but as soon as I was done eating, I retreated to my tent and the warmth of my sleeping bag.  Throughout the night, I heard precipitation hitting my tent…sometimes as splatters of rain, and other times as a harder click of frozen sleet.  I fell asleep wearing all of my clothes, and my jacket, hat, and mittens.

The next morning I awoke to similarly cold, rainy conditions, and I was in no hurry to get out of my sleeping bag.  Eventually, I got up, made breakfast, and hurriedly packed up my cold, wet belongings.  “I thought it was supposed to be summer,” I grudgingly thought to myself.  As I looked around the surrounding peaks, it was obvious that a fresh dusting of snow had fallen and that our campsite was just below the freezing line.

By 10AM, I was on the trail again.  I climbed through the bush for about 45 minutes before breaking out into the alpine, which coincided almost perfectly with the snow line.  As the rain turned to snow, a feeling of supreme happiness overcame me.  True happiness.  Like a child at a playground, I walked with an absurd grin on my face, and numerous times, as I contemplated the majesty of climbing a mountain in a snowstorm, I caught myself chuckling out loud.

I then realized that it was my 25th birthday.  As I continued to climb, the snowfall increased, and I was glad that I chose to hurriedly book the Routeburn Track.  Although it would have been nice to celebrate my quarter-centennial at a cosy bar in Queenstown, flirting with attractive German girls, I was completely content to be alone, ambling my way up and over a mountain pass during a late-season snowstorm.

And then, suddenly (as it always seems to happen at this elevation), conditions changed drastically.  It got sunny.  For almost an hour, I was given glimpses of the encompassing peaks, valleys, and glaciers.  It was great to see all this, but I actually preferred the blinding conditions of the snowstorm.  It felt more like a rite of passage that way.

I was hiking the Routeburn in the opposite way that most people do, so I ran into a number of passersby, stopping briefly to chat with most of them about weather conditions and trail distances.  But eventually, as I neared the highest point of the trek, Harris Saddle (1255m/4140ft), I was alone again, and conditions began to worsen. 

By the time I reached the emergency hut at the saddle, it was a full on snowstorm again.  And now, there was enough snow on the ground to obscure the well-defined trail.  I roamed through the snowy landscape, giddy with excitement, but also cognizant of the risk of walking off a cliffside in the blinding snow.

At one point, a yellow blob emerged before me.  It was a trail guide for Ultimate Hikes NZ, who had somehow lost two of the members of her party.  She described the hikers to me and asked if I’d seen them at all in the last 20 minutes.  I had not.  She told me their names and asked if I see them to tell them to stay put, and then she ran off into the whiteout again.

That event, combined with the lack of an ability to see the trail, and a realization that I hadn’t seen anyone else on the trail, perhaps should have told me something.  Maybe I should just hang out in the emergency shelter for a few hours and see if conditions improve?  This was supposed to be summer, after all.  In fact, midsummer, the longest day of the year in the Southern Hemisphere was only a week away, and yet here I was, blinded in a blizzard on an alpine pass.  I should have been worried, but I couldn’t wipe the satisfied grin off my face.

I continued through the snow for an hour or so, at one point skirting across a sheer cliff face a few hundred feet above a large tarn (glacial lake) before the track began to descend down the opposite side.  At many places along the way, the trail was less of a path and more of a stream, or small river.  Slowly, my waterproof boots began to get damp and my mittens waterlogged.  Also, a soreness in my left ankle that had developed during my descent on the Kepler Track had gotten worse, to the point that it was causing me to limp.  I relied heavily on my walking sticks, as I slowly made my way down off the pass, out of the snow and back into the rain.  I never did see the lost couple from the guided hike, and I assume that their guide was able to locate them.

Eventually, I reached the source of the Route Burn, a large glacial river that begins at Harris Saddle, and followed it until the Route Burn Falls Hut, which overlooks a series of cascades in the river before it opens out to the extensive Route Burn Flats, where my campsite for the night would be.

By this point, my childish grin had mutated into a sinister grimace and my ankle hurt so badly that I was walking with a noticeable limp.  All I could think about was getting to my campsite, taking off my wet boots, and opening the supply of red wine I had brought along to celebrate my birthday.

Just before I reached the Flats, the weather improved and I glimpsed a few views of the wide, grassy valley.  Although many of the views on the track were similar to those of the Milford or Kepler, the vast Route Burn valley was a new sight for me, and its beauty in the late afternoon sun improved my souring mood slightly.

When I finally reached the campsite, I stripped out of my wet clothes and boots, quickly made and ate dinner, and retired to the warmth of my tent and sleeping bag, where I drank wine, ate chocolate, and listened to Miles Davis.

It occurred to me that, although it was the 13th here in New Zealand, it was still the 12th back in the US, and the 12th of December happens to be my father’s birthday.  This could possibly be the only time in my life where my dad and I could celebrate our birthdays simultaneously.  Silently, and from the other side of the world, I cheersed my dad, gulped down the last of my wine, and then promptly fell asleep.

The next day was an easy, sunny 6.5km stroll along the river, and around noon, I crossed a swing bridge over the Route Burn, completing the last of Fiordland’s three Great Walks.  This one was the shortest of the three, but I found it to be most difficult.  The trail was very rocky and it was seldom flat.  The Routeburn contains the most fluctuation in elevation, and you are almost constantly ascending or descending.  Combined with severe weather conditions and an unrested start, I found this “easy tramping track” to be somewhat difficult.  But I also found it to be the most rewarding, and I think that if I had to recommend only one of the area’s Great Walks, I would suggest the Routeburn Track.