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.