Dec. 23 -- Glenorchy (back from Rees Valley tramp)

Kinloch (across Lake Wakatipu from Glenorchy)
Nov. 23, 2008

I was so "bushed" coming out of the backcountry last night, that it was all I could do to pull into the campground here by the lake, throw out my tent, and collapse. Apparently, I did it right in the middle of the boat ramp! Oh well. This morning I'm having banana pancakes and listening to the muzak version of "Easy Like Sunday Morning" at some super-groovy end-of-the road "hotel". I am celebrating completion of my tramp on the Rees Valley!

The trip was uber-stunning, a life experience...and a crash course in NZ tramping, too. (it'll be in my forthcoming guidebook: "New Zealand: It Ain't Mexico (or Yosemite)).

Friday:
I hiked out of the TH into cloudly skies at 5:45 pm. I thought I'd do at least 2 hours and stop at 25-Mile Hut, which is "maintained" by a private mountaineering club. Of course, I spent over an hour negotiating various creek fords, only to posthole in a swamp near the end.

There was a sign for the hut, but only the faintest track going straight uphill and out of sight. As I huffed up the hill, I wondered if the hut was even still there? surely they would have removed the sign?

Well, the hut was there, or at least, 3/4 of it was. The chimney side was mostly blown out by fire, and the chimney stones were blasted all over. Inside, there were 2 passable bunks, but some of the others had trash, branches and spiderwebby-animal detritus. In truth, it would have made a perfect set for a horror movie.

Saturday:
Within an hour of falling asleep on Friday night, it started to rain madly...and never stopped, all through Saturday. I was trapped: even if had I braved the rain, the various river and creek crossings would have been impassable -- going up-trail, or back to the car. So I had to chill...and that is precisely what I did, as the storm was colder than shit and the wind came right in through the open wall. I built a sarcophagus with my tent fly, and spent all day cringing in my bag. It was not a stone groove. The next morning, there was snow just upslope.

Sunday:
In true NZ style, the miserable rain passed and left the most beautiful day ever. The Rees Valley is a broad river basin flanked by impossibly big mountains with brilliant white glaciers. It's a million-dollar view. And the river is so damn clear, you can see the bottom perfectly.
A couple hours upriver, the basin closes up, and the trail enters forest and starts to charge up the mountain. The only rule to NZ forests is that there is growth everywhere...whether its ferns or beech trees or tussock, it's like someone put dynamite in a massive vat of green paint and BOOM-SPLAT! there you have it. And endless little waterfall grottos and Elvin environs, Middle Earth-style.

Climbing higher, the trail passes through some alpine meadows that offer sick views as you traverse avalanche runoff chutes. Then, you arrive at a flat-ish basin right below the finned ridge where the Shelter Rock Hut is located. "Hut" doesn't really capture the true plushness of the joint; running water, flush toilets, and like 30 bunks. Plus, a veranda for chiling out and mixing it up with the Germans and Fins. But -- and here's the rub -- no swimming!!! NZ tramping is mostly about carrying your backpack from hut-to-hut. It's not like the Sierra, where you hike to a lake, and drop the pack for swimmming and day bags.

Monday:
Didn't really have enough food to keep going in, and had to be back for the Routeburn Track on the 25th (changed my start date), so I hiked out on another spectacular day. A funny thing happened when I got down to the river basin: this hot chick in full gaiters was coming up-trail, turn's out she was a Mormon from Utah. No shit. And in trying to cross a little pond, she ate shit right in front of me. I wish I could say that I was a gentleman, but I couldn't help but crack up. It was comedy. Anyway, we may hook up after or respective tramps. I hope she is on that "year off" of experimentation that all the Mormons do.

The way back was endless spectacular views, and some demanding swamp-trudging and crazy workarounds at river sections, where you'd climb straight up the banks a couple hundred feet, and straight down. I was most fatigued when I arrived back at my coach. Bushed, indeed.