rees-dart track

fri, dec 4 (happy birthday, grandpa!)
glenorchy to shelter rock hut, 13.5 miles

were it not for the american guy who picked us up outside of town, we'd still be walking the 12 miles to the start of the rees-dart track. while he couldn't get us all the way there, as the road fords some deep streams, we were grateful to have our pre-hike walking trimmed down to just an hour. on the turnoff to the access road we spotted two large yellow arrows pointing our direction and desperately hoped it didn't mean that we'd be joined by the rowdy bunch of middle-schoolers who'd been hitting our tent with their soccer ball all night. fortunately for us, that wasn't the case at all; instead, one of our secret hopes had been realized: we'd stumbled upon a film crew. a kiwi bloke on a 4x4 explained that they were shooting scenes for a movie called tracker (starring ray winstone, which bryan's stoked about), seeming to apologize for their intrusion into our "remote" tramping experience. we so-very-graciously accepted his apology, trying to look casual, as if we regularly come into contact with actors' trailers parked on the trail.

all in all, it took us a little over 7 hours to reach the hut today, passing through miles of valley marshlands, beech forest, and, at higher elevations, avalanche gullies. all morning we kept our eyes on mt earnslaw across the valley, waiting to see the obvious line of snow accumulation collapse and rush downhill, but all we saw was a tiny tremor that had stilled by the time its brief rumble could be heard.

sat, dec 5

shelter rock hut to dart hut, 5.5 miles

we didn't cover much ground today, just over 5 miles in a 5 hour period, a testament to the difficulty of terrain that we encountered. the 4-day track is pretty straightforward: 500-1000m, hut; 1000m-1500m-1000m, hut; 1000m-500m, hut. this morning, we set out to tackle the highest part of the track, a 500m scramble up and down gullies to the rees saddle. just two days ago the ice axe and crampon requirement was lifted by the DOC (this should have clued us in), but we still didn't expect to face anything as scary as the final 150m climb up the crazy steep slope to the saddle. snow still clung to the slopes, disguising the shape of the mountainside and causing some frightening (this is actually quite an understatement; i nearly hyperventilated) slips through the wet and muddy grass. this wasn't a hike but a full-on scramble, all limbs engaged, our bodies pressed flat against the slope to keep our heavy packs from pulling us backwards and causing what could easily have been a fatal tumble. i'm officially reverting to my original philosophy that mountaineering is only for the crazy, and i am not one of them.

when we mentioned our harrowing experience to the hut warden whom we encounted on the trail an hour later, he responded to our comment that it was "scary" with a casual and almost insulting "how so?"; we later found our from other hikers in the evening that they'd had the same experience. if we are total wusses, at least we're not alone.

read some of tom clancy's patriot games in the hut (slim pickings at the last book exchange) and learned that popular authors don't even have to be decent writers as long as they throw in words like "counterintelligence" and "electronic detonator" every few pages. terrible book, but i'm sure i'll finish it anyway - i'm that desperate.

sun, dec 6

dart hut to daleys flat hut, 9 miles

i wouldn't shed a single tear if i never had to see another gully for the rest of my life. the problem with topo maps and elevation charts, as helpful as they are, is that they don't operate on a small enough scale to be of any assistance to me between point A and point B. with topo lines indicating elevation only every 20m (approx. 60 ft), i'm constantly discovering ascents and descents that leave me huffing and puffing but don't even feature on the map because they total, say, only 18m of elevation change. i could essentially climb up and down the stairs of a 5-story building and not see any of my effort reflected on the map - and that's what i felt like we were doing all day. i'm exaggerating, of course, but it was a fairly bland day of walking in the rain so i've got to play it up somehow. spent a slow-moving evening reading the hut book, which all hikers are required to sign in case they go missing, as this helps search and rescue teams identify where the person last turned up. we generally spot a few other minnesotans that have passed through during the last year, though you can find entries representing outdoor enthusiasts from nearly every state and country.

mon, dec 7
daleys flat hut to queenstown, 8 miles

we finished off the last 8 miles of the rees-dart by lunchtime, meeting up at the shelter one last time with the other 4 hikers who've been following the same route since shelter rock hut and whose company we've enjoyed in the huts each evening. this track being more difficult than the last two, it draws more serious hikers from whom we've learned much.

tonight we're back in QT to do the usual: restock, shower, laundry, internet, and plan the week ahead. as soon as we finalize our route for the next 5 days, we'll have our last month of tramping planned out and will have to start looking ahead to finding work, which doesn't seem like nearly as much fun. already we're realizing that we may never get to see some parts of the country - apparently a year isn't really limitless time. on the plus side, these last few months having gone by so quickly means that my dad will arrive in just over two weeks to spend christmas with us in christchurch and test his backpacking abilities in the southern alps. i vividly remember arriving at the crappy hostel in auckland, despairingly telling ourselves that we just needed to hold out long enough for my dad to visit, and then we could go home if we still wanted to. i'm glad things have changed on that front. our greatest fear is that he'll arrive in shape (as usual) and show us up on the trail, so we've been pushing ourselves a bit harder than normal to minimize this potential embarrassment :)

-rachel

pictures:

1) drying off the socks at lunchtime after crossing 25 mile creek
2) bryan's lion king pose in the rees valley
3) looking up towards rees saddle

4) the shelter at chinaman's bluff - the end of 8 great days of tramping!]

PS - more pictures up on our photobucket page.