Day 62: Makahika Outdoor Pursuits Center to Tararua Range
Distance Covered: 23 km
The two day goal, starting from this morning, was to get to Waitewaewae Hut by 7 PM tomorrow when the worst of the storm is supposed to hit. It’s only about 40 km, but these are serious mountain ranges… two people died in them just a month ago, for instance. In these two days we will ascend about 1.3 km up and down, with many (many) ups and downs in between.
The day started on a fun note, though: Sally asked one of the couples from last night if they would be willing to stay there for 9 days so that other hikers would have a place to stay. Both parties had been hinting that they would be interested in this arrangement. Emily and I think that John and Sally couldn’t have found a better pair either. Good for them all!
We wanted to get out by 7 AM, but there was that matter of the bacon and eggs to attend to. And a hot shower. And sharing thoughts on the trail. So we got out about 8 AM, ready to go forth and conquer. The Frenchman was with us, as he asked if he could join with us as we were helping him get further, faster.
The first order of business was a road walk of 6 km or so to get to the start of the trail. Then a walk across boggy pasture to the start of the track. It was here that we split with the Te Araroa; it went left while we went straight for a km to get into the next canyon.
The canyon we followed was good quality trail that lightly climbed along the banks of the river. As expected with all the rain, things were muddy. It would have been nice to have dry forest trail for once, but it wasn’t happening today.
We had a break just before the steep part kicked in. We ate snacks eyeing the trail that looked like giant steps. Gotta fuel up for these kinds of things! And then we were off, taking big, lunging steps into the sky. There were a number of points in the first km or so that involved throwing our poles up the trail and climbing hand over hand to get up a rock wall. We were really working to gain altitude quickly. But this part was so steep that it really wasn’t too muddy… so that was a nice silver lining.
The trail settled down just a little after the first section. Sure, it was still steep. It had to be if we were going to get to 1,400 meters from near sea level today. However, it was the kind of steep that you kind of just chug along to. You don’t set a speed… you set an energy output and the speed follows the terrain.
After some time, we reached a kind of point at the top of a ridge protrusion. We could turn around and really appreciate what our work was buying us. We could see down to the southwest coast, Kapiti island, and even the South Island. Pretty cool. Then up and up to another vantage point where we could see just that little bit further. In fact, these were some of the most rewarding views of the entire trip for us.
From there we plunged back into the forest to ridge walk. The trend was up, but there was a lot of descending 100 meters or more and then ascending. A descent like that on a day like this can be a cringe inducing experience. You just don’t want to give up your hard fought for altitude. Sometimes, we climbed very steeply for 20 to 30 meters and then immediately lost all of it on an equally steep descent. And so it went.
Around 6 PM we made it to a hut along the trail. One set of hikers (the same set that first warned us of The Storm) opted to stay there. We hinted to the Frenchman that maybe he should stay there too. Emily and I were going to push on and try to summit so we could get a jump on tomorrow’s distance, but it was highly unlikely that we would get to the next hut that was 3 or 4 hours away. He opted to stick close to us through the day. So we filled our water bottles, ate some food, and then pushed on.
Now the key thing that enabled this late push over a summit was the absolutely perfect weather. The air was still for most of the afternoon, the air was warm, but not hot, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. We knew that tonight’s conditions would be perfect as well so camping on a ridge was feasible. If any one of these things hadn’t been in place, we would have stayed at the hut.
Onward and upward we went, climbing to the summit in the evening. There were quite a few hills to get up and over, each descent not dipping quite as low as the gains we made in the ascent. And then about 2 hours later, we reached the summit. I took many photos of Emily so hopefully they tell the story. The first in the series shows that we're headed to the tallest peak in the image.
Getting closer! The trail is spine of the ridge and parts were as precarious as they appear to be.
By now it was about 8 PM. The sign at the last hut said it was 3-4 hours to the next hut. However, at the summit, it said the hut was still 3-4 hours away. Hmm… So the hut was not happening, but we were okay with that. The views were very nice and ridge camping sounded like a fun adventure to Emily and me.
We walked briskly on for another hour, the sun blinding us as we walked west along the ridge until we went behind a hill top when the shadows made seeing the trail under the grass difficult. Things were muddy and overgrown with the grass so it was surprising that we were able to move as quickly as we were.
We loved the sunset, though. It was just spectacular. Emily said it was one of the best she had ever seen and I agree with her.
As the light was fading, we pointed out to the Frenchman where he might be able to get his one person tent. He seemed uncertain about it. He doesn’t carry maps or notes or a phone so he was highly dependent on good luck. (We do not agree with his philosophy at all.) We gave him the one paper map we had, told him we needed to move on to find (hopefully) a place to put a three person tent and that we would be leaving around 7 AM if he wanted to join us.
Fortunately, we found a great little spot just on the other side of the hill. Well… it’s a pretty good spot. True, one side of the tent is hanging in the air and another is lifted on top of rocks. But you can’t beat the view. And we’ll be squished together so we will stay warm.
Tomorrow we’ll make the big push to get over Mt. Crawford and then down to the hut. It’s not far in distance, but the ups and downs will take a lot of work.