Day 63: Tararua Range to Waitewaewae Hut
Distance Covered: 15 km
Today was 80% super-awesome-everything-we-were-hoping-for, 20% quad and knee crushing torment.
It started with a beautiful sunrise at our ridge camp. This is the kind of thing we imagined when we started this trip! I was able to capture one of my favorite pictures from the whole hike. In the upper left you can see Mt. Crawford. We followed the ridge line that snakes around the image to summit and then descend from Mt. Crawford.
We left camp at 7:30, not seeing the Frenchman. There was no way he could get around us and he knew we would be leaving around 7, so we figured he was sleeping in or giving us space. For us, we were indeed glad to be on our own again for this ridge walk to Mt. Crawford. The summit is 1,462 meters, which isn’t that much higher than yesterdays at 1,430-ish. But! It’s all on one long ridge that snakes around with big vertical undulations.
We made it to the next hut about 1.5 hours later. It’s just a tiny, two person bivvy with a rain collection system. You could stay with three people, but it would be tight. This hut is also famous because it’s named Dracophyllum, which is supposed to be close to a Pokemon name? (I’m not cool enough to know.) So people call it the Pokemon hut.
Anyway, we at breakfast there and, while doing so, the two hikers (who told us about the storm and who I will now refer to as the Storm Girls) caught us. They stayed in the previous hut, got up at 5 AM, and blazed over the peak and down to the hut. They are go, go, go type hikers and you have to admire their dedication to get up so early and pushing. They stopped with us so they could eat lunch. They mentioned that they saw the Frenchman as he was getting ready to hit the trail at 8:30. This felt late to us given the coming weather. We left the Storm Girls a few minutes later, assuring them they would pass us soon.
Onward to the long ridge! Emily and I really (really) enjoyed the hiking from yesterday’s hut onwards through to today. It felt rugged, exposed, beautiful, and overall like what we imagined hiking in New Zealand would be like. We kept remarking how much fun it was and glad to be able to kind of live the dream, so to speak. Of course, it was still hard work. The contour map has so many lines so close together that it was hard to see exactly what would happen, except that we would gain and give ground all day until the last push to Mt. Crawford.
Sometimes we were in lush, green forest where the trees were covered head to toe in thick moss and the rocks in feathery moss of their own. We’ve been calling it a troll forest out of the fairy tales. Some call it a goblin forest. Whatever it is, unfortunately pictures don’t work too well. It’s dark everywhere except where direct sunlight splatters through the leaves, which is beautiful and also messes with my simple phone camera’s ability to get the brightness correct.
Other times, we were on grass and rock, with steep faces on either side of us. We felt high above it all as we had great views in any direction we looked.
We journeyed on and reached Nichols hut a couple of hours later, a little bit after the Storm Girls passed us. We did, at some point along the way, hear the Frenchman shout something. He seemed to be far away, there was happiness in his voice, and it was a whole sentence. We couldn’t make it out, though. The Storm Girls let us know that he made it to the last hut after we left and they said he was shouting at them something about how he could see them or something.
From Nichols hut, it’s pretty much a straight shot to the top. We ate lunch with the Storm Girls before going and one of them even made a generous water run for everyone. Very nice of her since the hut was actually off trail a little bit! And then they were off, with us following about 15 minutes behind. (We’ve noticed we take much longer lunches than everyone else.)
The ascent was supposed to take about an hour and a half. The Storm Girls, who we could see practically running to the top made it in about 50 minutes. It took us about an hour. And we loved it. It was very windy, the clouds were definitely coming in with some already streaming over the top, and the temperature was dropping. Even still, what a blast! I documented the journey in a series of images.
At the top, the wind was really whipping by. It was the kind of wind where you could throw a rock in the air and have it sail away. We shouted loudly to each other to be heard. And the view was shutting down fast as the wall of clouds that used to be on the horizon was approaching rapidly. So we didn’t stay up there for long, just enough to snap a couple of fun pictures.
We headed down as fast as reasonable, given the wind pushing us around. We had made it about 500 meters when we first looked back. The summit was now completely socked in. If the Frenchman had tried to push for it, it wouldn’t be much of a view and there might also be at least some mist and fog to deal with.
Now the big thing about the descent is that we had to lose about 1.1 km of altitude in about 2 km of forward travel. But it wasn’t a nice slope… there were actually some big hills to get up and over along the way. And the terrain came in steps. So we would walk several meters forward on relatively level ground and then a one or two meter descent on a slip, or mini-cliff, or tree root. No stairs or anything like that around… this was the trail using natural steps and drop-offs the whole way. It did get a little better when we made it back to the tree line as the wind was muffled.
The thing about this descent is that it just… kept… going. Walk, walk, walk, biiig step down. The step would bend our knees past 90 degrees and twist our hips. Rinse and repeat. Our left knee and quads would protest the pounding, so we would use the right side. Then switch again. But it just kept going. I tell you, we were mighty glad to finally (finally) reach flat ground a couple of hours later. We almost wanted to kiss it. Walking flat and level for more than a few meters felt wonderful.
From there, we wound our way along the river valley, crossed a swing bridge over very green, translucent water, and then to the hut. We peeked in, but found it full of people. It’s New Years Eve here and this hut is only 10 km from the road, making it a popular place for locals. We waved through the window to let the hikers know we made it and opted to camp outside. After a long day like today, we just wanted to cook dinner and get into bed.
Three days ago, we made a crazy plan to get to this hut by 7 PM tonight, before the Big Storm was expected to hit. We got here just after 6. It feels great knowing that we made a plan and were able to execute so well. Of course, a lot of our success is due to John and Sally being so generous with their time and resources.
It is now just before 8 and we are getting ready to sleep. (It’s normal for people to go to bed before 8 on New Year’s Eve, right?) It turns out that the latest forecast is it will rain lightly tonight, have “periods of rain” tomorrow, and then unleash fury at around 3. We brought enough food to stay here a couple of days, but we might be able to make it to the next hut 10 km away.
Also, we haven’t seen the Frenchman. It’s not likely at this point that he made it over in time. Our guess (and hope) is that he turned back to Nichols hut. He has no maps here, no notes, no GPS, no locator beacon, no phone, and no sleeping bag. All we can do is be concerned for him and hope for the best.