In The Footsteps of Hillary

Friday Morning, we woke at 5:20 am to head out on a new adventure. I drove to Rich's, where he threw his perfectly organized backpack in the boot before heading to Cully's flat, where we planned to cook eggs and protein-load before leaving. We arrived to a lit living room, and assumed that Cavness was up and about. Instead, we dragged him out of a deep unconsciousness to come down to breakfast, where the bleary-eyed boy recounted tales of his extended evening.

On the road by 6:30, we headed north on SH1, the road that we have so often taken to head north out of Dunedin. After reaching Oumaru, we turned west on the road to Mt. Cook / Aoraki, the National Park that encompasses New Zealand's highest peak. The drive took three and a half hours in the drizzle and oppressive low clouds, but finally we reached the small hamlet known as Mt. Cook Village.

The Village hides itself well, blending into the lower slopes of the mountain ranges that surround it. Cloud cover stood at perhaps a hundred meters above ground level, so the entire drive had seemed somewhat like driving through an inexact part of America, with cows pastured all around and a succession of aging hydroelectric dams accompanied by their all-too-perfect engineered lakes. We had forgotten the iPod adapter, so the trip enjoyed a simple soundtrack of Billy Joel and the worst urban hits of 2001, the only two tapes we possessed.

We checked in at the visitor center, where the young woman gave us a skeptical look as we walked in in jeans and sandals.

"We'd like to hike up and stay at Mueller Hut tonight," We asked.

She made sure that we had the correct gear, as we seemed to be simple tourists, then warned us that visibility was terrible and fresh snow was likely on the ground. Rich grinned wolfishly at the prospect of snowy tramping, and we assured her that this was the reason we had come.

The three of us drove to the parking lot at the base, then changed into our synthetic outfits and packed up one last time. We locked the doors of the Marrakech Magic, our faithful steed, and headed off into the cloud bank, smiling in excitement. A three hour battle up steep, slippery slopes awaited us, but the Department of Conservation had been so kind to provide us with erratic, protruding wooden stairs for the first half of the hike, so we began to clamber up the neverending Stairmaster ahead of us.

It was wet. We walked through a cloud of spitting raindrops and ice particles and our well-worn rain gear quickly lost its usefulness as a combination of moisture and sweat conspired to keep us from ever feeling dry again. Soaked and smiling (well, kind of), we carried on.

As we go to the Sealy Tarns, a pair of alpine lakes, it started to get cold, and felt even colder because we were wearing t-shirts under soaking rain jackets. Richard was in shorts, even. We reached the snow line fifteen minutes later, where we lost all agility and balance to the slippery rocks and scree slopes.



We battled out way through the fog, following orange-topped snow stakes that marked the trail. As the snow grew deeper, we turned south along the ridge at an orange triangle and started to follow pole to pole towards what we hoped was Mueller Hut. It was a surreal experience, knowing that we were surrounded by high peaks yet only being able to see distinct shades of grey to forty feet in front of us. Disconcerting to say the least.

At last the hut appeared in our peripheral vision and we entered to find a dry, snug shelter that was designed to sleep 40 persons. Tonight it would be just us. We changed quickly out of our wet clothes into dry polypropylene, and began to whittle away the hours until our desired bed time: 7:30. We prepared a hot meal of pasta, cheese sauce, and sweet corn (delicious, thank you Ben Kunofsky), and sat down to enjoy and fill our bellies.



After eating, the cards flew fast and furious during an extended game of Rummy. I won handily, after resisting a 125 point hand from Señor Cavness which threatened to change the whole game.



We fell asleep piled under woolen blankets in our sleeping bags, and the sky began to clear as the stars appeared from the deep blue nothingness that surrounded the little hut.



I woke up around 5:30, and as I saw the beginnings of dawn from the east, decided to stay up for the sunrise. as it grew brighter, I was able to see that we were surrounded by a bevy of two-thousand-meter peaksm with Mt. Cook directly in front of us to the north. I nudged Rich to ask if he wanted to see the sunrise, and he simply grunted as he fell back into the deep sleep that you only find when camping away from "civilization."

We skipped breakfast and hiked up Mt. Ollivier, which stood behind the hut. This mountain was the first ever climbed by Sir Edmund Hillary, and started off his long career as a mountaineer and explorer. We could only hope that as we sat on the cairn which marked the top we would have similar success.



After trotting back to the hut, we walked quickly down the steps we had carved the night before. It was like walking a different trail, the changing weather had revealed a landscape covered in shimmering snow, and as we listened to avalanches echo through the valleys around us, we reveled in the active geology of these glaciated peaks. The tramp down was quick, helped along by the speedy snow under our feet, that threatened to trip us up at every step. We arrived back at the car happy and a little store, and sped back to Dunedin, where cold brews and warm beds awaited us once more.

The other photos can be found in the most recent album on my Picasa webpage. The link is HERE, or can be found in the top right section of the blog.

Until next time.

Sam