Steep descent to the saddle between the Rintoul’s

Hour upon hour, veteran hiker Cookie put up with my quivering and clumsy footed nervousness. Slowly easing me along peak, and path, peril after peril. Calmly pointing out foot holds ( I’m only 5ft 1 ish, so my legs don’t stretch far! ) and physically hauling me up the high steps I couldn’t negotiate. “Damn you short arse!!” I kept shouting. Frustrated with my body for not being having the required fixtures and fittings. But on we went. And made it we did. To the top. Finally! Finally, I could stop holding my breath…
The trickiest bit of the day was the descent from Little Rintoul to the saddle. Very steep and unstable. I thought it was going to be more of a scramble, but there wasn’t much solid rock to cling on to. Once down a bit, I was surprised the route didn’t follow the top of the saddle, that’s what it looked like on the map? Instead the orange lolly pops sent us further down the mountain, underneath the saddle’s rocky cliffs on a combination and unpleasant scree and rocky bouldering. Making a bigger climb back up Rintoul than I thought! Here’s a quick doodle of the route.
Sun 6th Feb
Permalink
   
0 comments
107

Nicky & Cookie on Rintoul Summit

I couldn’t look down. I didn’t want to gaze around. The anxiety and adrenaline was threatening to overwhelm me. I knew I was up here to appreciate the views. But looking at those rows of giant peaks in the distance just made me want to vomit. What the fuck was I doing up here?

I stared out at the surrounding ranges. Trying to take a mental picture to appreciate with hindsight later. Eyes wide ( with horror really! ) at the situation I’d gotten myself into. There wasn’t the relief and satisfaction I’d imagined getting to the top. Just an overwhelming sense of ‘anticipation’ ( read: ‘expectation of impending panic’ ) about getting down the other side. Making it between the two Rintoul peaks was one thing, but apparently the worst was yet to come? Or so said the trail notes…

Fantastic views up here and we were blessed with perfect weather for it :) There’s certainly A LOT of mountains in the South Island, row after row of spikey mountain ridges disappearing into the distance.

Wished we could of stayed here longer, but after a day of stopping every 5 min to film or take pictures it was getting late. 6pm to be precise, we’d been on the go for nearly 11 hours already and still had to get down yet!

Sun 6th Feb
Permalink
    
1 comment
107

Coming down off Rintoul

Silently, blank faced and focused I knuckled down to the next phase of the traverse. “I can ponder all this shit later” I thought to myself. “Right now is for concentration”. And so putting the height to the back of my mind, and firmly squashing any image of falling to my death that pushed it’s way into my mind, I focused all my energy on the few metres ahead. I can’t tell if I blinked the whole way down. My eyes wedged open taking in the detail and assessing the footholds. The ‘tough scree’ section and the condensed drop several hundred metres down to the hut, actually turned out to be easy in comparison. I think i was actually laughing with relief at one point :) Proper soft thick scree was a dream to decend on. Stabbing one foot in after the other, skiing down. “Thank **** for that!” I exclaimed as we strode through, legs starting to struggle to contain the wobbling from the intense exertion of the day.

Sun 6th Feb
Permalink
   
0 comments
107

Cookie descending Rintoul Ridge

Don’t tell Nicky, but those mountains behind me are where we’re going next and they look even more impressive. I’m liking the South Island :)

Sun 6th Feb
Permalink
   
0 comments
107

Steep Scree, but easy descent to Rintoul Hut

"/>

PHEW! I thought to myself as we swung into Rintoul hut. I’m sooooo happy that’s over! Buzzing with exhilaration, adrenaline, and grinning with relief we plopped ourselves down on the grass outside the hut, groaning. “Heya!”, it was Andrew. In ahead of us by a full two hours. “How was that?”, “Yeh brilliant! You?”, “Yeh pretty good! Challenging eh.”, “Yeh, that was ‘hard’ :)”.

Happy it was done, happy with myself for surviving, and happy with the sense of post-epic calmness washing over me, it was time for noodles, and bed.

Sun 6th Feb
Permalink
  
0 comments
107

“And Now for an Easy Day”

Should have kept my mouth shut haha! After the harrowing epic conquest of Mt. Rintoul the day before there was no WAY today could seem hard. Could it?
Before this section, I had no appreciation of the depth and breadth of situations the word ‘hard’ could be used to describe. There are MANY types of ‘hard’ it turns out, when it comes to tramping. Far more than i’d previously realised. Today, I discovered a whole new family of experiences. All in the flavour of ‘hard’.
Well today started out being a really easy day, surprisingly so in fact. We smashed the 5 hour DOC time time to Tarn Hut in only three and a half, we were on a roll. Our sights firmly set on getting to St. Arnaud as fast as possible for beers and good deal of sitting around.
Mon 7th Feb
Permalink
  
0 comments
108

Tarn Hut

Lovely walking. Easy in fact. A jolly jape down through the woods to a characterful old fashioned hut. Complete with ancient 1980′s hut log book, and fantastic solid iron wood burning stove. Wish we had time to crank that one up!

Today was a double lunch day. But we didn’t know it yet…

Then the rain came. “No problem. Just a bit if rain.” We’ve been in the woods in rain before. I mean, roots get slippy, but how hard could it get? We’re just following the river right?

The path began to sidle along the valley. Mid Wairoa hut wasn’t far. “Let’s just get there and get dry”. We’d been smashing DOC times for each chunk, and by now we’d hatched a plan to get out to town a day early for Cookie’s birthday! We’d done the Big One and psychologically we were on the home-stretch, all be it a four day home-stretch!

We’ve been getting our money’s worth out of our annual hut passes on this section. Thought we should probably show what these huts are like that we’re staying in. As you can see they’re quite cosy, would be a bit of a squeeze if they were full, but perfectly sized when it’s just me and Nicky.
Mon 7th Feb
Permalink
 
0 comments
108

Speeding Ahead - from Mid to Top Wairoa Hut

Soaking and bedraggled we lunged at the hut door and staggered in. “Oh Hello!” a fellow inside announced. Surprised to see two muddy, water-dribbling hikers splutter in.

Whenever you see another human in the mountains it’s a surprise. You treat it almost like having spotted a rare species. With surprise and intrigue you examine what you’ve found :) And they you.

This chap, we did not realise til later, we’d been chasing him since the Tararuas on the North Island. He was in fact the mysterious Mr. Dominic Kling from Ulm in Germany. His name had been appearing and disappearing in hut books for weeks. Last we knew he was the last person who got through to Otaki Forks before the cyclone came and we had to turn back. What was he doing going the wrong way up the track? Glad he made it anyway.

“Watch out. Are you going up to Top Wairoa? It’s very slippy. Take care eh.”

Leaving Dominic perplexed as to how I’d managed to guess his last name, we headed out in our fresh clothes, togged up in our waterproofs. Determined to get to Top Wairoa and ahead of schedule. Every hut brought Beer-o-clock ever closer, and the promise of bubbly wheaty goodness in a few days time powered us on into the drizzle and mist.

I’m not entirely sure if our decision to do the Mid Wairoa to Top Wairoa Hut section at 4.30pm in the rain was a stroke of genius or lunacy? We decided that since we were already wet from the tramp down from Tarn that we might as well try and get the section done this afternoon so that we could dry our boots overnight and start dry(ish) the following day.

Also if the rain kept pouring we thought the numerous unbridged river crossings between these huts might get tricky or impassable.

Also Mid Wairoa was already occupied by Dominic, we’d been sharing huts for the past few nights and really fancied one to ourselves for a change. So onwards we went into the misty damp valley beyond. It was 4.5 hours to the hut, we had 4.5 hours of daylight left, there was no messing around setting up cameras on tripods for this section, we just wanted to get there as fast as possible.

Mon 7th Feb
Permalink
   
0 comments
108

Steep slippy sidling on indistinct and often exposed track

Terrain. From. Hell.
In hindsight, leaving Mid Wairoa that late in the afternoon, in the rain may have been a mistake. The drizzle turned to heavy fat plops of liquid, and the leaves and roots quietly lubricated themselves ready to receive us on their mean and vicious assault course high above the roaring river. This was starting to look tricky.

Every footstep you took threatened to flip you clean over. Each mossy rock activated, and layer of leaves on standby, to terminate your progress. I use the word ‘terminate’ carefully. It was a steep and exposed route. Thin paths often only a single boot’s width, cut into the side of the rock or crumbling soil, undulating steeply up and down, round outcrops of rock and over bases of trees on their last legs, jutting out into the high gorge-like valley. The mist was thickening. The terrain slow and torturous. Time was running out. It would soon be dark. And this mess would be impossible to negotiate in the dark. It was lethal enough in day light. In the dim light we picked on, stopping occasionally only to realize our precariousness position, scrambling above the deep valley of boulders and waterfalls below.

“Shit it! I wish I could see!” Eyes straining to pick out safe footing, I began to regret only purchasing prescription shades, and nothing more… By no exaggeration, one failed step and you’d have slipped to meet your maker. A fairly stressful way to spend an evening.

158cms is not tall enough for the Te Araroa. Time after time Cookie had to physically haul both me and my backpack up chunks of rock and massive steps my little stumps just couldn’t reach. Or exhaustion wouldn’t allow. If it weren’t for him I’d still be left there clinging to some crumbling earth on the ‘sidle’… Or worse!

Can you see the track in these three different shots of it? Yep, thats what we thought.. Soon enough we realised that Dominic’s account of the poor trail conditions were all true. There’s some pretty exposed bits where the trail clings to tiny little ledges high above the river below. It was a scramble not a walk, not much margin for error..

We did discuss the option of either turning back or camping between huts. I was encouraging Nicky to carry on though, her imagination is her own worst nightmare, there’s no way I’d get her up this valley if she had a night to think about it!

Mon 7th Feb
Permalink
  
1 comment
108

Crossing the Wairoa

Knowing where you were, how long was left, and how much energy you might need to make it there in one piece was impossible to judge. River crossing after river crossing we clambered in and out of the water. Many times sure it was the last one before the final half an hour to the hut. Many times disappointed to walk on and see ‘one more’ giant orange triangle pointing us into the water. And knowing we’d need to dig even deeper to make it.

“Cookie…. I don’t want to end up as one of those documentaries where…” I gulped “…where they find the footage.” … I tried a smile. There wasn’t enough energy in my face to muster it.

It looked like on my map the track crossed the Wairoa River about four times, the last just before the hut. So after the forth crossing I told Nicky we’re probably only about half a mile away from the hut and making great time. Alas some of the crossings are in quick succession, so quite hard to spot on the map, so four more crossing later we weren’t entirely sure how far away we were..
Mon 7th Feb
Permalink
  
0 comments
108