Where my two feet take me: Cascade Saddle-Dart Valley

People take to the trail for all sorts of reasons. Some do it to distract them from all of the things that they ought to be doing. Some do it to find all the things that they should be doing. Others simply have nothing better do so they do it in order to feel like they are doing something. Either way most trails lead someplace. Whether that is a beautiful mountain valley such as the Rob Roy (pictured at left) or just the plain feeling of satisfaction that you get from going to A to B-a trail (or track as the Kiwi's call them) is an important journey. No matter how many times you put one foot in front of another.

Since as long as I can remember I have always wanted to come to New Zealand. It is the outdoor mecca of the world and it has not disappointed. More like..."frustrated" would be a better way to put it. The Great Walks, simply because they harbor the word "Great", often attract the crowds of the world. The Kiwis have done a great job at keeping control of that despite their sparse population. But something about that control and development has put me at a loss. Somehow Kiwis have made back country so accessible and common that sometimes I feel like I am at Disneyland on the trail. One of the reasons I take to the trail is a certain level of uncertainty and adventure it brings to my life. Up until this point I have felt that every walk I have travelled here that level of uncertainty has gone away. I know the route, I know that there will be a hut waiting for me, I know there will be sixty other people doing that same track at the same time, and I know that worse case scenario- if something were to happen- I could be whisked away via helicopter. (Each hut has a helicopter pad) Kiwis are crazy about helicopters. This is the only country in the world that you can actually hitchhike via helicopter. None of this generally occurs in the states and I have come to appreciate the wildness of the US's back country experience. Now throw all that out the window because I am about to contradict myself.

Having two "Great Walks" under my belt I decided to take the advice of many and dive into a lesser known track outside of Glenoarchy-about a 40 minute drive from Queenstown. Better yet..why do a track the way it is when you can combine two different tracks and make up your own route? And that is exactly what I did. Here was my chance to get away from all those people that have never tramped before but think they can now because they are in NZ. Starting from Wanaka I made my way up the Matikutiki Valley to Aspiring Hut-A hut that is not even owned by the DOC-and spent the night in the shadow of snow capped Mt. Aspiring in the heart of Mt. Aspiring National Park. There were only four other people in the hut with me that night. It was an easy 2.5 hour hike in so I took a side trip up a valley to the Rob Roy Glacier (pictured above) where I found one of the most pristine-"The hills are alive.." kind of places. In fact...when I leave NZ I will more than likely think about this place the most. It was simply everything I thought New Zealand would be-rolling blankets of flowers ending in white caps. To top it all off the sun was shining. I can't begin to tell you what a place like that is like in real life. So I took a zillion pictures. But in the end, even my own eyes didn't give it justice.

The next morning I was pumped yet uneasy. The day I faced was to be a hard one. I was finally doing a route completely alone and without the heaps of "want to be" trampers that flock to this part of the world. The route I planned to take when spoken of was met with "Isn't that dangerous?" and "Didn't a women just disappear from there?". So in light of such questionably, I had filled out a form with the DOC office that simply stated that if they had not heard from me in five days time they would come looking for me. My route from the hut would take me up over 1500 meters of alpine bliss to the Cascade Saddle. A route that can only be done in the summer time and is just about as technical you can get without getting into technical climbing. For most of the climb I was using all fours and loving every minute of it. From there I would be graced with views of the Dart Glacier before descending down into the Dart Valley where the Dart Hut would be waiting for me after about 8 hours of climbing and hiking. Several streams however lay between me and that hut. And although the warm sunny conditions were ideal for my climb they posed a bigger threat as they would feed the melt of far off glaciers thus increasing the volume of those streams making them impossible to pass. I carried an extra days worth of food as a precaution. Finally some uncertainty. In the end, the climb to the top of the saddle nearly took me five hours and I still was only about a third of the way to the end of my day. Feeling beaten, I did something that I had swore I would never do on the trail. I put my head phones on and let the likes of Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews, and Bebo Norman carry me over the mountain. And that they did. What awaited me at the top was the New Zealand that I had been waiting for. That special wild place that only New Zealand can harbor. There under the watchful eyes of Mt. Aspiring and the rest of the peaks lay a remnant that had filled this valley for miles and miles and for thousands of years. The Dart Glacier and ridge line after ridge line of south island white capped mountains. And I had it all to myself.

From there my route would take me down the valley that this glacier had carved for itself long ago until I reached the Dart Hut at the junction of the Rees and Dart Valleys. Here I would pick up the more popular Rees-Dart circuit. I still had two more days of walking ahead of me. While crossing a stream at the end of the glacier my boots slipped sending me halfway tumbling into a stream. A little shaken and wet I was no worse for the weary but my Nikon D60 had tumbled out of my pack enough to get submerged and it would be nearly two days before I turned it on again. (it working perfectly afterword of course!) From there my journey would take me through two days of the wide Dart Valley, often times reminding myself of the gentle country side that one would find in Montana or Idaho. On my third day I was to be beaten by another stream, to swollen to pass, that kept me from viewing another glacier off a side valley on the way. None the less, at nearly 5 kilometers long, the scenery of the Caddle Flats, found in the heart of the Dart Valley kept my mind off that defeat. And as the day wained on I found myself in the comfort of the Daley Flats Hut and the company of a few other trampers.

In the end, I found myself amongst the sleepy town of Glenarchy nestled in what I consider one of the most scenic valley towns in NZ. But I didn't see much of it except for the pillow on my bed at the Glenarchy Hotel resting easy at the fact that I had finally found what I was looking for. That place you can only come to NZ and walk to for. A place so pure I drank directly from the streams without filtering my water. A place I know I could only get to by working hard. A place I know that I could experience only in my own way. And that is the single greatest reason why I take to the trail.


Distance walked on the Cascade Saddle-Dart Valley: 88 km (54.68 miles)
Distance walked in New Zealand: 231.30 km (143.72 miles)