Adrenaline is a muscle that needs to be exercised..

Otherwise we become complacent and too comfortable and worse off- stagnate. It's good to be scared from time to time. It reminds you of your insignificance in the world.

Never mind the fact that I had already jumped on my 30th birthday or the fact that it was Friday the 13th or I had but one chance to jump in the most spectacular place in New Zealand. (the weather on the West Coast is notoriously finicky for jumping) I did it again for the scenery. What you say? Jump over the twin glaciers of Fox Glacier and Franz Joseph? The only place (except for Patagonia) where glaciers make it all the way down to the rainforest floor? Oh and the Tazman Sea and all of the west coast of the south island is right there? And all of this is back dropped by Mt. Tazman and Mt. Cook? The highest mountains in the southern Alps?

And I get a scenic flight before of the glaciers and mountains before I jump out of the door? And what? My exchange rate is incredible right now?

SIGN ME UP!

And jump I did. Through a cloud, over a glacier and next to the blue of the see. And as I fell I watched as the twin peeks of Mt. Tazman and Mt. Cook fall toward the sky past the inversion of the clouds and into the depths of my memory. Its easy to do really. You commit by stepping onto the plane. That's the easy part. Like falling in love with someone where the situation is almost impossible. Everything in your brain tells you that you shouldn't do it but everything in heart tells you need to do it. And so you do it. You step onto that plane and into that relationship despite what your logic tells you. And your life is so much better having done it.

The perspective you get is always worth the risk.

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)

The Rains Will Come:The Milford Track

The Milford Track is called "The Finest Walk in the World". I would like to happily rename it "The Wettest Walk in the World". Not that I am complaining. My trip is what it is. "Your lucky if it rains on the Milford" they said. "It's a completely different world. Waterfalls everywhere". That is fine and dandy..and they were correct, but what I didn't expect was three out of four days of deluge. And I used to think that Gortex was full of crap. I was wrong.

I had slipped into reservations for the Milford Track three months before my trip. This was a miracle. Considering it books up six months in advance during the high season and is the most popular Great Walk there is. Now having done it..I am not sure exactly why it is so popular other than a history of 19th century folk proclaiming its glory. It's not particular challenging. For most of it you could get a wheel chair up it. (I actually had a Kiwi tell me that). It actually had bathrooms every couple of miles or so. Its a mandatory four day track that starts with a boat ride up Lake Te Anau and walks through the heart of Fiordlands. First following the Clinton River and Valley, then up and over the Mackinnon Pass and then down the Arthur Valley ending in the great Milford Sound. The views were supposed to be amazing from Mackinnon Pass. There is an out house on the top of it that is supposed to have the best view while on a toilet in the world. Although I did use that outhouse, I wouldn't know about the view. The rainy clouds were so low it was as if I was going to the bathroom in the sky. Again.. I am not complaining. I have learned that the Milford Track is not about the track at all. Its about three things; water, wildlife, and the people that journey that it with you.


I have never really seen water before the Milford Track. Oh I have seen something like it before. It usually comes in the dark murky mess that we drink, bath or swim in everyday. But that is not water. Its water and something else. And most of the time alot of something else. And before I walked up the Clinton Valley on the first and second days of the Milford Track I had never seen water in its purest form. We are talking just one part oxygen and 2 parts hydrogen and nothing else. Water so clear and clean that you have no idea where the edge of it is or how deep it is because its like it is not there...its so clear. Water so clear that the one meter trout that are swimming next the eel in the water look as if they are a merely a foot below the surface when in fact they are twenty. The Clinton Valley has the cleanest watershed I have ever seen. Or how about the fact that after nearly 24 hours of raining on the second day that about every twenty feet there was a new waterfall cascading down the mountain side. You don't get to see that when it's dry. Or that fact that on the third day, after you hiked the long Clinton Valley and made it up over the Mackinnon Pass you can take a little side trip to the highest permanent waterfall in NZ: Southerland Falls. And if you are crazy enough, like I am, to take a walk behind the power and the fury of thousands of gallons of water falling nearly 603 meters to the rain forest floor. My second great New Zealand moment. (that's me in the picture praising life after walking behind the falls. It gives perspective..). After one short useless day of sun and three days of rain I had never been so wet. But a testament to the Italians that made my Gortex Asolo boots. My feet never got wet.

Or how about the birds that came to visit me daily. The Great thing about the Great Walks is the fact that the government agency that runs the Great Walks: The Department of Conservation (or DOC) cares also greatly about conserving the environment. I have never seen government agency so involved in the back country. Everyday I am out I feel as though big brother (DOC) is watching. If you sign up for a Great Walk you are signing up on a lesson in ecology, geology and the great lengths the DOC is going to keep invasive species at bay. (A huge problem for New Zealand...awe those pesky rabbits). Every night at the huts the hut warden gives a mandatory hut talk on things like the operation of the huts, the trail ahead of us, and the local animals in the area. On my first day on the trail after arriving at Clinton Hut I noticed some ducks on the river. I said to myself, " oh ducks". Ross-our hut warden (who looked like he strangely could be Sir Edmond Hilary's long lost brother) rather enthusiastically pointed out that these where in fact Blue Ducks..a rare species in New Zealand and a treat for us to see. There are only nine breading pairs in the world. Or as I approached the second hut, a Weka Bird crosses my path. Or on the third day a South Island Robin comes right up to me and pecks my boot. There are no large animals in New Zealand just heaps of birds. And this certainly was the place to see them.

But mainly the Milford Track is about the people that journey it with you. (more on people I met later) We all have interconnecting lines and every day about 40 of them converge on the Milford Track. And because you have to do the huts as they are arranged you get to know the 40 people that move from hut to hut with you quite well. Especially since day one and day two are relatively short hiking days and you have nothing better to do but sit around the hut and talk to everyone. Due to its popular nature its quite an international experience. There were 8 Israelis. No surprise there. I am begging to think that there is no one left actually in Israel... 8 Germans, 2 Italians, 2 Canadians, 4 Kiwis, 2 Dutch, 1 Australian and I the lone American. That fared well with my personality. I often got comments like "oh what is that crazy American doing today". I quite loved it.. but if one lonely trail in the middle of Fiorlands National Park can bring together the world into one line imagine what a global ecological plan can do?

Distance hiked on Milford Track: 53.5 Km (33.5 miles)
Distance hiked in New Zealand : 143.30 Km (89.04 miles)


Side note: I wound up in Milford Sound at the end of this trek. Where I proceeded to "Wait" to kayak Milford Sound due to the weather. I met a really great German couple on the Track and they invited me up to Key Summit on the Routeburn Track while I waited for the weather to clear. It finally did and I spent the next morning Kayaking the entire length of the sound out to the Tasman Sea as the sun rose early morning. The day was uncanny clear for the sound and both seal and dolphin swam along side of our convoy. My third great New Zealand moment. I am attaching a video of the dolphins.