Mount Hopeless

I stepped outside and the smell of humid concrete and sweating leaves signalled to my senses it was summer. The warm Northerly whipped through Wellington with the youthfulness of good news. On my bike commute the Northerly is my tailwind home, speeding me quick to my house, to my pre-packed car full of ice axes and crampons to seek an adventure colder from here.

My Canadian friends (Jenna and Jordan), SK and I were headed down to the northern end of the South Island to Nelson Lakes National Park. On the objective list was Mount Hopeless: with a name so tantalizingly romantic how could I resist? This trip was a bit different from other ventures in that we would have to get to the South Island (day 1) hike to the hut (day 2) which would then act as our base for attempting the summit (day 3) and then walk out again (day 4). So in addition to our climbing gear (harnesses, carabiners, 60 meter rope, helmet, ice axes, snow anchor, avalanche probe, shovel, etc) we would also need sleeping gear and cooking utilities. Hearing such a list, you might be unsurprised to hear my backpack was somewhere between 25-30kgs (55-66lbs). Jesus H. Christ is right.

We left after work and took the Interislander ferry to Picton, arriving somewhere around midnight, and drove two hours to Nelson Lakes. With the new moon lighting nothing, our car’s headlights signaled our arrival to the campsite’s rabbits who parted like water as they darted from the front of our car. Since they are an invasive species in NZ, we tried to hit as many as we could (kidding – but it wouldn’t have been a shame had we). We set up our tents and passed out.

The next morning I woke up in Vermont. Tall trees surrounded our campsite and the sounds of birds echoed louder than my alarm. Out of the tent I saw a dock leading to a gorgeous lake, its mountains softened by mist to look as if they were the glacier molded hills of home. I walked down the dock and peered into the still water, as clear as any part of the Deerfield, and was shocked back to New Zealand as an eel six feet long and six inches in diameter peeked up at me from its clear depths. The eel, ever so delicately, touched its nose to the lake’s surface: as if a hopeful pup in search of a wandering hand – but my hands don’t tend to wander around eels.

We broke camp, took a boat to the other side of the lake and started our hike to the  hut with our dense backpacks. It was quite comical to see our line of intrepid selves amidst a blazing summer with winter gear hopefully attached to our backs. En route to the hut we ran into “the Character”. The Character smiled at us with cigarette stained teeth and eyed our weighty packs: “Where are you going?”
Us: “Attempting Mount Hopeless tomorrow.”
Character: “Snap! What route?”
Us: “Hopeless Creek Route.”
Character: “Snap! I tried it a week ago, but there was too much wind. You will need crampons. You have crampons? Oh and you have technical ice axes? And rope? You won’t need those. Your packs must be heavy. Well, I’ll see you at the hut.”
The Character trounced off with his much lighter pack. After the Character’s final judgement of our equipment, I wondered if “snap” meant the same thing in NZ as it did in USA (‘snap’ [adj.]: awesome, a term used when the speaker is impressed) because the Character certainly seemed anything but. A few minutes later I asked SK: “What does ‘snap’ mean in NZ?”
SK: “It means ‘me too.’” So no, the Character was not impressed, he was being just as disparaging as he came off. And, bonus, we would be sharing our hut and hiking plans with him. Joy.

The remainder of the hike was laborious, mostly due to the weight of our packs, and it took effort to remind myself to lift my head and look around. The path took us slowly higher and higher on a winding track whose only direction was to follow a river. We snaked our way through trees and grass and gained height only at the reverse of a waterfall. Exposed rock worn free by hundreds of years of pounding stream ran smoothly under our feet, offering a not-so-tempting slide to the smooth crevassed rapids below.  Having gained our height we left the rock’s dramatic antics behind and found ourselves on a path of emerald moss with chandeliers of sage dangling delicately over our heads.  We crossed smaller stream beds, both dry and full, pausing to stop to fill our bottles in the later and not having to wait to steralise before parching our march’s thirst. A benefit to NZ’s lack of mammals: the water in the moutains is pure to drink straight from its source.

After four hours of walking my pack only grew heavier. The weight of it both propelling me forward on downward slopes and dragging me back as I attempted an incline. Time slowed. I dragged. And the estimated time of arrival came and went with only the sighting of another river crossing: one that I did not mind I couldn’t manage dry.

Finally, from up ahead, the triupmant cry of Jordan spurned on my weighted waddle to at last see the beautiful crest of our humble DOC abode. 

We got to the hut and the Character was waiting, his legs crossed at the kitchen’s table and a self-rolled cigarette dangling determinedly from his mouth, “Welcome,” he said but his eyes waited for us to comment on the smoke leaking from his mouth inside the communal space. Unfortunately for his preemptive self-victimization, Kiwis and Canadians are too polite to comment (and I, the sole American, was too much in the minority!). Instead we set about vigorously rubbing our feet and unpacking our bags. While we organized our things the Character chipped in with a litany of judgemental commentary: “La Sportiva boots? Those must have been expensive. How much did you pay for them? You see mine? I got them for free. Otherwise I would never have been able to afford them! But they serve me well. You’re bringing up a rope? What is that, 60 meters? That must be heavy. You don’t need that rope. Is that a personal locator beacon? Wow, mine is about two times the size of that! Don’t bother with one now: I just take the risk. And I wouldn’t bother with those avalanche transceivers. You won’t need two ice axes, especially not two technical ones. I do everything with my walking ice axe and I’m fine.”
After about 15 minutes of his “Climbier-than-thou” dialogue, I had enough: “Yeah, well we’re just beginners so we’re going to bring what makes us comfortable.”
The Character humphed to himself: “Do what you want, I’m just trying to save you a lot of weight. What time are you leaving tomorrow?”
“5/5:30AM”
“Jeeze!  You don’t need to leave that early! I’m planning on heading out at 10! You might as well sleep in!” I walked out. The others followed.

The route to the summit of Hopeless is unmarked so we decided it would be good to climb up to the edge of the bushline to make sure we knew where we were going in the darkness of our pre-dawn start. Sans packs we easily rock hopped our way over a river and called out to each other as we found ten paces of a trail before it split into two ambiguous directions. One of us would scout one way while the other took the second and we’d mentally map which way was simpler. This continued for about 200 meters vertical. Roots served as handholds as we pulled our way through whipping bush wondering what this would possibly be like with a full pack on our backs. But we had excitement on our side. For as much as the Character was a dark abyss of self-doubt inspiring negativity: this was our first mountaineering trip to the South Island and we were on the enchanting slopes of Mount Hopeless! A mountain so called for it was considered impossible to climb until 1933. By the by, the first known ascent of Mount Cook was 1894. Although, to be fair, some random peak in NZ might not have been high on the h-core mountaineer’s objective list in the first place, my pride doesn’t mind the inferred conclusion these facts might lead you to.

Months earlier an instructor had mentioned her name, Mount Hopeless, as a good objective to have for a mountain to climb post course. Interest piqued by her defiant title, I researched the climb and fell in love with her elusivity. Her summit is perfectly postured, the summation of three ridges twisting, twirling towards the sky, like a dancer paused in motion, her three arms poised in coy devotion. A hard invitation; a challenging beckoning to see who I was; an inverted amphitheater on which to seek my limits and test them, as Hopeless watched from her snow encased throne. With the hard-won success of Girdlestone riding on my mind, self-doubt didn’t play a part in setting my sights on what I would later learn was the most technical peak in the region.

Back at the hut, sleep did not come easily and was made worse by the good intentions of an early night. My mind raced with trepidation of how my fear of heights would cope and whether I could mentally handle the exposure of Hopless’ height. My thoughts cruelly drifted to SK and the ‘what-if’s’ of a misplaced step. I shuddered in my sleeping bag, willing to shake the thoughts away that I might have some well needed sleep. I began to count my breath, deep long intakes to sooth my mind to rest.

5:00AM. The alarm sounded. In silence we ate a quick breakfast of granola bars, brushed our teeth, turned on our headlamps and started the trail. My blood pumped coffeelessly in the earth’s sunless cold. My slumbered senses jarred with the harsh start of steep rock as I forced my body through lithe trees up the foothill of Mount Hopeless. We broke the bush line just as the sun broke past the horizon’s barrier and broke our morning silence. The sun’s kiss noticeably warmed our cheeks as well as those on the faces of nearby mountains. With continued on, the grass offering less obstacles although making up for it in gradient. We came to snow and put on our crampons and switch backed our way until we reached a bowl at the base of where the climbing gets steeper. We checked the topo map and noted two possible routes: the left was the actual route (we did not figure this out until later), up a steep couloir which would bring us to a saddle at the base of the summit plateau. To the right was a less steep slope up to the ridge which then joined the saddle after about 120 meters of ridge travel. We went right.

The Canadians started ahead while SK and I closely followed. As we reached the ridge my confidence began to waver as I realized the far side of the ridge offered a far worse fall.  While on the side we were approaching from the exposure (height) was only about 200 meters, the far side offered a very quick trip to the bottom 800 meters down (FYI that is 200 meters short of a KILOMETER DROP). While it wasn’t necessarily over a cliff, it was certainly a long, long, long way to go.

“Rationally speaking, I have the skills to prevent myself from falling over this,” my inner dialogue attempted to take control of the situation. “I know how to self-arrest, I know how to walk on snow and, in fact, this ridge would be no big deal if it were only a foot drop to either side, so why should it be any different with the increased drop?” By the way, this rationality doesn’t effing work. Instead, I begin to use all four of my limbs in an attempt to give myself greater confidence: “Two crampon-ed feet and two ice axes, I am a four limbed animal, I have great, great balance. I am fine. I am sturdy.” These thoughts chaotically tossed themselves around my head and I desperately tried to find one which would provide a solid mental ground to stand on. Ahead, the ridge narrowed to barely a foot’s width. On one side a cornice (an overhanging piece of ice that if made unbalanced by an external factor (ie me) would crack and break off down the slope) and another narrow bit of mixed snow and ice clinging to a rock. I gritted my teeth and narrowed my mind to one mantra, “I am balanced. I am okay. I am balanced. I am okay.” Moving one ice axe then the other I transferred my weight from the cornice to the rock and sidled myself back onto the secure ridge that returned on the other side. I breathed a sigh of relief, proud and terrified of my accomplishment.

I turned to face forward along the ridge and saw Jordan just beyond a final step on what looked like the summit: “Come on, Jade,” I whispered aloud to myself, “You can do it.  It is just there. Come on.” I reached the final step and begin to feel a rise of panic as, again, the gravity of exposure tugged hard at my confidence. I placed my ice axes high, over the step and lifted my leg to shift my body weight up. I froze. I turned my head to look at my leg and saw that I, in my fear, had put my knee on the slope as a way to leverage myself up. This is a very, very grave mistake. And I was suddenly acutely aware that I was beyond the point of fear that is safe, for I had passed the point of logic. Rationally speaking, there is no way that my knee against the slope would have had more grip than my crampon.  However, in the irrational haze of my fear, my posture changed and, in-so-doing, put  balance and my body in far greater danger. I slowly took my knee off the slope and replaced it with my crampon and stepped up. I rested for a second there, holding my place above the step as I let the significance of my mistake wash over me and hit home – not in an angry way but in a very pointed way. I rose and walked slowly, thoughtfully to what I then discovered was only the false summit.

SK is already there and I can see, for the first time ever in all of our expierence of the mountains, fear in his eyes. “How are you doing?” I ask.
“Honestly,” SK remarked, “I am shitting myself.”
I looked beyond him at the summit and saw Jenna and Jordan continuing ahead. “What do you think?”
SK followed my eyes, “I feel accomplished with having got here. I don’t really feel a need to go for summit.”
A part of me washed over in gratitude. Another part looked logically, stubbornly at the technical aspect of pushing forward: “We do have the skills to do it. We have the rope. The main thing is whether we have the time and energy to add it to our descent.”
SK looked at the summit: “If we went forward, I would want to get the rope out. That would slow us down and we are already going pretty slow. My guess is it would take us two hours to get from here to the summit and return back to where we are now.” We fell silent as we each individually assessed our energy levels.
I thought about how close I came to climbing on my knees. Mentally, I am crushed and I am aware my exhaustion could affect my foot placement. I knew that while I had the technical ability to get to the summit my fear had utterly exhausted me: I just couldn’t say it yet. “What do you want to do?” I asked SK.
“Energywise, I don’t think I would be as safe on the way down if we continued. My vote is to go back. I’m good with here.”
I nodded with honest agreement, “Yes, ‘here’ is quite the damn accomplishment.” We share a nervous laugh and get out the rope for our descent.

Further along, Jenna and Jordan (who are slightly more experienced with exposure!) meet up with the Character as the saddle just below the summit plateau. After an awkward interaction in which the Character presumptuously stated: “I’m not going up to the summit unless I’m on your rope!” Jenna and Jordan decide to turn around. Uncomfortable with the idea of tying into the rope with someone they had never climbed with before (which is entirely rational as adding a third person does mean you are putting your life in that person’s hands) they decided not to go for summit. Truly, it was really bad mountain form of the Character to even ask to go on their rope.

We returned down and ate our lunch. Despite not reaching the summit, spirits remained high as we all rated the trip a success. Not far from the summit, we had made it a huge way for our skill level and had done alright with our first true exprience with exposure. We did not lose any equipment and, most importantly, we were all safe and uninjured. I was proud that we were able to continue to make decisions that were right for us. And I was exceptionally proud and grateful to have a climbing partner like SK who was able to think clearly through the haze of fear to signal the time to turnaround.

We continued down, talking about the ridge line and wondering whether the route to the left would have been less mentally draining with the lack of exposure. We admired the horizon and its multitude of snow covered mountains piercing the land and air with pure white pricks of snow. We returned to the hut and the Character blissfully let us be and we all fell into a much deserved sleep.

The next morning, Jordan and I woke early before sunrise to climb the ridge opposite Hopeless in hopes of seeing our route and her summit peak. Finally gaining height, we sat enchanted as the dawn clouds silently evaporated in the sun who painted rose Mount Hopeless’ slopes. Still, from our vantage, we could not see her vertex. Ever elusive, Mount Hopeless’ summit remained privy only to those worthy of reaching it.

Being back. Being back has felt a bit – each time I come back I find what I do on a daily basis more and more suffocating. I find solace in my bike rides. I find long runs through Mount Victoria soothing. But my lunch at work tastes stale in my mouth. My crossing of roads is full of artificial intention I create with invented purposefulness. Each task is short enough to keep my sanity from seeing too far into the future to desolate unfulfillment. The months until June (Southern Hemisphere winter) stretch before me and I break things down. I conspire stress to pass the time quicker. My heart beats for the weekend and my sick days are my rest days. I do not have time to stop. Because if I do. Well. What if my dissatisfaction catches up?

Still, I find this mountaineering to be a labyrinth of mirrors and I am at a loss at what I will find at the center. If I get to the center. Too many mirrors reflected could twist me off a cliff. Each curve dips deeper into layers I had not considered before – as if I am accessing dimensions of myself previously overlooked in the routine of brain function.

On Saturday I attempted Mount Hopeless. On Sunday I was sore physically. On Monday I was sore mentally. Back at the rock climbing gym, I found I could only climb grades way lower than normal. A wise friend said to me “You have let alpine get into your head. You can fall on rock. You’re not allowed to fall on the mountain. But here, just let go.”  Maybe I had. Maybe the terror of standing on the ridge was more than I had imagined. Maybe the fear had seeped its way into my very bones and was only just starting to secrete itself out of my marrow, into my veins – until it eventually pumped itself dry.

Today, I did not climb again. I could feel the fear there and I did not want to have to try and tackle it again. I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t face the frustration at the invisible nothing that was haunting my head and jolting my muscles at the moment of uncoiling – tensing them to freeze. The invisible hand of it flaring my self-doubt at the last moment of every step. Which brings to question, can I envision my success? Can I instead, in the moment of doubt, flash a brilliant moment of self-belief? I would be so powerful. I would be unstoppable. But how is that something to cultivate? How does one cultivate belief in one’s self at the expense of doubt? Have I been raised in a culture of doubt? Or is my self-doubt a product of me? Where is the root of this twisted weed – for it’s impossible I was born with it. How does one evict self-doubt?

At the dock before sunrise, getting ready for our boat to take us to the mountain’s beyond the hill’s shoulders.

Jordan is a bit more eager to entertain the eels with his fingers than I am!

Our packs tossed in the back of the boat that will take us to the start of the track.

River crossing back at the beginning when I had the energy to care about staying dry. Little did I know, this was one of the easier crossings! (Photo credit: Stoked for Saturday)

Walking up the valley, I’m with the green bag, Jenna to my right and SK taking up the rear with his flamboyant knickers, I mean, long johns. (Photo credit: Stoked for Saturday).

Drinking water straight from the river. #nofilter

Emerald carpet leads the way to our hut.

Figuring out where the trial might go to get up to Mount Hopeless. We later learn it is up to the right of the ravine, up the bush-grass slope to the snow and then veers right towards the sharp pointy bit to the right. (Also: see our wee hut to the right, might help give a sense of scale!). Photo credit: Stoked for Saturday

The sun joined us around 6:00am on our ascent. Photo credit: SK.

Mount Hopeless sunrise.

Getting our crampons on as we switch to a snow ascent. Photo credit: Stoked for Saturday

Heading into the bowl – this is where things start to get a bit more technical.  To the middle of the photo (at about 1:00 from the guy up front) is the actual route. To the left and off this photo and above the bluffs to the right top of this photo is the route we invented and took instead. Photo credit: Stoked for Saturday.

Heading up the ridge of Mount Hopeless. Jenna up front followed by SK and me in the back. To give you a point of reference, the sharp bit of rock behind me is the “sharp pointy bit” I described in an earlier caption. Photo credit: Stoked for Saturday.

SK balancing his way along the ridge, the false summit peaking up deceptively in the background.

The terrible and beautiful ridge of Mount Hopeless. Photo credit: Stoked for Saturday

Jenna maneuvering the tricky section with a cornice to her left (right of the photo) and a sharp fall to her right (left of the photo).  

Me as close to Hopeless as I am going to get. This trip. Note the awkward smile that is me attempting to still be excited about this moment while still unfortunately in this moment.

My very handsome climbing partner, SK, used the rock in front of him as a belay station to bring me back down to almost safety.  

Finally back on stable ground, we “ski” our way back to the hut in the soft snow of a gorgeous afternoon.

This is the only photo I captured of our scramble ascent up the bushes.  The red dot is SK’s helmet as he works to slide down a short, sheer piece of rock while holding onto flimsy branches to either side.

Breakfast time inside the hut – perhaps a tad delirious after our the big summit push the day before.

Mount Hopeless dominates the horizon with two of her ridges riding high to hide her true summit. I am beyond grateful to have spent the days adventuring with her and learning from her. Although sad to leave, I already begun to conspire my second visit and summit attempt. It would seem, after everything, I am hopelessly in love with Mount Hopeless. Photo credit: Stoked for Saturday.

Reaching the Vertex: the second attempt to summit Girdlestone

Again I was on Ruapehu’s slopes and back on the Whakapapa [Fa-ka-papa] side where I had spent all of those weekends learning alpine skills to memory. Although the nerves of fear still had not worked their way out of my spine, I was determined to attempt again (jury was out on whether I might bail for an easier route). Again Jenna, Jordan, SK, myself, and a Brit mountain femme named Helen had driven the five hours up to Ruapehu.  In the car Jordan had laid out his plan for what he referred to as ‘Girdlestone Revenge’: day one, summit bag as many of the less technical peaks we could in a day. Day two: Girdlestone. I clapped aloud at his ingenuity. Who knew warming up before a challenge could come off as rocket science to an ex-athlete?

Early Saturday morning we had set off to summit Peretetaitonga [perry-tay-thai-tong-ga] (Pere), a strolling peak overlooking Whakapapa’s ski field. On this peak we were slightly pushed out of our comfort zone (there was a bit of an ice wall thing to shimmy along, but it was only a couple meters high and if you fell it would just be down a long slope of crusted snow – so not the end of the world). The cloud danced around us, allowing us flashes of views as its veils of cloud shuttered open and close. We walked along Pere’s ridge until we met her highest point. I smiled, almost bashfully, as I realized Pere had become my first peak to summit. Elated, I felt a pressure lifted as I broke the previously seemingly smelted association between summiting and mind pounding fear. As we traversed Pere’s summit,  I finally saw Ruapehu’s crater lake amongst the uneven summit plateau.

After a lunch, we wandered along Ruapehu’s western ridge summiting a few more of the smaller of Ruapehu’s twelve peaks: Dome (which doesn’t actually count) and Glacier Knob (also doesn’t actually count). We left the mountain with the sun’s final embers trailing us down, nerves settled from our snow practiced gallivanting.

And then it was Sunday.

The benefit of the day before was we were quite familiar with the snow conditions and so had an idea of what to expect. Avalanche rating was at 1 Low (unheard of good luck) and so it was with curbed enthusiasm we retraced our footsteps back to the bottom of the south face of Girdlestone. With snow conditions perfect and spirits high, I struck out up front and relished the perfect amount my crampons sunk into the snow: just enough to feel secure but not too far as to use up precious energy. Our switchbacks rose us to the height of our previous attempt’s turnaround point two hours earlier than our previous attempt. We exchanged timid smiles, feeling signs pointing to summiting and yet not wanting to create a promise to our endorphins that we could not keep. After all, the ice wall rose ahead in the same place it had before.

We drew closer, examining the conditions and seeing that the weeks and weather had softened its unsociable ice facade to a more approachable snowy consistency. Helen led the way, the points of her crampons and the picks of her ice axes raising her like a mechanical spider on spindled metal spikes. She struck the snow again and again with her right foot to create a step to raise herself up. Weight on her newly placed foot, she repeated the refined method with her left: plugging us a ladder on which to ascend.  

We reached a small saddle and SK, Helen and I paused. Looking up the path continued at much the same degree, but the consequences of the fall had suddenly increased to include ice coated rocks and a few bluffs. Jenna and Jordan made the decision to continue soloing up the mountain (not using rope). Helen looked unsure and SK, whose boots were a bit soft to be on the level of climb we were on in the first place, seemed wary. I looked at the clouds coming in, as they were forecast to do in the afternoon, and felt reluctant to slow our pace with a rope. But truly, I knew my impatience did not matter. What mattered was that one of my team (on this occasion it was a threesome between myself, SK, and Helen) wanted to use the rope. And so without ado: we got out the rope. I do not believe in debating these things. In my opinion: the single most important thing on an alpine trip is that everyone within your particular team (who you are roped to) is within their comfort zone to the extent that can be made possible. To me, the loss of confidence in one’s steps, in one’s abilities, in one’s placement on a ridge is more dangerous than anything else. Loss of confidence could mean stumbling on a perfectly flat plateau. 

Two pitches later, we crested the last ridge and our eyes caught sight of Girdlestone’s perfect summit pyramid. It rose with pride and classical posture, a giant of elegance caught and summarised into one range of illustration. Awed in its beauty, my heart nearly broke with the desire to feel alive at the vertex of earth and sky. Clouds curled over Ruapehu’s summit plateau and I offered a: “Do you think we have time to make it before the cloud comes in?”
Helen responded: “Yes, if we hurry.” And then I let loose my internal exhilaration, for I finally knew the day would not end before I had reached the top of Girldestone.

We set up a t-slot anchor and I lead the route up and settled into a fifty meter rhythm: step, step, axe, axe, step, step, axe, axe. As I began to rise, I became conscious of unsettling sensation coming from the corner of my eye. I glanced and realized the foreign feeling was that of the ground giving to air as I made my way to the top of Girdlestone’s pyramid. The realization of being surrounded by emptiness: air that is unshaped by tree, nearby building, or hill; to be the thing most tangible for hundred of meters around is uniquely unnerving. The summit close, just two meters away: and I reached the end of the rope.  Thoroughly tantalized at how close I was, a snowball’s throw, I set up an anchor and readied to belay SK and Helen up the final pitch.

As I sat belaying, joy spread through my fingers and a smile born of soul stretched across my face. I could not take my surroundings in enough and my eyes watered as I opened them still wider to print to memory the ground falling away so steeply to dramatic, romantic nothingness. The ridge of Tahurangi glared its hard beauty under the cloud’s shadow, daring the last of the sun’s light. SK and Helen joined Jordan, Jenna and I at the summit. We secured ourselves to the anchor and cautiously danced amongst ourselves on Girdlestone’s perilous peak and stood in awe of ourselves and the mountain; of lessons learned and objectives attained. And as much as I wanted to, we could not sit there forever for the clouds would no longer be stayed by Ruapehu’s crater ridge and made clear their goal to engulf Girdlestone.

SK and Helen went down first. I followed, very conscious of the fact that if I fell, I would fall the length of the rope, and the length of the rope again past our anchor set up (100 meters [328ft] in total).  As it was my turn to climb down, the clouds triumphantly closed in. At the same inconvenient instant, I realized the rope had caught on a belligerent ridge of ice. I tried in vain to flip the rope over to the correct, safer side: but failed. Panic began to rise as I realized I would have to climb over the ice to the other side where the snow was fresher and less stable. Thoughts of having SK look on as I slipped, stumbled and careened down the mountain passed him reminded me to calm my overactive imagination. I looked at the caught rope: well, Jade, that’s just the way it is. Mind focused: I dug my ice axes firmly into the ridge and kicked my crampons into the ice: no steps to be mistaken for there was no ground to carry me a stumble. The descent to SK and Helen seemed to last forever, as the clouds rolled and the wind rose, haunting stories of fast changing weather and unexpected fatalities played at the edges of my mind. I reached SK and Helen, grateful and shaken. With perfectly timed coincidence, the clouds began to clear.

We switch backed our way down an easier slope, unconsciously spacing ourselves to process our own silent world of endorphins and mixed emotions. Taking up the back of our group, I watched as each one stopped several times to turn around and look at Girdlestone. I never asked them what it was that made them look back, what emotions rose untamed beneath their surface, forcing them to take one last glance. On my own look-backs, I can tell you it was for love. Love of the mountain and all its slopes had forced me to be and to become in order to join its presence at its peak. Cresting the final ridge that would finally take Girdlestone’s view beyond my sight my heart broke a little, and a piece left to rest with Girdlestone as a gift: in return of the gift it had given me.  

We made the last chair down and joined together reunited in celebration with a well earned beer at the local bar in Ohakune. “What do you guys want to drink?” Jordan asked.
I pointed to one on tap: “We don’t have a choice, Speights Summits all around.”

Following the ridge to Peretetaitonga’s summit. Ahead of our group is the ice wall we shimmied along with our ice tools, probably the crux of the route (crux = rock speak for hardest part).

Me being bashful in my first summit photo. You can tell I am a bit freaked as I am not doing the standy-raised-arms-king-of-the-hill pose. Nah, just kneeling, with an awkward thumbs up…

Looking back at SK on the summit of Pere as the cloud rolled in.

Lunchtime! Crater lake to our left and Tahurangi (Ruapehu’s highest peak) somewhere in the clouds beyond. Girdlestone, if it were clear, would be somewhere to the left of this photo.

SK and I at the “summit.” of Dome peak. You can tell I have progressed in comfort quite significantly from the Pere photo… Goes to prove this is really more of a well located hillock than a peak per say.

On top of Dome “peak” you can find this guy: the Dome “shelter”. Maybe now that I’ve said it’s a hut, you can make out the A-frame of its roof. and see that the ice frozen wind is where the front door should be. God forbid you are ever in the level of serious conditions and need to find shelter in this – although maybe you’ll prevent hypothermia with the effort it would take to ice-chip your way in!

… and the side view of the Dome shelter. Or it could be a frozen Sonic the Hedgehog. Either or.

Walking along the ridge to Glacier Knob.

At the summit of Glacier Knob “peak.” Jordan on the left with Jenna, me and Helen to his right.

We practiced some steep rope work in preparation for Girdlestone the following day. Here Jordan sits belaying a seemingly sneaky Jenna up the shoulder of Te Heu Heu (another peak of Ruapehu’s twelve).

And so we start up Girdlestone. We moved so quickly, we forgot to take photos: this is Helen (front) and me (behind) on the ice wall at which we turned around two weeks prior. This is also what “front pointing” looks like.  Photo credit: Stoked for Saturday.

At this point, Helen and SK (below) were ready to rope in. I (at the top of the rope) felt fairly comfortable at this stage (yeah, I don’t know why either – normally I’m the first to loose confidence) so I decided to lead the pitch (length of rope). Leading always has a bit more of an edge to it because if I fell just after this photo had been taken, I would have fallen the length of the rope back down to Helen and SK, and then that entire length again below them. Which, as you can see behind Helen and SK, could potentially have a few consequences! Photo credit: Stoked for Saturday.

The summit pyramid of Girldestone! Jenna and Jordan are just ahead on their way to set up an anchor to belay the last 60 meters to the summit. The little gremlin at the bottom of it is actually another student from our TTC course (we later found out he got serious frost bite during this trip!).

Me belaying SK and Helen up from the summit of Girdlestone as the clouds swirl around us. Photo credit: Stoked for Saturday.

Our very organized safety set up as we balanced on Girdlestone’s summit. Photo credit: Stoked for Saturday.

An adventurous snowboarder met us up here and we were able to snap a group photo of our Summit Team. From right Jenna (red coat), Me (dark purple coat), Helen (turquoise), SK (orange), and Jordan (blue in back).

On our way down: SK wraps up the rope as we put it away as the slope smoothed its way back to level ground.

Our trail leaving Girdlestone via the southwest face.

Spaced apart and lost in our own thoughts we head back to Turoa’s ski field: physically and mentally processing the day’s adventure.

My lovely sketch of our route up and down Girdlestone. The light blue to the right is our route up the south face while the darker blue is our return route down the south face.

Mountain Femme Rising

This weekend was a rollercoaster of rhythmic emotions that clashed and clamored to be heard over the roar of wind and snow. Calls of ice riled up my spine in chills of joy and spite. How can the two combine? Why, in the balanced dance of longevity and adventure? In the waltz of mortality and vigorous love to be alive? In the ballet of twisted pain perched perfectly on the point of desire attained? This is where I lived this weekend, the rumble and thunder still ebbs at the edge of my mind, haunting for a crisper time.SK and I had the final weekend of our Mountaineer course with the Tararua Tramp Club (TTC). This didn’t just happen out of nowhere: I have been, outside of my blog, endeavoring to overcome my fear of heights through the painstaking process of rock climbing (it’s working) all with the desired result to become a Mountaineer. The Mountaineers I met a few years ago who summited Ama Dablam had finally come to the fore of my mind. The whispering hints of “maybe you want to be surrounded by snow covered mountains” no longer would be sidled. They demanded: “You must become a mountaineer. Sort it out: Now.” And suddenly I knew I could not leave New Zealand without first seeing the view from Aoraki/Mount Cook’s stocky top.

So I must learn to walk. In crampons. With an ice ax. With rope tied to my harness and carabiners at the ready in my clumsy gloves, I must learn to tie a figure of eight knot in my sleep; goodness knows mountaineers seem to have little of it once on an adventure.

But let’s take a step back, and stop speaking with such grandeur. The course’s training ground was Mount Ruapehu: an active volcano smack dab in the middle of New Zealand’s North Island, and the island’s only ski slope. It was odd, I admit, the first time I saw people cruising down on snowboards avoiding not trees, but sharp lava rock frozen in fearsome shapes like barbed knives waiting for a skier to catch an edge. And do note: I said Active. Meaning, there are loudspeakers throughout the slope which are rigged to some sensors on the summit crater to blare out if there is some volcanic action. Hopefully skiers know enough to climb onto a ridge to avoid the flood of lahar (like lava, but a more nerd specific term). Kiwis must be crazy. Regardless, we were not there to ski in the ravines for future lahar flows, but to climb up the ridges of Ruapheu’s moundyness!

The first day of pitched climbing (walking up a long hill with a rope and leap-frogging your climbing partner) I looked ahead at the angle of the snow and did not understand how I would cope. It was steep and there were lava rocks below waiting to impale me. But rock climbing has taught me to breathe through hindering fear, to look at my equipment (in this instance, crampons and an ice ax) and say: I am secure. All steps after were my empowerment made manifest! We continued our leap frogging up and up, shouting “ROCK” occasionally to our fellow intrepids as we miscalculated the security of a boulder on which to set up a safety rope. Luckily, all of the accidental catapults were similarly poorly aimed and no one was injured. We ended our rope relay at the entrance of a cave where our very civilized descendant of a British settler (also known as Paul the TTC President) pulled out his thermos and we had a cup of tea to pair with our view.

That was last weekend. This weekend the culmination of our learning was to end in the glorious crescendo of sleeping in a self-dug snow cave. Our group set out in blue skies and made our cramp-on way to a saddle in the ridge: our cavesite.

At this point I want to digress and talk about “place” and “being”. My entire [short] career of being on a rock wall, gym, or whatever means of going vertical while tied to a rope has been forced and merely the fruition of my own unshaken determination (although now I do kinda enjoy it). In juxtapose, walking on snow with crampons (perhaps it is my Vermont upbringing) was immediately natural. The scraping of my ice ax on the hard snow sounds as sonorous to me as the voice of a mum to her newborn. I lived that joy of precise place and be-dom as I coursed up the slope, tirelessly inventing switchbacks along ridges smoothed over by kilos and kilos of snow. Reaching towards the top of the ridge, I began to see the view edge itself so coyly beyond the immediate obstruction, and finally crested to see for miles and miles to snow covered Ngauruhoe (known in film as Mount Doom) and to the West beyond to symmetrical Taranaki (known in film as Mt Fuji). The spine of the pinnacles reared fantastically towards me, daring me to attempt to pass. In a year I hope to, but for now, I turn away in search of a slope to start digging.

After a few snow tests (which comprised digging out a pillar of snow and seeing whether there are weak layers via whacking it on top with a shovel: very scientific) we found a slope that was non-avalanchey. While there are various “styles” to constructing a snow cave, the basic architecture of ours was a 2m(6ft) tunnel dug into a slope which opened to a kitchen bench area to the right (6ft high) and a sleeping platform to our left. Now (I’m going to see if I can explain this, but there is a picture below), the level of warmth in the snow cave depends on how high above the ceiling of the entrance tunnel the platform for the sleeping area is. To put it practically: our tunnel was 2ft highish and the height of the raised platform we slept on was 2.5ft highish. This way heat stays in and carbon dioxide flows out. This worked so well, in fact, that while it was -4F (-20C) outside it was quite warm inside. The whole construction took four of us five hours to dig. Although, if you were building this in an emergency, you wouldn’t bother with the platform, the kitchen, etc: the object would be to get out of exposure!

By nightfall, the harsh world of nature had decided to show us just how terrible exposure was and began spitting bits of ice down the slope amidst vaulting wind. Our cave, so still on the inside, was a sanctuary unto itself. I only dared followed the stars’ siren call once (I don’t see them often enough in Wellington) and held my pain aside for a moment to let my heart burst at the ombre orange-blue-black glow of winter’s dusk. The milky way made an early show, stretching from the summit of Ruapehu across to top Tongariro before melding into infinity. The LED light hanging in our kitchen saturated the covering snow with blue warmth: a star of our own glowing as if in galactic mimicry. Unfortunately, the lens of an iPhone 6 is still not as good as a real camera. So instead my words must make that image immortal.

I slept well and I was warm. In fact, I was so comfortable on the layers of snow, tarp, backpack, sleeping mat, I kept waking up in dreamy incredulity at how “fine” I was. Morning brought through our entrance a soft, glow – the kind modern living spaces spend hundreds attempting to replicate – accompanied by the full, beautiful acoustic silence of weighted air. A yoga-like calm descended on my mind as I stared at the ceiling and saw every ice crystal as a sparkle in an all encompassing chandelier. My mindful meditation abruptly startled by Paul the President who burst through our tunnel with a contradicting comment: “It is absolute sh*t outside.” I slipped out of my sleeping bag, dropped off the sleeping platform to crouch in the kitchen and looked outside: it was white. And the floor of our tunnel had been raised by fresh snow at least six inches.

I had thought the elements had shown their might last night, but I knew nothing (Jon Snow). After packing up, we began the grueling process of returning to the club hut. Slow steps through soft snow, with 60k wind pitching itself at every non-overlapped opening in my layers of attire. I bent my head down and wished for better circulation to my hands. As we crested the ridge, visibility went down to 10 meters and vignetted further by the ice forming on my goggles. I turned to look for SK and could see a black formless shape following my own. I looked ahead and lost our leader, until I realized I was nearly on top of him in my ice-blindness. The wind began to steal my breath and I could feel panic rising as I felt my body temperature drop. I drove my ice axe into the ground and fell to my knees, tears of voiceless pain screaming from my fingers. At this moment, I was convinced of the probability that I had frostbite and that my fingers would have to be amputated. Luckily, I was still on a course. And one of the Goddess instructors bequeathed unto me her spare pair of gloves. I may or may not have imprinted on her in the process of this exchange.

Ten minutes later, we were off the ridge and left behind its piercing wind and lack of visibility. That brutal exposure that I spent a total of 15 minutes in would have been cruel enough to vanquish a trapped climber in two hours. But there are too many opportunities to be dour in this field of work, and the post endorphin rush ran rampant and I had all ten fingers! Despite the momentary scare at my coldness, SK admitted to me: “There is something about walking through something like that and knowing you can survive that I love.”

And I agree. I love seeing a challenge and overcoming my mental self-doubts to reach success. What is beautiful about mountaineering, is that one must climb on the mountain’s terms. For all the combat language tossed about by climbers: Mountains cannot be conquered. There is neither “taming” nor “defeating” because the mountain is both eternal and unfixed. It is at the conspiracy of the mountain that I might reach its summit. And I look forward to this parlance of equals: mountain and woman, for it is in the coupling of the two each acquires meaning.

Common? No. It is with a vague sort of embarrassed wish to keep my outside-of-work-life a secret that I slyly respond to a work colleagues’ inquest to my weekend’s use: “Oh, just went up to Ruapehu. It was good to get some fresh air.”

Rock climbing at Titahi Bay – a short drive outside of Wellington. Titahi Bay is known for having crumbly rock that falls off in big chunks when you least want it to. This is the place that made me love rock climbing. Rock gyms are a necessary evil end to a means – but climbing outdoors (the smell of the rock, the feel of the sun, and the sound of waves crashing and sea birds calling) is pure heaven.

On our weekends to Ruapehu we would often leave after work on Friday and arrive at the volcano around midnight and only then commence the 30 min trek up to the TTC hut. Such is the burden of the Weekend Warrior!

The entire first weekend was set up to practice walking on these bad boys. It’s easy to do it when it’s flat. It’s hard to wrap your head around it when only the two front teeth are in are you are “secure.” But eventually physics over instinctual reason wins out.

We also learned about avalanches and had an entire day dedicated to Avalanche 101. During this course we learned how to identify avalanche prone conditions, hazards, and rescue. Those who survive avalanches say it is like being tossed in a dryer with a bunch of bricks. Snow, as soft as it may be in Christmas carols, can be a very harsh, concrete-like substance.

SK and I with The Pinnacles behind our shoulders. In a few months time we would camp on the ridge at the farthest right point of this photo. There would also be heaps more snow! Traversing the pinnacles is a classic alpine walk which I hope to have the skills to do next winter.

Heading down to broken leg gully. The metal thing is a snow stake which is used as an anchor for roped climbing. Depending on the snow quality, you can either drive it down to the hilt like a stake and attached your rope to the top (aka Top Clip) or, if the snow is too soft, you dig a slot an arms length into the slope and place the stake horizontally into it with the rope attached to the middle (aka T-stake).

A gorgeous ice waterfall mimics the grandeur of organ pipes – however the whisper rushing of water behind is far more enjoyable to listen to!

Sunset from the TTC lodge on Ruapehu.

SK eats a bowl of self-saucing pudding (like a lazy man’s hot lava cake but made in an entire pan and way less tasty for some reason – but it’s a Kiwi favorite) while one of our course mates attempts to “rescue” him from hypothetical rope chaos!

Paul the TTC President and I sipping on our cups of tea in a rocky cave.

Me belaying (using a device to make sure if the climber falls they do not fall far and/or die) Paul the President as he goes up the mini ice climb out of the cave.

Paul the TTC President climbing – guess who went next? … Although there is no photographic evidence. Which is fine because I certainly was anything but graceful!

At the other side of the ice cave. The sweet, sweet feeling of accomplishment!

The morning before we set out to dig our snow caves. At the center of that sunny triangle is the slope where our cavesite was to be.

Walking alongside the Pinnacles en route to ze cavesite.

Studs. Behind us stretches the spine of the Pinnacles: an adventure for another day!

Digging the entrance to our snow cave. Yes, this first bit was a tad claustrophobic and coffin-like. But setting the foundations is always a grueling task

The sleeping platform of our snowcave. I believe it was pretty much finished at this point. What I love about this photo is how you can see the striations of snow levels across the walls. The diagonal degree roughly reflects the angle of the slope we dug into.

Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom) looking quite demure as sundown.

SK cocooned up for the night.

We lit tealights in our cave – which did melt themselves down in to perfect wee sconces.

After some melting, you can see how the little candle also affected the weaker layers of snow creating a beautiful sunburst effect!

Sunset from our cavesite and overlooking a few other caves down the slope.

Somehow my crappy iPhone was able to capture the ice howling down in the wind. Straight ahead is David, another great leader of our group. And behind him is the gorgeous end of our sunset.

Morning in the snowcave! Four of us slept quite comfortably in our snow mansion. We were later voted best cave. Our smooth roof (to avoid condensation drips) was the star of the show!

Cooking breakfast in our snowcave kitchen. The kitchen bench is about the same height as our sleeping platform shown in the previous photo. We had vents in the roof to avoid poisoning ourselves with our gas stove. And behind me is….

… THIS. A whiteout. There is David again in the same spot as he was in the night shot. Notice any difference? Like how the slope is entirely not visible? These could be very serious conditions in less prepared situations!

The entrance to our cave homelet. This is post snowpocalypse – it was a bit wider the evening before! It was crazy to think how calm it was in our kitchen with this white chaos just hiding beyond our entrance!

Mountain chique just below the summit of Girdlestone (one of the peaks of Ruapehu) which you may be hearing more about soon…

The Routeburn.

After the Kepler, we needed to decompress.  We needed to sit in a car and let wheels take us to sites in a much more expedient manner.  And so we drove along the road to the edge of the Milford sound. (We might have signed up for the Milford Sound Track – but it generally books out a year or so in advanced).  I must note that up to this point I had done very little driving (except along the straightest, dullest of roads of Canterbury – thank you cautionary SK), but SK wanted to look out the window and so we switched.  On these windy roads full of tourists in giant RVs who were all – like me – driving on the “wrong side” of the road I had my second driver debut.  All too aware of my own discomfort and my distorted capacity for depth perception, I drove alongside others sharing similar disabilities.

We were driving along the footprints of long past giant snails – also known as glaciers.  Occasionally these slow moving ice mollusca would crush the mountains previously separating them – creating earthen canals of rock and grass.  Other times, the mountain’s ridges were spared the eye of a glacier’s intent and remained intact – only for humans to later bore holes for spying cars eager to see the fjords left in a glacier’s violent wake.  My eyes were no less greedy and eagerly soaked up the magnificence of geological wreckage. From the road the grass daringly swept up the steep sides of the fjords as if to sooth the mountain’s still wary jagged edges.

SK and I only had a day of rest: our tight itinerary had us booked on the Routeburn Track the following night.  And so we slept, and woke up, and lazed our way to the start of the track with the slowness privileged only to those rash enough to discover they could hike two days in one.

The Routeburn is an odd track because it is one way – and with New Zealand’s characteristic lack of roads – it takes a five hour car ride to return to whichever side you start on.  Such motor vehicle relocation costs upwards of $200 per person: the Routeburn is a track for Classy individuals.  They even have a luxury version where you have your gear helicoptered from one “hut” to the next – and by hut I mean a five star cabin.  However, the track is also for those of us with tents who would rather spend the five hours doing the walk a second time and save the $200 for a skydive instead. We were, obviously, of the latter ilk.

The Odd Leaved Orchid. One day when I get a real person’s camera – this will be a national geographic quality photo.

However, the variety of the track and the general accessibility meant we met people from all walks of life – walking the same life for at least a day or two. We walked near an excited Irish botanist who pointed out the rare Odd Leaved Orchid (Aporostylis bifolia) [yes that is its actual English name].  We walked near an American with a Southern accent who was on the posh guided walk.  We walked near some local Kiwis.  But most importantly, we walked near ourselves.

Our steps were moisture laden and the muddy track gave our calves an extra workout as we tiptoed around them by the gift of protruding sticks and stones. Clouds haunted the skies, and while it did not rain, their presence alone drew out every vapour of water in the surrounding air.  Fiordland (the area that encompasses both the Milford and Routeburn Tracks) has an average rainfall of 22 feet (7 metres) – so although things were coated in clouds, we were fortunate it was not raining.  Furthermore, we were fortunate it had rained the night before: over doused lakes along the ridges staved an overflow with trickling waterfalls. The wind picked up and, with flirtatious fingers, teased the water from gravity’s loyalty and flung its spray laterally through the air to land on our faces.

By this time, SK and I glowed together – the ups and downs of drive and exhaustion brought us together, cementing our team spirit in the way only familiarity can.  After our first day’s hike we curled around our books on the pebbled edge of a mountain lake.  Although, I’ll admit, I did not read.  My mind was distracted by the braille of a heart beat amidst the lines of rising and falling lungs on my day’s last page. Across the water’s surface I saw the saddle of tomorrow’s walk and considered the adventure of an off track shortcut.  But how could I cut short any step of this breathtaking walk?  No – I must take the long way round.

The next morning, our first steep stretch was duly rewarded with an awe inspiring panorama.  The snow from a few days before still hung to the Milford’s rooftops – giving us the feeling we were explorers far beyond a few hours walk from civilization.  We reached the Harris Saddle, dropped our packs, and took the detour up Conical Hill.  The day, against statistical odds, was perfect and had shed its nebulous coat of the day before.  From our vantage point we could see the dark turquoise lakes responsible for our walk’s aqueous accompaniment.  We continued to follow the water’s gravitational flow to the other side of the saddle, where it dropped down a slope so steep it practically paralleled the trees. And, as many of our hikes seem to, it ended in Valhalla: a field of golden grass. As we set up our tent, we made the convenient acquaintance of a cloud reader (i.e. someone who worked for the Department of Conservation).  He pointed wisely up at the wisps of clouds starting to thread through the dimming sky.  “Cirrus, they’re moving quite quickly for cirrus.  It will be pouring buckets tomorrow night.”

But I want to write quickly about what it was like to sleep in a valley so deep.  It was like being sheltered.  I never feel so safe as when I have tall mountains guarding me.  The comforting quiet and the mysterious yet mostly soothing sounds of unseen sources.  It’s places like these I purposely drink a lot of water and don’t take out my contacts before going to bed, so I am forced to wake up and have the 20/20 vision to drink in the unobscured sky.  I had forgotten the impending rain, but I caught the last of the stars before larger clouds blocked my sight. I did not have time to mourn as the silky cry of a Ruru owl (En: Morepork Ninox Novaeseelandiae) sent enough chills in my overactive imagination to quickly return me to our tent.

The next morning, SK and I started back from whence we came.  The clouds had indeed closed in, but the presence only filtered the light in such a way as to spotlight patches of the surrounding flora in a golden olive glow. We spoke to the cloud reader before we left and he said it would start raining sometime late afternoon.  So our intent was to get to our campsite before then.  But our speed was greeted with us meeting our destination at noon.  So we decided to continue on to our car and as the clouds crushed closer, we slipped inside our car doors just in time to turn on our wipers for the first drops.

Driving along the Milford Sound.

SK’s feet resting on a pebbled lakeside at the end of our first day on the Routeburn.

Gorgeous view of the ridges across the other side of the snail canyon.

SK and me with our photogenic surroundings.

Me on Conical Hill’s highest point.

SK with our destination at his right shoulder (your left).

Crossing by the mountain top lake responsible for our waterfall companions.

The kissing rocks! Which, for some reason, I didn’t take a whole picture of. These massive boulders leaning against one another are part of the trail. And a reminder the surrounding cliffs used to be a lot less steady than they are currently. I assume.

The waterfalls next to Routeburn Falls Hut. We skipped this and went to the flats because there wasn’t a place to put our tent. But it was a lovely view from the track.

Starting the 16mi (25.5k) back to the car as the clouds work up their ominous magic.

Back to the Harris Saddle. You can see here the shelter available for the more inclement weather. How the day turns…

Wind Whisked Waterfall

Trying to not to fall off the ridge on the Kepler Track

From Here to There

Meandering away from Dunedin, SK and I splattered the NZ South Island with our presence in the same way paint touches a Jackson Pollock.  Our first drop of colour landed us at a real life secret garden, or secret beach rather.  If you were a girl born sometime in the 90s, or a mother who had a girl who was between the ages of 5-15 during the 90s: the place made me feel like Mary Lennox (the protagonist from The Secret Garden and yes I had to google that).

The story goes once upon a time the wealthiest man in Dunedin was struck with the same issue that every father has when the first post-puberty bathing suit season arrives: “God forbid boys look at my daughters the way I used to look at girls.” Unlike most fathers, he could afford to tunnel deep into a rock cliff to create a private beach. Flash 50 years forward and, in a beautiful spot for solitude, there are many 20-somethings strewn about with notebooks and pensive faces. I desperately wished all of them weren’t – I just wanted to sit and watch and hear the colours form matter. Instead, those tantalizing whispers were overcrowded and left only my temporal cynicism. I looked around at the secluded spot, appreciated how noise was drowned in rhythmic waves, and I bet every inch of irony in the world that the man’s daughters had all lost their virginity on that cloistered beach.

Our next colour of choice was white: for White Fish. Fleur’s inhabits a completely unassuming shack and happens to be SK’s favorite restaurant.  But even the peeling paint couldn’t hide the shining scales of a fish in Fleur Sullivan’s hands.  She creates tastes to enhance the subtle savories of the sea (and not merely the sauce heaped on whatever because it’s all about the sauce anyways) and even some famous British food eater named Rick Stein decided out of the entire world, Fleur’s was the place to write about.  Given all of this built up hoopla, I had also determined that if there were one place in the world that could make me like white fish: it would be Fleur’s. SK was happy to oblige my investigation and we had a platter of six different white fish including groper, gurnard, blue cod, snapper, tarakihi, and warehou. The previously considered flavourless-waste-of-chew-time won over each of my taste buds as the fish’s fine oils held the flavours Fleur proficiently formed to perfume the flaky delicacy on my plate. Divine. As we made our way back to the car, we spied a real fisherman filleting fish and hosing away soliciting sea gulls.

The blue sky that had joined us at Fleur’s began to fade as we drove down the road to the Moeraki boulders. What is so special about these boulders, beyond my fascination with rocks, is that to the Artist’s eye, they are perfectly spherical. Our walk down to the beach was shrouded as the ominous sky became overcast. We were no longer on a beach, but some greyscape surrounded by petrified dragon eggs (more commonly referred to by scientists as “gradual precipitation of calcite in mudstone over 4 million years ago”).  Some cracked with impatience and secreted their amber amniotic fluid in anticipation of their eventual birth. Too graphic? My bad. But truly, a lot of the rocks were traced with cracks of a golden-red resin. When I am a multi millionaire, I’ll get a degree in geology just so I can identify these things.

We set up camp at a golden beach called Purakaunui (Poo roo ka nu ee) and then went off to do some free penguin viewing of the other endangered penguin of New Zealand: the Hoiho or, in non-Maori terms, the Yellow-eyed penguin.  Double the size of the Blue penguin, the Hoiho is considered a mid-sized penguin 2-2.5ft (62-79cm). We settled into stillness and listened to the hush of waves singing the shore to sleep while the sun tucked Earth in with its last warm hues. Through the serenity, a completely ungraceful black and white cucumber tumbled into shore, shooks its head, and teeter-tottered its way to its burrow. This creature has got to be one of the top ten most awkward in the world. Considering all of their life skills are limited to under the sea, God Darwin knows why they come ashore! Survival of the fittest, my bum!  (But thanks for looking the other way Darwin, Hoiho’s are adorable!)

Sunset. Sunrise, I was awake for that too. It was one of those vain sunrises, which can only ever happen when the sun is met with his reflection on the sea.  Narcissus Sun takes twice as long to rise as he is mesmerized by his own golden crown cresting the Earth’s crust.  So brilliant and yellow it overpowers the usual reds, pinks, and oranges.  He is blindingly beautiful, and he knows it.

Can “wet” be a colour? The Cathedral Caves, our next stop, had a specific visiting window during two hours of low tide.  Of course, we arrived with 30 minutes to spare. Combating my Chitty Chitty Bang Bang childhood nightmares of having the tide come in while I was unawares, SK and I ran down to the beach. T minus 20 minutes. We quickly ran into the caves and both wished we’d had the foresight to bring our headlamps.  So instead, we took many photos which could easily be mistaken for the missing documentation of Jesus’ second coming. T minus 15 minutes.  We ran into the other caves, finding dead ends at utter darkness and slime coated walls. T minus 10 minutes.  At this point, SK started refusing to run around with me because, maybe his grown-up bones kicked in whereas my inner child was still freaking out: “Uh – last I checked your Subaru Legacy isn’t Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” I took a few photos of “wet” to try and distract myself while SK kept finding further away places to explore. T minus 5 minutes.  Thankfully, the sandflies were on my side and started attacking us and SK gave in and we ran back to safety, water just passing uncomfortable-thigh levels.

Our final touch on our here-to-there masterpiece was Curio Bay, which was home to a 201.3 to 145 million year old forest. It sits on the edge of a reef and you can walk amongst stumps that Medusa has since fossilized into stone. There are logs intersecting along the forest floor and it’s a heavy feeling,  knowing you are treading land where, let’s say, a triceratops gave birth or a little brontosaurus was eaten by the chicken’s ancient ancestor: the t-rex, whose bits and pieces were later scavenged by raptors.  And I was tripping over the same stumps that the t-rex had initially knocked over in his graceless hunt! While I don’t quite have the metaphysical perspective to feel insignificant when looking at stars, looking at a 200 million year old stump does the trick.

That night we made it to SK’s Aunt and Uncle’s.  They are dairy farmers.  Over a lovely meal SK’s Aunt asked us where we were headed next [ans: The Keplar Trek] and what nights we had booked for. We realized we should probably look at our bookings to see if we needed to print anything.  SK started fiddling with their ipad and, after a few minutes, muffled a swear with a snort: “We’re supposed to be up at Luxmore hut tonight.”  After some impulsive solutions were brought forward, we decided it did not make sense to start a 5 hour hike at 8pm.  So we were forced to have a hot shower, wash our clothes, and remember what sheets felt like. Our blonde adventure mishap could wait until morning.

The crazy piece of land that hides Tunnel Beach (the rich man’s beach for his presumably gorgeous daughters).

SK: serving as an example of what one of the many suitors on his way to go woo some cloistered, hormone-raging teenage girls may have looked like.

The secret beach. (Yes, I successfully maneuvered the camera to avoid all the pondering-the-meaning-of-life wannabes).

Looking back at the shoreline from the funky peninsula.

SK and me outside Fleur’s

The fisherman spraying away the leering albino flying rats. So satisfying.

Voila. (SUCCESS)

About to hatch!

An example of the dragon’s which are born from the Moeraki boulders.

The studly dragon next door.

These boulders slowly appear as the coast erodes. It looks absurd, doesn’t it?  So unnatural – and yet it is..

Casual roadside oddity dubbed: god’s toilet.

SK setting up camp at Purakaunui (Poo roo ka nu ee)

This is the beach we went to watch out for the Hoiho. To the left of the picture, you can make out a straight edge which is the corner of the hutch humans hide in to spy on ze animals without zhem knowing (and/or smelling)!

The Yellow Penguin returns from the sea. She looks quite dramatic, thoughtful even. Like the New Zealand’s version of Ireland’s Selkie.

(ooh bummer, I did a vertical movie.  Amateur! Oh well, watch it full screen and you get the idea – look in particular at the way his head bobbles around!).

The luminescent sunrise knocking back darkness.

One of the several entrances to the Cathedral Caves

Jesus on his way to go absolve the world’s sins, again.

A good photo of SK walking in the wrong direction from our car…

200 million year old forest from the Jurassic period. You can see the fallen logs crossing each other and the myriad trees now shrunken to stumps.

Close up of the stone log, it’s bark so perfectly preserved over hundreds of thousands of thousands years. Come to think of it, it is quite striking how little has changed in the patten of bark over 200 million years – like bark pretty much looks the same. You could look at this one of two ways; either trees peaked early and are therefore not’ that impressive of a specimen, or trees figured their evolutionary perfection way faster than humans did.

If you look closely, you can count the rings of this wee stump. Of course, there will not be 200,000,000 of them, so I guess you’ll need to do some carbon dating in order to figure out the trees precise age. Regardless, it would appear as though it had several severely dehydrated years!

Fail.

Paying to See Nature

Having left the mountains, SK and I drove to the Oamaru coast to see blue penguins on their nightly sea-to-nest waddle.  I was really excited until I called the woman to make reservations:

Jade: Yes, two reservations tonight please.
Woman: Okay, so your total comes to $56.  Would you like to pay —
Jade: Wait, I’m sorry.  I think I misheard you.  What was the total again?
Woman: Tickets are $28 dollars each for adults so that brings it to $56.  Would you like to pay over the phone?
Jade: Uhh – I’m going to have to call you back. I’m sorry! Thank you.

I turned to SK: Pshhhh this lady thinks we’re going to spend sixty dollars on penguins. I’ll just google them!

Overriding my stingy shock, SK insisted we go see the world’s smallest penguins. Coming from rural Vermont I felt a little violated at the idea that I would have to PAY to see nature — New Yorkers do that, not me. So I spent the rest of the drive reading through Lonely Planet trying to make up for the fact I would be paying for something by making SK and I stop at every single Free tourist-y thing between where we were and Oamaru. This exercise ended with me begrudgingly admitting that the reason we didn’t have to pay was because it wasn’t worth seeing. Except for the elephant rocks – those were worth the five minutes we saw them for.

We walked to the Penguin reserve and followed directions to the viewing grandstand lit with orange lights – a colour the blue penguins’ eyes couldn’t register. The people who paid for premium entry (an outrageous $40pp) filed to a viewing stand slightly closer to the penguin burrow entrance.

To explain a bit more what SK and I were about to witness: these 13in (33cm) tall little penguin fairies were going to make their way out of the raging sea, hop rock their way up a steep slope, cross what used to be an old road, and enter the area where their little burrow nests were. However, the memory of the old road and the brutality of car tires has passed down from generation to generation. In light of their hereditary PTSD, the blue penguins waddle up and pause at the edge of where the road used to be and wait. Look left, look right, and wait five minutes. To add an even greater twist to the mix, a fur seal had decided to fall asleep right in the path of the blue penguins. So every time the seal would toss, yawn, fart, or snore- the skittish blue penguins would flip over themselves fleeing back to the ocean.  Then the whole process would start again: cautiously waddle up the hill. Wait. Look left. Look right. Wait. Look left. Look right. Annnddd then: HEAD DOWN, WINGS BACK, CHARGE! Once they’ve scampered safely to the other side, gleeful clicks and murmurs — seemingly stolen from tropical birds — rise in the survived-another-day party every animal but humans engage in. Frankly, it was awesome and hilarious. In fact, I was so pleased with the performance, I went and bought penguin tchotchkes. (All good American’s know you cast a vote by putting money on the table!)

That night SK and I finished up our day by driving to Dunedin.  Dunedin is home to SK’s alma mater: the University of Otago, home to 20,000 functioning alcoholics with impressive GPAs. The next day SK toured me around his old campus with beautiful buildings. Although this preceded the glorified swamp referred to as “student housing.” As SK toured me down the streets filled with broken glass telling me stories of mass riots and how his roommate once set his couch on fire, I stared at him in awe that he was still alive to tell the tale. We spent the rest of the rainy afternoon (it was raining) driving up the world’s steepest road – which at 19° was terrifying – and at the Dunedin Settlers Museum.

Afterwards SK brought up another nature event he wanted to take part in: the Royal Albatross viewing. Price? $39.00. For 45 minutes of bird watching. Again, Vermonter issues, plus I am not over the age of 80. That night I called my sister and bemoaned my VT heritage and getting swindled: “I just feel so dumb about paying to see nature! Why don’t I actually take the time to go see them in the wild?? It’s so inauthentic I feel guilty!” Sister: “Actually, paying to see nature is Badass and everyone should be doing it because then maybe people who see the world in dollar signs will see value in not destroying it. And while it would be really cool to see nature in the wild – humans built Disneys on it. So, really the best way you can support the idea that nature is worth preserving and is by paying to go to a reserve instead of paying to go to Disneyland.”

Thanks to my sister’s infallible logic, and because I paid, I read everything that was in the museum. I learned there are 21 different kinds of albatross and the Southern royal albatross has an average wingspan of 9.8ft (~3m). They spend at least 85% of their life at sea and fly an estimated 118,061 miles a year (190,000 km/year). So you have something to compare that unfathomably large number to, the circumference of the earth is a mere 24,901mi (40,075km).  To put that yet another way, if I could train an Albatross to fly me to my Vermont home (9,057mi/14,576km), I could visit my VT home and return to my NZ home 6 times and save an approximate 12,000 USD. I should probably do youtube course in bird training. If you’re interested to learn more, don’t bother going to the Wikipedia page: it’s useless. Go here).

After an inspiring presentation done by one of the conservationists (i.e. I will adopt an albatross), we went out to the viewing hut: a glass-walled room set low into the hill so that we may be unoffending voyeurs. From there we could peer through our binoculars at the regal albatross keeping watch over the fuzzy muffins in their nests. Raising their chicks in pairs, the albatross took turns riding the ridge lift that carried them enchantingly close to our glass cage.  Commanding the air as if they determined the wind’s direction, the albatross’ posture in flight innocuously requested my obeisance. You know when you see something so beautiful you feel ashamed to take a photo because it simply won’t capture what you are seeing because “it” is deserving of so much more than being frozen in a photo and so you put the camera away – in awed defeat – because all you want to do is drink your reality with your eyes for as much as you can fit inside?  That is what I felt.  My mind left soaring at separate beats from my feet: was it the wind shoving me off my course to the car, or was it the tempest of an avian monarch?

Looking out at the odd phenomena that are the Elephant Rocks.

I’m Mogli from The Jungle Book.

SK getting lost in the elephant rocks.

Oamaru has beautiful marble old buildings. Although it’s currently a ghost town awaiting a flock of artisans to make it alive again.

A shag summit. (Shag’s are a type of bird that kind of look like a penguin). And as funny as this was when I first thought of the name, it’s quite sad because we heard from fishermen that the reason they were all together was because they couldn’t find their food because the waters were too warm because of climate change. So it’s more like a starving shag summit.

The viewing platform at Omaru. Notice the Premium seats and the ominous fur seal.

Penguins at the ready. (see below for footage!)

One of the University of Otago’s beautiful historic buildings.

SK connecting to his Dunedin settlers heritage (his dad’s side came via Dunedin).

Baldwin Street. This photo doesn’t really do it justice, but the wikipedia page has some good photos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_Street

Similar to the Otago University building, the Dunedin railway station is in the same beautiful style.

Farm animals somehow have the best realty in New Zealand.

Sandfly Bay is where SK and his “lads” would come to chill out (read detox) and enjoy the beautiful place they went to school.

Me standing on Sandfly bay. I like this photo because it’s poorly focused and reminds me of the 70s. Like if it were in black and white my mom could be next to me!

Sea lion tracks in the sand at Sandfly Bay in Dunedin.

Me looking a bit windswept next to the albatross.

This is the hillside that the royal albatross had their nests on. It’s actually within a reserve where they try to trap all stoats, rats, and possums so they don’t eat the albatross eggs.

 

A beautiful royal albatross.

Incredible wingspan.

These are shag nests. Shags look a lot like penguins, but are everywhere. One time I made SK pull over the car because I swore I saw my firs penguin. But since penguins usually only come to shore at dusk, well SK was ready to laugh at his over-eager-tourist-girlfriend.

SK’s wingspan is at least more impressive than a sparrow! (Note the key to the right in the photo)

This was in the albatross museum area. Really depressing that there are islands of trash in the ocean…

Seal Surfing NZ Waves