Day 2 o' the Routeburn

So, after waking up and getting all packed up in a light mist of rain, Anne and I had some hot cocoa, muesli bars, trail mix, fruit, and a carrot for me, and then we headed off up the mountain. We had quite the climb to do that day. This second day was going to be our longest day of hiking, especially since we were starting out from lower than we'd planned. Although that only added an hour, so it was no big deal. The mist cleared up quickly, and I am happy to report that the waterproof pack cover that I bought for the trip didn't get used once. In fact, I still haven't used it. Which is a good thing. We hiked up, and up, and up. Not all super steep, luckily. We got some amazing views out of the valley we'd been staying in the night before, all the golden grasses surrounded by steep, snowcapped mountains. The Routeburn Falls Hut, situated at the edge of the treeline, where we stopped for a bathroom break, was like the Hilton of huts. They even had a mirror in the bathroom! Can you imagine?! I've always considered it funny when they've had flushing toilets at some of the huts and campgrounds, but mirrors?! That's above and beyond necessary. You're in the wilderness for goodness sake. Maybe its because the water is so clear in the streams that you can't see your reflection, just the stones in the bottom as the water runs over top of them. We continued our hike UP to the Harris Saddle, where we stopped for lunch and a short sidetrip up Conical Hill. The name Conical Hill is actually quite ironic, since it took some of the steepest climbing we'd done so far to reach the top. It was definitely steeper than the gentle grade of the side trip we took up to Key Summit the next day. From their names, you'd think Key Summit would be the hard one, but it was more like a hill and Conical Hill was more like ascending a summit! Anyway, I was very happy that since the track up Conical Hill was a side trip, we could leave our packs at the bottom. I was nervous enough with just myself climbing up those steep mountainsides. I get a little scared of the heights when I'm out and exposed like that. But we made our way through, up to the top, and oh! What a view! This is where I was inspired to twirl around like Maria, taking in the view from all directions, and glorifying in the magnificence of being up there on top of the mountain. Anne and I also took super hero pictures, perched atop a craggy bit of rock, hair blowing back in the wind... hopefully they turned out, because I know when I was shooting the one of Anne, she really did look ready to take off and save the world. Back down at the bottom, we grabbed our packs, and a little more chocolate, and headed off down the track, watching as the snow-capped mountain range to our right drifted in and out of view from the imperceptibly swirling clouds. This part of the track was quite flat, with only slight uphills and downhills, so it was quite fast going. We both got into our hiking zen and just took off! It felt so good to just be hiking along like that, happy as could be, joining in for the chorus of the "lonely goatherd" that Anne would spontaneously break into. After a ways, we could see Mackenzie Hut, our night stop, down below us. About 200 meters below us. So we followed what seemed like an endless series of switchbacks down the side of the mountain. We knew we were getting closer when we reached the forested altitude. That was a good thing, because once we were in the forest, we could no longer see the hut, from which we had been taking heart as we watch it getting larger and larger as we progressed down the mountain. We were getting to be weary trampers by this point, so progress was a good thing. When we arrived there, we were not greeted by the wilderness quiet and solitude that one might expect 4-5 hours into the backcountry from the nearest road. In fact, the private guided walks hut had been rented out by a wedding party, who had arrived by helicopter earlier. They were hootin' and hollerin' and obviously had helicoptered in a fair share of alcohol along with them. It was quite the sight to be walking down the path from the pit toilet in my muddy, sweaty camping gear and moving aside to let through a procession of tuxedo-clad men, accompanying women in evening dresses, carrying glasses of wine as they teetered along the muddy path in their high heels and alcohol-shrouded sense of balance. Here's another funny thing about this hut: the tent sites had green astroturf to set your tent up on. In theory, that might be a good idea, but there was a slight problem in that you couldn't get stakes through it. This might not be so bad, except that the pads were twice as big as they needed to be for a 2-person tent, the standard tent size that anyone undertaking a walk like this is going to carry. My tent, for one, needs to have the stakes in to even stay up, let alone hold the rain fly up and taught. So I was not such a fan of the whole astroturf idea. I ended up, as did others, from the looks of it, setting up my tent on the very edge of the astro turf, so that I only had to get creative on putting in a couple stakes on the astroturf side. Most of them could sink into the ground on the outside. For the inside part, I managed to put a stake under a rock, and hook the rain fly bungy around the top part of the stake, where it curves over. It was quite the set-up and I was just hoping it would last for the night, which it did. That was a good thing, too, because I froze my little booty off that night. The temperatures dropped a lot lower than they had the night before, and while my sleeping bag is good to zero degrees fahrenheit (-16 celcius), I didn't have the 4-season tent to help out with insulation. At least my stake-under-a-rock solution worked to keep out the rain! As I was gnawing away on yet another carrot, trying to get some food in me before dinner and keep myself from getting too cranky at the tent situation (I tend to get grumpy when I'm hungry and tired), I ended up talking to Peter, a guy from Seattle who was also hiking the trail. Here is yet another example of what a small world we live in: the reason he is in New Zealand is that he's doing the student teach abroad program through University of Minnesota - Morris, the same program as Anne! Quel coincidence! I ended up hanging out and talking with him and the Hut Warden for a while after Anne went to bed. How cool is this: the hut warden works in the off-season as a chef in a chocolate shop down in Invercargill (a city down on the southern tip of the South Island)! Yummy. Yet again, I didn't last too long after dark before I headed off to bed though...