Hopeless Ridge Part IV - a.k.a. the trip to Lake Monowai 2013

We began Day 3 with a descent to the lake where we were met with dense tangles of trees and vines.  Nothing about our trip was easy!  Hours later we reached Monowai Hut - such a sight for sore eyes!  We  cooked up a hot lunch and lounged for a little while before embarking on another 3 1/2+ hour walk to the Clark A Frame.

My walking slowed to a snails pace on our way to the A Frame.  Walking up hill was bad, but walking downhill was even more painful for the quads.  Nonetheless, I carried on.  What choice did I have?

The forest eventually gave way to a wide open field surrounded by, you guessed it, more mountains!!  It's amazing how the scenery can take away a bad mood in seconds.

After a night on the mountain, we were overjoyed to be in a hut, but the funny thing is this one in particular was quite cramped for four adults, had signs of mice-like inhabitants, and had mighty big spiderwebs with creepy crawly things lurking in them up in the corners of the ceiling.

No matter.  Chris surprised us with CHAMPAGNE!  I was walking slow enough that Chris had time to scoot ahead and scout out a place in the nearby stream to chill sparkling wine for us. It was SO refreshing to feel those little bubbles with each sip!  We had another special treat after dinner - steamed chocolate puddings. YUM!  Daniel broke off pieces of his chocolate bar with hazelnut chunks and sprinkled those on top, too.  Deeeelicious! 

It seems silly how little things can be such a big deal out there in the backcountry, but I guess that's why I love tramping so much... everything, from cold water to a cool breeze to a tasty treat, means so much more when you're far away from the comforts of home.

That night, I assumed, again, that sleep would come easily.  But, again, it did not. 

We tried killing all the sandflies that had snuck into the hut, but the crack in the door was wide enough for more to enter.  We tried retreating into our sleeping bags to escape getting bitten, but our bodies in such tight quarters generated so much body heat that it was too hot to sleep!  

My sleeping bag has a special zipper at the feet so that I could unzip it and allow some colder air in, but this put me at risk of something biting me.  So, I'd stick the toes of one foot out for a few seconds, assuming that sandflies wouldn't notice, and then I'd quickly pull my toes back in.  Then, when I assumed the sandflies lost hope of biting my feet, I'd stick out the toes of the other food for a few seconds.  Eventually, I realized the ridiculousness of this - there was no way I could play peek-a-boo with my feet and the sandflies all night.  So, I caved and just laid out there in the open - I didn't care if the sandflies feasted on me - I just wanted to sleep THAT bad.

Our last day had it's own challenges, but I think you get the idea that this was a tough, tough trip.  We reached Green Lake Hut on our route back to the car - what a fantastic location for a hut!  Mt. Cuthbert looked amazing from across the lake.  

As you can see from the sign in the picture above, we still had 5 1/2 hours to go before we hit the road that the car was parked on.  We ate lunch, I threw my bathing suit on and went for a quick dip in the lake (it was hella cold!!!) and then we set off for the last leg of the trip.  

You'd think that after four days of walking I would have gotten used to walking with a pack, but it never got easier.  That last day was hot and I wasn't sure how I was going to manage another 6 miles after already walking 6 miles before lunch.  I mustered up all the energy I could and got moving.  

But, you know what?  Just when things couldn't possibly get worse a sandfly would come along, as I walked uphill, and would look at me and say, "Oh! Hello there!  You look like you're a bit cranky and I see that you're walking a bit funny - you must be sore!  I'm also guessing that you're probably thirsty or hungry or, heck, both!  Well, why don't I make your day a little more craptastic!" and then, gosh darn it, the damn thing would fly right up my nose or straight into my eye.

ARRRRG! WHY?!!!

Somehow, all of us made it back to the car without a mental breakdown (confession, I may or may not have whimpered once or twice because I just wanted it to be over).  Honestly, this was the type of trip where tempers could fly, but our crew kept it all together.  We put one foot in front of the other until we finished.

Once again, we were back to smiling once we reached the car.

This is our "And what?" pose after four days of tramping.  We're so badass.  

The great thing about this experience is that we saw parts of New Zealand that so few people get to see - most people don't think to hike off track where we had been (for good reason, I suppose, but those views were pretty darn awesome!).  There's something special about that.  So, no hard feelings.  We all knew going into the trip that no one in the group had been in this area before and we were in it together.  It makes me smile that the four of us pushed on and accomplished what we set out to do.  

With that said, I'm determined to make my next vacation destination as sandfly free as possible.  Maybe Antarctica?!!

Hopeless Ridge Part II - a.k.a. the trip to Lake Monowai 2013

Whoa, nelly. I've finally started returning to normal - that tramping mission was killer!

Well, there isn't an official "Hopeless Ridge" sitting high above Lake Monowai, but there's good reason that Daniel, Chris, Johanna and I gave it such a name (in fact, we called this particular section of Fiordland a lot of things like, "Helpless Ridge," "Glimmer of Hope Ridge," and various other names that capture our feelings of defeat, hope, and In your face Mother Nature! You didn't get the best of us this time!)

So, I bet you're wondering what all this drama is about?

Basically, we dealt with minor nuisances from the start.  On January 1st, we drove for about four hours (with a hiking pack between my legs in the front passengers side of the car and a pack between Jo and Chris in the back) from Dunedin to the Lake Monowai carpark to camp at the head of the trail for the night.  We put up tents in a light rainfall, got our first taste of sandflies (literally - Daniel swallowed one accidentally!), and experienced the most stinky longdrops in New Zealand (thankfully, my friends from Broome County Office for Aging had given me a fantastic going away present - a turtleneck to wear while running.  I wore it on this trip and it was perfect for covering my nose to block the stench in the toilet!).

The sandflies at the campsite were out for blood, so we took refuge in the car until bedtime.  Much to our dismay there were about 30 little buggers flying around.  We got straight to work squashing them.  The trick was to attack them one by one with our pointer finger because pounding them against the window with a fist was less efficient and just caused our hands to hurt.

Once the pests were dead, we played Hangman on the condensation of the car window.  Everyone took a turn picking a tramping themed word.  You wouldn't believe how hard it was for two Americans and one kiwi to guess the Canadian chick's word "toque"!

Here's a clip of us guessing Chris' word:

After an exhilarating round of Hangman, we turned to asking each other the trivia question on the bottom of the the bottle caps off of our Tui beer bottles.  Oddly enough, two bottle caps had "ABBA" as the answer to completely different trivia questions.

And this concludes the first night.

The next day we set out bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to make our way to Rodger Inlet to spend a night in the Rodger Inlet Hut.  Little did we know that the 6 mile (over 6 hours) hike in would be cheesy easy compared to the days that would follow!