It's so worth it, though! If only for the simple fact that I can watch a sunset and sunrise from here:
On Saturday, four fellow Tramping Club members and myself set out to reach Ball Pass from the Whitehorse Hill car park. The weather was nothing less than perfect.
This was a difficult trip because of the length of walking time (around 8 hours each day), slippery scree slopes and icy conditions. Basic mountaineering skills were a must for sections like this:
A view of Hooker Lake:
A peek (pun intended) at Mt. Sefton:
We set up camp right on the pass. Holy moly, the view was spectacular! The sun went down and the stars came out. The Milky Way was easy to spot and some folks in our group saw shooting stars.
The wind picked up during the night, but I slept wearing a knit hat, wool socks, my feet wrapped in a thermal shirt, two pairs of leggings, three shirts, a down vest, a cotton sleeping bag liner and a down sleeping bag, needless to say - I wasn't cold.
...Good morning!
We trudged across the wee glacier in the picture below and got another look at Mt. Cook.
From this point we continued along a ridge and bumped into a few trampers from the Canterbury Tramping Club. In true kiwi fashion, we accepted their car keys and promised to drive their vehicle from where it was parked at the end of the track we were following to the carpark where our car was parked, which happened to be where they would finish. Then, off we went...down to the Tasman Valley and along the Tasman glacier back to the shelter that we slept in on Friday night.
The only minor hiccup in the trip was the possum that joined us in the shelter on the first night. Penzy suggested that I shine a flashlight at it to scare it out, but I was not interested in knowing for sure what our company looked like (also, I pictured the furry beast running around our packs, knocking things over, and Phillip yelling like a little girl). After we heard the nails of little feet run across the floor there was dead silence until the pest let out a huge sigh. It sounded pretty annoyed and I was convinced it'd bite my nose off during the night. So, I hid under my blanket until the morning without incident.
The major hiccup in the trip was a "sudden" lack of gasoline to fuel the car. As we drove along Lake Pukaki the station wagon's fuel light went off. The thought at the moment was that we'd have 80-100k worth of petrol left. Wrong. Luckily, an Irish couple was kind enough to let us siphon some gas out of their van.
This definitely was my most favorite trip so far. No tramping plans for the near future, though, just lots of thesis work!
