Today, the trail we are hiking climbs up above tree line, and crosses the high point at harris saddle, where there is a small hut with a bathroom. This is also the place where one can do an optional 1 hour side hike up to the top of conical hill for some great views.
We leave on time and head out under low hanging clouds. As we are passing Routeburn falls, I notice a German man with a tripod that I had talked to the night before trying to get a shot of the falls. I pointed out the trail that I had found and told him to give it a go, but be careful. Katie was afraid that I had just sent the poor guy to his death, but after we topped the falls, we could see that he had safely made it down to the base of the falls.
The trail climbs up to a nice cliff side overlooking Harris Lake which feeds into Routeburn Falls, then up to the saddle and along the Hollyford face.
We are at the saddle at about noon, and eat our lunch on the backside of the hut out of the wind.
It was not as cold as forecast, but it was still probably in the low 40s, and windy. After I fix us a couple of cups of coffee, Katie said I should go up conical hill to take some photos. I leave my pack behind with her, and started running up the trail with only my camera and tripod. Unfortunately when I get to the top of Conical Hill, it is completely socked in with clouds. I meet a guy from Israel who had been waiting up there for 2.5 hours for the clouds to clear. He says that this is supposed to be the best views on the whole track. We talk for a while, and it was clear to me that it wouldn't clear any time soon. So instead of waiting for too long, and having Katie worry about me being gone for too long, I decide to start heading back down the hill so that we could continue the hike. I pass the older Chineese couple with the good food when I get to the lower sections of the hill. They are just heading up to the peak. I get back to the hut, and we continue on towards Mackenzie Hut.
This was going to be the longest day of hiking, and almost all of it above tree line. The Hollyford Valley, which we are hiking along was cut by a glacier during the last ice age. When I say cut, it looks exactly like that in some places. It looks just like someone had taken a knife and chopped down the mountain at a certain point, making a cross section of the peaks and valleys. On the opposite side of the valley from us are big glacier covered peaks and in the valley about 1000m below flows the Hollyford River.
The big peaks are behind us on the opposite side of the valley, so every once and a while we have to look over our right shoulders to catch another peek of them.
Around 3pm, the sky clears up, opening up views all the way down the valley to the tasman sea. If I had been a little while later to Conical hill, I would have been able to see forever. I'll just have to try again next time, I guess. I run out of water, but fill up at one of the waterfalls along the way (the MSR Miox came in handy after all).
Around 5:30pm we come up over a peak and see our hut far down below at the base of a prismatic lake. As we hike down towards it, the trail switchbacks down the south face of the peak and enters another old growth Beech forest covered in the thick lush green moss. It is dark, cool, and damp in the forest, and contrasts sharply with the bright sunny and relatively dry alpine conditions we were in for almost the whole day, up until about 15 minutes ago.
Another thing that makes being in the Southern Hemisphere different is that the South face is the cool, shady side of the mountain, and the north is the sunny, warm side. I know it must sound quite obvious, but since I am so used to it being the other way around, it really messes up my internal compass.
I am taking some photos and hiking with my tripod on my shoulder when I slip on a mossy rock and bust my butt. It happens really fast, but I instinctively protect all of the camera gear and slide down a rock. I look down and found that I have torn the leg of my pants and scratched my leg. The leg was no big deal, but the pants are my favorite pair of convertibles. So, really bummed out, I catch up with Katie and we finish the trail down to Mackenzie Hut. Katie starts moving really fast on this last section of trail because she doesn't want to be caught and passed by the older Chinese couple with all of the good food. She says they are our nemesis, and have a way of just popping up out of the woods with no notice.
It has been a long day, we get to Mackenzie Hut at around 7pm. We find two mattresses situated on a platform alongside about 12 others. The remaining bunks in the bunk room are all taken, and are configured like the other hut bays of 4 bunks, 2 sets of 1 below and 1 above. Mackenzie is still a very nice hut, but it is not quite as new as Routeburn Falls, and not quite as posh. I change into another pair of pants, clean out and tape up the cut on my leg, and start preparing our dinner ( Ramen and Lemon Pepper Tuna ). As I am finishing up, I come out to the eating area and discover Katie doing a Betsy Ross on my convertibles, mending them with needle and thread that she had brought along. It's was really awesome to have her fix them, since now I'll have a good story to go along with them.
The hut warden Evan collects everybody into the Kitchen and gives the safety speech of what to do in case of a fire, which he turned into about a 30 min stand up comedy routine. He was quite funny, and sometimes a little awkward, bearing a striking resemblance to a slightly shorter Captain Jean Luc Picard dressed like a boy scout. After the routine he collected the hut tickets, and Kaite and I go outside to Lake Mackenzie, skip a rock across the lake, and take a couple of photos of Emily Peak reflecting in the lake.
Then we go in the bunkhouse and settle in for the night. We are both a little concerned about the hike tomorrow, since we took a lot longer than we expected to today. Plus I have the additional stress of us having to make a bus at 2:15pm to get to Milford Sound for our cruise. We don't have a tent with us, and are counting on making it to the overnight cruise, leaving at 4:30pm in order to have a bed for the night. There's nothing worse than having your bed set sail without you. Based on all of these factors, we decide to hit the trail at 7am, to ensure enough time to do the Key Summit side hike ( 1h additional ) and make it to the bus with enough time so as not to stress.
Since all of my camera gear and stuff is stored underneath the communal bunk platform, I am a little bit on edge about someone taking the equipment. A good number of the people at the hut this evening have been hiking with us since the start, and have seen me taking photos and carrying around the tripod. I know it is probably an irrational fear that someone would take it, since they would have to carry all of the stuff a minimum of 5 hours to get off the trail, and few people are crazy enough to do that... let alone carry all the junk the whole trail.
Nonetheless I have a hard time getting to sleep, and sleep restlessly the entire night, rousing at the noises of people coming and going to the Toilets all night.
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