Day Sixteen

My second day at Arthur’s Pass was amazing. Firstly, I was surprised how much sleep I actually got last night. The campsite wasn’t nearly as loud as I expected – or maybe I was just really tired.

When I woke up there were some light clouds blocking the view of the surrounding mountains, including the one I had intended to climb. However, since that’s what the forecast called for I wasn’t too concerned (it was expected to clear by mid-morning). And clear it did. I started my way up “Avalanche Peak” around 9:15am. You can disregard my comments from yesterday re: the toughest hike so far – today’s hike gets that honour. The first half of the climb didn’t offer much of a view as the trees were pretty dense. However, once I cleared the bush-line I knew spending the extra day at Arthur’s Pass was a good decision. By about 12:15pm I was sitting at the summit, having lunch surrounded by views I didn’t want to leave. I sat up there for close to an hour before conceding it was time to move on :(

While the trek up was tiring, the trek down was demanding on the knees… not to mention that by the time I finally got all the way down my dogs were definitely barking. I took my mind off that by rewarding myself with a couple scoops of cookies and creme ice cream :)

I haven’t done all that many day hikes in my life but I don’t think I’d be overstating things by saying today’s hike is my favourite. The total ascent was 1,100 metres, and the whole trip took about 6 hours.

Despite not wanting to leave, I knew I needed to hit the road again. Four hours later I was setting up my tent at Fox Glacier. At the moment, clouds have taken over but hopefully they’ll clear in the morning – if they do I hope to check out both the glacier and Lake Matheson.

After that, who knows. But I do know I’m running out of time and I still have to get to Queenstown. Or maybe I’ll just have to miss my flight :)