Day 23 - Waiau Pass!

The third night so far in a hut where I've had an awful sleep. Some late comers decided to wake the whole hut up with their inconsiderate noise levels. Pretty standard throughout my experience in huts, but I needed a good rest to tackle what I was told to be the hardest day on Te Araroa, the Waiau pass.

I left the hut just before 9am and started  my journey to the end of the valley. It was an hours walk before I reached Lake Constance. Another crystal clear emerald lake with similar clarity to Blue Lake. I climbed up a mountain rock shelf and then all the way back down just to get the beginning of the major climb over Waiau pass. When I arrived, I could see the tiny silhouettes of fellow TA walkers high up on the cliff face making their accent to the top. I started slow, but steady, using music to help me every step. Music and hiking usually work incredibly well together, but today it was more like they were having an argument. They were still helping me solve the challenge that layed in front of me, but every step I took on the loose rock would cause me to slid backwards, making any sort of rhythm impossible. I kept my steady climb for some hours before finally reaching the top of the Waiau pass. The views were of the best I've had on Te Araroa, and it could not have been a better blue sky day to make the valley sing with color. Niles was at the top when I arrived and we celebrated by eating sour gummies, and salsa doritos. Those two items alone are worth more than gold to a thru hiker. Soon after, another friend named Wietse arrived.

One by one we left the top of the pass at our own paces, and I was now making my decent into the new valley below. I could see the river I was going to follow for the next 3 days and the distance of it alone made my knees ache in pain. The decent was much harder the the accent. Instead of skidding down rock - which is what I expected - I had to climb down sheer rock faces. My poles were of no use as I needed both my hands to support my weight as I slowly took steps onto tiny rock alcoves below. One wrong foot placement and down the rocks I'd go. The pack on my back did not make any of this easy, and it was incredibly slow going until I reached more sloped ground.

The trail ran by a icy stream with the freshest, coldest water I've ever drunk. This water kept me fueled throughout the entire day.

By the time I reached the bottom, I thought the worst of it was over, but their was still some hard trail ahead. Rock fields. Although I was happy to be on flatish slanted ground, I was not happy to still be climbing over rocks. Large rock fields were fine, allowing me to jump from one to the another like an agile cat. But small rock fields were loose, giving me no grip, and causing me to slip and fall constantly. Medium rock fields, these were the worst. The looked to have the same balance as the large rocks, making me think I could hop from to the other, but they had they just about as much balance as the small rocks, but less forgiveness if you fell. The medium rock feilds were constantly testing me, making me feel like I was in some gauntlet from hell. Each step was careful, and even if a rock felt sturdy, once I stepped onto it the weight would shift and send me flying.

I did eventually make it to flat grassy land and found the cruisy rhythm in my step that I was craving. But it was already getting late, and all I wanted for tonight was to get a good nights rest. So instead of pushing onto the hut, I found a perfect little camp spot in the trees next to an open field and set up my tent.

Shortly after setting up camp, Wietse showed up. He also wanted to sleep in his own tent and get a good rest for once so he decided to join me at my perfect little spot.

Let me tell you a bit about Wietse. He's a six foot eight Dutchman with a big beard, large round glasses, and he loves to read. Every night he spends time writing poetry in his journal, and he is one of those people I've found I jive with incredibly well on the trail. Wietse always has a large bottle of saracha on him, and he also insists on carrying a large bag of fresh coffee. So after setting up our tents for the night he brought out the freshly ground coffee and asked if I'd help him make a batch. Wietse doesn't carry any sort of coffee making system with him, just simple filters. So after boiling the water one person has to hold the filter bag with coffee grinds in it, and the other person has to gently pour boiling water until we filter enough for a few cups. It's easily a 10 minute process that worth every drop.