Day 42 - Clearwater track to Two Thumb Track

Bryan left camp before me, and said he'd take a rest at the edge of the Rangitata - 22km from camp - and wait a bit if we wanted to cross together.

Id like to say I took my morning slow, but I was determined to cross the Rangitata before any rain hit, so I left camp with haste. 1km past my campspot I ran into Wietse, slowly rising out of his tent. He was a bit startled and said "you're early today." I laughed and told him to catch me on the trail, and continued on towards the Rangitata. Wietse caught up to me In the matter of an hour. It was fairly flat ground and the 6"8' (or 6"9'?) Dutchman could put on a fast pace if he wanted to get somewhere.

The walk was long, and the weather was far from perfect. A thick cloud of rain lingered on the mountains In the far off distance and walking through the exposed fields gave us no shelter from the strong wind. The wind was going against us as well, so each step forward required that bit of extra effort that left us both exhausted by lunch.

It was just after 2pm when we arrived at the edge of the Rangitata River. Bryan was still there and we all decided to continue across the hazard zone together. The Rangitata is a hazard zone for good reason, and anyone who wants to cross it should do it at their own risk. In our case, being this late in the summer, the Rangitata it at 62 m3/s flow rate, which is pretty much as low as it gets all year. Anything above 80 m3/s and I would have probably tried to hitch the 150km or so around. In the past thirty days the river has flooded and gone upwards of 400 m3/s in contrast. This is why I wanted to cross before any heavy rain hit.

The only challenging part of the crossing was finding a good route to the other side. Other than that the 9km hike across the swamp, rock beds and braided river was actually quite easy. The highest crossing we had to do was only thigh high.

Eventually we did reach the start of the Two Thumb track on the other side and both Wietse and myself were beat. Bryan wanted to continue on for another 4 hours and make it to the first hut on the track, but Wietse and myself decided to Camp at the start of the track instead. I could sense that rain was Proabably only an hour away, and I was eager to set up camp before it hit.

We celebrated our 70km journey and crossing of the Rangitata with vodka coffee, and gummy wurms. The last two days have been tough, but every now and then it's worth it to put in the extra work. Time for another peaceful sleep in my tent.