Well, about half the five pass route. 'tis better to have hiked and bailed than not to have hiked at all.

For this hike I was meeting up partway through with a couple of friends who were on another hike. I was doing the first bit, down the Dart river, and up beans burn by myself. My two companions were taking the jetboat up the Dart and meeting me up in the top of beans burn for us to continue.

I flew into Christchurch, slept for the night at the airport hotel, then in the morning, rented a car, and drove to the bottom of the island, arriving in Queenstown around supper time. After picking up fuel, and a burger, I drove to the trailhead and headed out into some wonderfully nice new zealand beech fortest. I had planned on starting the next day, but as it was, It was a nice day for a short walk..






and I camped as the sun was setting at Lake Sylvan. the next day I worked my way through to the rock burn river (and hut), waded across it, and worked my way down the Dart river, which was in full flood. There was considerable bushwhacking along the Dart.











I arrived at Beans Burn, and waded the river to the trail at the far side.






I arrived at my first desination, a lovely meadow along the beans burn, where I camped for the night.




the next morning I headed on up the valley, heading for the
rock bivy before Fohn saddle, My two companions would be coming up behind me and we would meet up around the rock bivy.



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We arrived at the "Rock bivy" - a set of small caves that the local kiwis had flattened the floor and brought in ferns and the like. It seemed rather dark and dingy, and we thought to ourselves "why the heck would you want to stay in there" - choosing instead to pitch our tents in one of the grassy areas in front of it near the river, and enjoy the relatively nice weather of the evening. ( I should have knocked on wood while thinking that... )

At night it cooled off, and we did have some rain, which was snow on the peaks (where we were going). But the weather in the morning was fine, and the snow soon melted.. as we headed the steep climb up Fohn saddle.







We had some difficulty with the route, being a bit higher than we should have been, and after wasting some time on the mountainside - I started to get concerned. The weather was due to change, and our lovely morning turned a bit ominious and the "mares tails" as I call them (which to me have always indicated change of weather in the mountains) started appearing and flying over the saddle at warp speed.. I can't describe the feeling any more than "guys, too many things have gone hinkey this morning - and looking at those clouds my spider sense is tingling." We together made the decision to descend back to the rock bivy - Although having initiated that decision, I did feel a little bit bad about it. At first.





We got down to the rock bivy, made dinner and the weather started coming in in fits and spurts. No big deal, we hunkered down in our tents, and figured we'd see what was up in the morning.

The storm got progressively worse during the night, and by morning, I could probably describe it as a hurricane with several enthusiastic firefighters with full bore hoses blasting away at us. I was in a black diamond one shot - a very capable tent that I've had take a pounding before, and I was ok in it but it was really getting pasted. condensation was a bit of an issue because I had to be *completely* buttoned up to keep from getting soaked. I held out in the morning as long as my bladder possibly could, then just stripped down, and packed all my dry gear into bags in the tent, put on my crocs, and underwear and stepped out into something amazing..

I have no pics of it, you really couldn't take much. but litereally dozens of waterfalls had appeared down the side of those mountains, and would be ripped off the side by the wind and blasted down the valley. it was awesome, and scary. I was immediately soaked, wearing nothing but my underwear and a goretex, and peeing as quick as I could downwind.

I then gathered up my gear, picked up my tent, and headed for the rock bivy. I was soon joined by my two companions.




The storm pinned us in the cave for three full days. the river rose around us preventing us from taking the trail back down it (although we could have gone over the rock we were under) and all the side streams rose to dangerous levels. It was so windy in the cave that while we were back far enough to not get wet, pebbles would blow onto us occasionally.






I've always referred to fire as "cave man TV" - you can sit and stare at it mindlessly all evening and you are glad you have fire... I now know that fire is actually version 2. Version one, you sit and stare at the light in the opening of the cave, and you're glad you have cave... We were all very happy to be pinned where we were and not stuck on top of the saddle.

For three days we ate two meals a day - I did the cooking as I was the only one with a place for a stove, and sat in close quarters. We kept our nice dry clothing on and stayed in our bags to be warm. When we had to pee, we'd get up, strip naked, put on a goretex jacked and my pair of crocs - wade out of the front entrance and get blasted by the firehoses while doing our business. We'd then come back, and put on dry clothing again.

all in all not too bad. I was with good friends, and we enjoyed our company.





When the weather finally subsided we worked our way back down beans burn, and bailed out. Beans burn at the bottom proved too deep and swift to cross now, so we camped on the near side for a night. The next day the jetboat for tourists arrived, and we mooched a ride back to the rock burn hut, where we could skip the two river crossings and walk back out to my rental car. We found that the storm had blown over trees everywhere, including one that smashed the hut!






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So anyway, just remember - you can fly halfway around the world for a hike, and still have to bail out - I don't regret making that call for a minute.. Hopefully I'll get back to kiwi land and to the whole thing some other year...

Of course, I think I poked a hole in my thermarest on the cave rocks within the first hour of being in there.. slept on a flaccid thermarest the rest of the time I've since gone back to a z-lite when I'm not in a hammock. it may not be quite as cushy as the prolite, but usually when I'm on the ground I'm in places that are somewhat inhospitable to inflatable pads - and I'm tired of chasing holes (unsuccessfully) with a patch kit in the backcountry.

Those landscapes were awesome!!! Thanks for sharing.

You truly made a wise choice. Others may not have fared so well. Thanks for sharing that incredible adventure.

Great photos, exciting trip. Is that somewhere around Mt Aspiring Nat'l Park? I did a trip there some years back that I really loved. I didn't have weather as intense as yours, but it poured for 24 hrs straight. I kept putting out my coffee cup as a rain guage. It filled to overflowing 3 times, which equalled 12 inches, and no telling how much actually did spill out. The cool thing was that when the weather cleared, there were tons of new waterfalls roaring down every cliff face.
My gear failure problem on that trip was when a little flock of keas ripped holes in my mosquito netting and tried to steal my boot.

Yes it was Mount Aspiring - Part of the "five pass route" - if you had keas you may have been over on the rees-dart trek - which is across the river from those pictures that show the very muddy high river (which was the Dart river). I was on the other side of the river from the rees dart trail (where in lots of places there really wasn't trail) until I hit beans burn - then there was trail heading up into the alpine, then pretty much route finding in most places.

I think I was along the the Matukituki River (?), and I definitely ended going up to Cascade Saddle once it stopped raining (or snowing up there). My route was not x-country. On that trip I also did a short thing up the Greenstone, and did the Kepler, and Stewart Island. I gotta go back one of these days. Or judging from your other photos, maybe I should go up to Jasper first:)

my friends in the cave there had more time than I did - they came from stewart island to join me after their hike there - where one of them managed to do an oopsie, lose his *boots* on a river crossing and ended up doing half of stewart island in his tevas.. and buy a new (very expensive) pair of boots in Queenstown :P

Up at one of the hiker huts on the Keplar, they told me that a woman had one of her boots stolen by keas and had to bum a spare pair of shoes from someone. At that point it would've been a pretty long hike out, too