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Milford Track, New Zealand
I am the rain king
The guided (and independent) tour is pleasantly yet strictly regimented. The first day after disembarking onto the northern shores of Lake Te Anu, you walk less than a half hour to Glade House and your first lodge. The second day is your first real day on the Track, ten miles of relatively gentle ascent along the Clinton River to Pomplona Lodge, far and away the nicest on the Track. The third day is the most difficult, up and over Mackinnon Pass, a fifteen hundred foot (or so) ascent, with a two thousand foot rocky, wet, tough descent to Sutherland Falls and Quintin Lodge, nine miles total. The fourth day is downhill (and uphill), not as easy as claimed and the longest (thirteen miles) to the appropriately named Sandfly Point and the ferry across Milford Sound. This is the rainy, windy, cold and beautiful Mackinnon Pass, understood to be the midpoint of the Track, where the tough conditions still offered its expected rewards.
When you reach the top of the legendary switchbacks (or "zig-zags" as local guides like to call them), you tend to want to bask in the glow of your own accomplishment, to read the inscription on the Mackinnon Pass Monument, to take its picture, to take your own picture by it, to enjoy a snack, a drink of water, to just stop and enjoy where you are and what you've done, unless of course its really, really cold, rainy and windy. Then you take a picture, think to yourself ever so briefly "yes, its a monument" and continue at a reasonable pace on to the Mackinnon Pass hut where some toasty Milo and an appreciated cabin heater remain waiting for you.
Out of focus or atmospheric, it's your call (as always) in these pictures as the white mountain lilies furiously bloom and the summit disappears under (or possibly inside or maybe even above) some expected rain clouds.
Despite the fact that at any given moment there remained the possibility of somewhere around two hundred hikers on the Track, I often felt as if I could have been the only one. Independent hiker lodges were usually several miles ahead of the guided walk lodges, and we were afforded the independence to set our own pace. Guides would give us a range as when we were to leave (I usually started early) and, despite any unfounded reputation, I actually walked relatively slow, letting me enjoy the Track to myself for virtually the entire four days.
The world's highest waterfalls (but only if you don't count the other four waterfalls that are higher) Sutherland Falls feels the full effect of gravity's pull only a mile and a half from the Milford Track on a short, rocky spur track. What made this unique is the opportunity afforded guided walkers to enjoy a separate, guided walk behind the falls, into the spray, into the water, into what many could describe as potentially life threatening danger, but I would describe as just damn cool.
First, leave anything that isn't waterproof, then follow the guide around the left, fording the deeper-than-you-thought-it-was stream, feeling your way across slippery rocks and luxurious moss covered walls until you feel so much water hit your face that you can't open your eyes, then turn around and go back.
Fully equipped with all things Gore-Tex, I had a certain level of confidence that I would be immune from the watery effects of the falls' backside. Sure, like everyone else I heard the guide tell us that the ponds were deep and that all boots had a basic design flaw (the hole on top that allows a foot to get inside). Still I felt I would beat this, I would be fine, Gore-Tex would save me. Two mornings later I still found myself using a blowdryer to dry the inside of my trusted Lowa boots, believing that Quintin Lodge's fabled drying room might not have actually been a drying room but maybe just a room instead.
