Blissful Hiker learns a new skill crossing rivers in cold and dangerous rapids and falls in the South Island of New Zealand.
In this episode:
MUSIC: Introduccion y Allegro by Carlos Guastavino and Pastorale Calchaqui by Hector Gallac as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano
Blissful Hiker learns a new skill crossing rivers in cold and dangerous rapids and falls in the South Island of New Zealand.
In this episode:
MUSIC: Introduccion y Allegro by Carlos Guastavino and Pastorale Calchaqui by Hector Gallac as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano
The Minga-Deception Track is ahead of us, a walk up rushing rapids and waterfalls to an alpine pass. We’re tired, though. It’s been a long day already, after a long week of walking on what Kiwis call “track.” Maybe that’s a better description than trail, since a lot of it is pick your own way through sharp, loose rocks in massive riverbeds, muddy, rooty sidling in deep bush and one up-to-your-thighs river crossing after another.
Alessio and Tomas and I eat lunch near a sign pointing to Goat’s Pass and a long list of potential dangers concluding with the haunting line – “If in doubt, do not continue.” I snap a picture in front of the sign making goat horns with their fingers and laughing. No way are we not continuing. The weather is clear and we haven’t had rain in days. I cast a look towards the footbridge that could take us to a carpark and then quickly to Arthurs Pass.
You’re right, guys. We’ve so got this! I turn away from the exit and move onto the track, at first a clearly marked path of orange triangles through spindly manuka. Within seconds though I see what the sign is talking about. Rain causes the water to rise fast and furious, causing catastrophic flooding obvious in the first kilometer as I walk in muddy sand, bushes and trees ripped out by the roots splayed in death throes along the trail.
The first crossing is a test. I feel reasonably confident with the depth, the current pushing hard against my knees and shins. Suddenly trail runners appear splashing fast through the roiling river. It turns out they’re doing time trials for the Coast-to-Coast race. Well, if they’re doing this, so can I.
At first, we push through forest and to the side of the roiling river. The gorge narrows, and we sidle close to the edge, then have to cross again, looking for the shallowest part and the least damaging fall zone. This is not a rock-hopping river. I plunge in – shoes and all – face up the river and slowly check my footing. Sure, the trail runners go much faster, but they aren’t carrying 20 pounds on their back.
And then I slip and sit right down, the water pouring over me, vibrating against my body. I’m not swept away, and Alex offers me a hand to pull me up. A female runner offers advice on a crossing to face down and let the go with the river admiring my using trekking poles. She’s very kind, but it must be obvious I am a complete novice in rapids.
The moonlight fills the tiny windows of the hut as I sleep. The first morning I’m not flying out of bed. We have a shorter – yet harder – day ahead. I say “we” because I am walking now with Alessio and Tomas, two single hiker much younger than me, but for some reason willing to stay close in this land of fast moving rivers that all have to be crossed multiple times. I am told by a Kiwi that people die in these rivers, making poor calculations of their depth and strength, not studying the fall line and entering after a storm, when the water rises fast and furious and can trap a tramper for days.
I’m on day 89 of a thru-hike of New Zealand, the Te Araroa or long pathway. I entered Canterbury only a few days ago and know my feet will never get fully dry on this section. Two Austrians race ahead and the Czech woman Žaneta marches on with Sergio. Tom and Alex move so fast, they linger over breakfast and I’m on my own feeling fearful of what’s ahead and if I have what it takes to make it.
Am I just a joke trying to do this thing? It feels too hard, too big.
The sun begins to lighten the forest, one of the richest in ecological diversity in Canterbury of silver, red and mountain beech plus all kinds of birds like the yellowhead, and one I sing with now, the cuckoo. I feel the forest embracing me, even as I waddle over roots and mud and more mud, up and down, sometimes on really steep, washed out sections. It’s a workout and my eyes are nearly always on my feet.
And the bush, my beautiful, beloved New Zealand bush that has entered my soul, goes on and on.
The sound of rushing water is constant from the Hurunui River next to me, but also from the countless streams feeding it. As the trail veers down for me to cross and I hear it crash loudly before I see it, I wonder if this one ahead will be the one that stops me in my tracks. But its ‘bark is worse than its bite’ and I’m able to cross each one all, dozens and dozens of them.
At Cameron Stream – a “chalkua” rush of grayish-blue, I see a bridge made up of just three wires – one for walking and two for the hands. Well, this middle aged hiker may feel scared this morning but she isn’t afraid of a challenge. I step up to test it. Whoa, doggie! This is slippery, bouncy and I absolutely cannot make one misstep or I’m down in those rapids. I fold up my sticks and put them in my pack so both hands are free and test my balance a second time.
Yes, I can do this. My feet are splayed in second position as I inch forward, foot-hand-foot-hand. The key is to focus on the moves and not the consequences of a fall. I control my breathing and channel hot yoga and all those balance poses I learned to hold in intense heat.
And soon I’m across.
I let out a yell of joy, feeling powerful and strong just as Alex and Tom come over one at a time. They pass by saying it was easy, and ask if I’m ok. Yup.
The trail continues on following the river up and up to Harper Pass. It’s a messy, sloppy trail with more mud, roots, and windfall as it wends its way up and down ravines of rocky streams. I slip, but catch my fall.
Near the pass is a bright orange bivy with one window and one door marked ‘fire exit.’ The boys wait for me here to cross the headwaters. This is no Lake Itasca, the river is narrow and a bit more shallow, but still rushing.
I’m touched they’re here helping me locate the best spot. I balance on rocks with water pouring over them, but it’s easy and I’m across.
Alex says on the North Island you get dirty and the south you wash. Ain’t that the truth as we are directed by orange poles to cross right back over then a few meters more to cross a third time. Was this necessary? No ones knows on the TA.
I can see the pass from here, but it’s bush bashing all the way on wet trail finally opening to a reasonably nice view of the Southern Alps, the tops hidden in mist.
All downhill from here. Well, in a fashion. After maybe 300 meters of easy walking, the trail becomes a steep downhill nightmare of land slips, flash flood tailings, erosion and rock fall. In fact, the trail is a riverbed and might be the most dangerous hiking yet on the TA.
I cross a rushing stream with trees stripped of their bark in its path, large boulders resting in high limbs. The trail disappears except for a loose edge of small stones. Below me are the Austrians, one bandaging the other after she wiped out here.
And that makes me walk very carefully, thinking it’s not just me struggling on this terrible path.
In a moment I pass Žaneta. It changes my perspective. It’s not just me going slowly and I’m not really alone out here. I feel a bit more confident as I eventually reach Locke Stream Hut and have lunch with the guys.
The others arrive and we all agree how hard the trail feels for such little reward. Is it a proper trail if built on a spillway? There’s nothing in place to keep it from washing away, there are no zigzags. It’s dangerous. Although once it’s behind me, I feel stoked I completed it.
Sergio only stays a moment before leaving, not waiting for Žaneta, perhaps assuming she’ll make the next big crossing with us. Things are not what they seem. She takes it in stride, and I’m impressed, but also chastened that my assumptions that everyone is taken care of but me is not entirely factual.
We walk down the river to the orange triangles indicating where to cross. Alex plunges in first with water mid-thigh. Tom and Žaneta go in without hesitating and so do I, carefully holding myself in place with my poles as the water presses hard at my thighs. The Austrians link arms and follow us onto the grassy river terrace, our reward after the last section.
It’s high fives all around as we head down, sometimes on hard-to-walk-on dry, rocky riverbed, sometimes back in the forest, sometimes skirting washouts – where I rolled a boulder painfully onto my shin – and crossing side channels of the Taramakau hundreds of times before arriving at the tumbledown Kiwi hut. We could camp closer to our hard river walk, but everyone is tired and life is easier in a hut.
I make dinner at 4 pm and cuddle in as the guys and Žaneta play a game with dice. The sun is still shining, millions of tiny Beech tree leaves glowing out the window, blue mountains in the distance. We believe we have at least one more day without rain and the river will be doable.
Everyone organizes their gear and their attitude for tomorrow, including me. Žaneta tells me I walk really well. I do. And I need to remember that – and trust that help really is there when I need it.
My alarm goes off at 5:30 playing Billy McGlaughlin’s Finger Dance on full volume, but it’s still dark. I can hear the river churning, like my stomach with stress. It’s a long day ahead and once I enter the Deception River, I have to see it through.
Though I have an out because in 13 km of rocky terrace, we’ll reach a bridge to the highway. The Austrians headed there last night for an advantage on the river bed – which is coming up and is 14 km more of hard walking – but I slept very well in the hut, so maybe it was worth stopping here.
I hope.
The cuckoo is singing all morning. A slightly off-key song than I’m used to, like a wind up toy wound too tightly.
The sunrise is spectacular from our tiny six-bunk hut, the mist hanging low on the mountaintops. I eat extra bars for energy and take an ibuprofen. It’s been a lot of days in a row walking hard and I’m ready for a break, but I’m glad I have the energy to push hard because I’ve caught the weather perfectly. If it stays clear today, the rivers should be reasonable to cross.
It’s hard on the feet walking on the river terrace of boulders and stones, uneven with streams rushing through. We cross the wide Taramakau as the Otehake reaches it. It’s strong at mid-hip height as I crab walk across – then cross two more times. My feet feel like ice blocks on the confusing trail-less march. It’s a massive riverbed like a geology lab, the mountains taken apart boulder by boulder in front of our eyes, though many of the stones have laid here for ages covered in bright red lichen and moss. I can’t imagine what this place looks like in flood; does water reach from edge to edge?
I set my mind to walking in this alternating terrain of rock-mud-flood-sand, keeping pace with Alex and Tom. We pass Žaneta and Sergio and I skip along, maybe more lurching using my poles to take long strides.
My feet never dry entirely before we step back into water and suddenly there’s a grassy section, like a foot massage. Alex tells us it’s just 10 km to the bridge, but I don’t trust this bliss to last.
And it most certainly doesn’t.
A sign appears offering a choice of trails – one is direct to a road followed by the bridge. The other is the official TA trail, but also a ‘flood route.’ The guys want to take it and I’m unsure because these types of routes usually cut way high above the river.
I’m right and we soon enter a forest of fallen logs and poorly maintained trail shooting up, then down, and up and down on repeat. These trails are not zig zags or gradual, but dangerously straight up and straight down. The concept, I assume, is to take the walker past land slips or fallen logs, but it goes on seemingly endlessly and completely unpleasantly.
I am strong when it comes to going up, but more fearful of slipping on the wet mud and roots going down. This god-awful trail is either the worst or one of the top ten worst of the TA to date. It’s precisely what makes this long walk so terrible – poorly planned, badly executed, unmaintained trails through rubbishy forest with no view or interest. Is it better than road walking? Nope, just as dreadful. It sapped my energy and just made me angry.
By the time we’re spit out on a grassy plain packed thick with scratchy gorse, I think we’ll give up and hitch to Arthur’s Pass. But it’s still early and I’m very strong and very determined.
We cross the splashing rapids that push hard against our legs, rock hop, look for orange triangles and/or poles to give some indication of the best route whether left or right bank, negotiate a side stream and all the fallen boulders in its wake, and then rinse and repeat. The sun shines brightly and the clouds clear.
There are big boulders to climb and I’m happy I have rock climbing moves in my arsenal. The guys tell me to put away my poles, which I do for about ten minutes before pulling them right back out. I am very adept at switching from poles to hands, passing them to one hand when necessary, and throwing them aside for a particular move, but I climb – and descend – much better with poles. I use them boulder hopping and in the water, even if one is bent.
A couple of places feel very dicey. There’s a narrowing in the river with several waterfalls. The only way across is to jump. Tom extends a hand so I don’t fly off the other side, but it’s 1-2-3 jump! with no room for error.
I don’t weigh much now, so the water is particularly heavy. In one spot I need the guys to hold me steady on the cross.
That being said, after we reach Upper Deception hut with an hour still to go of steep climbing, I just turn on and power up the mountain. Alex tells me this time I hike like a teenager. It is my strong suit, rejuvenated with the spectacular beauty and music of this mountain river.
The pass comes into view as we turn away from the Deception to a side stream coming down in stair steps of mini waterfalls. This is our trail. I realize I have never done anything quite like this in my life, walked up a river just splashing in when necessary and trusting the rocks which are not at all slippery with all that cold water pouring over them.
It’s one of the most spectacular moments of the entire trail – beautiful, challenging and filling my soul to the point I never want it to end. But the day does at a hut where the Austrians meet us again – though Zaneta and Sergio must have given up and headed straight into Arthur’s Pass skipping this amazing walk up the river.
Could I have done all of that myself? Maybe. I would have had to. But I was lucky that the two men stuck close, not walking with me really, but looking out for me. I have a theory about that on other hikes like in France when a man named Serge from Wales walked a full week with me. His knees hurt and he didn’t want to go fast, so he stayed close to “help me” when maybe it was good excuse to slow their own pace.
Under my quilt now, the rain comes finally lets loose and lashes at the windows. I have no idea why the boys stuck close, but I’m glad they did as the last two days were hard. I also realize, we made it and just in time.