Three Pass Route (or Four Pass Route)
Trip Start
Jan 11, 2008
1
16
Trip End
Feb 22, 2008
Arthurs Pass National Park,
New Zealand
Sunday, February 17, 2008
From the highway a gravel road leads a little ways into the bush towards what might be a car-camping area, and soon after hits a parking lot and the trail signs become visible. We passed an amusing sign indicating that "mowing" was occuring on the trail. Very quickly the trail steepens, and soon we were switchbacking steeply and climbing over roots and such
01) Climbing in the rain to Kelly's Saddle
. In the trees, we were able to take off our layers since the rain did not really reach us.Two couples day hiking passed us on their way down while we were in some of the most steep and rooty parts of the trail. Not much visibility until we topped out of the trees and found ourselves surrounded by typical west coast scraggly bush and grasses. A bit more of a climb took us to the new albeit small Carroll's Hut in a grassy field. The clouds cleared away and the sun came out. We had a snack in the hut, which had a family of four with two kids who were still very full of energy. Then we put our packs back on and climbed to the pass behind the hut on the remaining part of the trail, where there is a collection of small tarns. From there, the route heads southwards along Kellys ridge (with the main fault-line of New Zealand underneath our feet) following marking posts, some of which were quite a ways apart from each other. The sun disappeared, and the clouds came up. Following the pass, the route still had a fair bit of elevation gain to force on us. Tracking carefully with the GPS we were able to stay on route. Especially near end of the ridge when we came near another set of tarns (easily spotted on the map) the clouds really started to sock in, and the markers were quite difficult to find. Here it was important to find the right route down into the valley.
02) Visibility on Kelly's Saddle poor at times...
Well, we found the right place to divert from the ridgeline, and soon we were hiking downwards towards treeline, nearly 300 meters down. The last bit of bush before treeline was quite scraggly and the rocks underfoot very loose, but eventually we hit the trees and we were back on a real official trail. And that's a good thing, since the next 2 hours of hiking we went down 1 vertical km more, through moss covered rain forest with gangly trees which would be utterly impassible if there was no trail. Occasionally the trail would bring us to our left, so that we could see a gash of land slides into the creek way below.
Eventually we popped out at the bottom, where the typical New Zealand large river valleys create very flat land. We traversed down the creek for about 1km towards the main Taupo river valley, and hit an old road. Turning left up the true right of the Taupo river, half a kilometer later we passed the old Dillon homestead, which is being maintained by some people as an alternative non-DOC hut. It has a fireplace inside with armchairs, but we decided to head on to the brand spanking new Dillon hut just 5 minutes further up the trail. There we met 3 Kiwi fellows who had hiked up the Taupo river valley and were considering maybe the next day doing a day trip up to Kelly ridge. We were amazed at all the extra gear they had: they were tramping for 2 nights maximum but had loaves of bread, headlamps AND flashlights, a tub of butter, etc
03) Back in the magical moss and trees
. We drooled a bit but then looked at the ridiculous spread of their gear in the hut and were more thankful for our efficient packing. The sand flies were a bit nasty outside, but it was nice and clean inside the hut. We slept soundly that night, having finished crossing the "first pass" of our "three pass plus one" traverse.The next morning was somewhat gray, and soon after leaving the hut it started to rain lightly, and for most of the day it would rain sporadically. Our plan was to hike up the Taupo river valley towards Julia hut, considered a 6-7 hour hike by DOC. The trail leaves Dillon hut along a piece of old road which is a bit swampy and overgrown, and then soon has to start crossing rocky creeks running from Kelly's ridge and joining us on the true right of the river. We crossed these various creeks and followed the river until we got closer to the cableway. At this point there is a sign which points upwards or forwards towards the cableway, also known as the "flood route"; the alternative being a higher inland traverse followed by wading through the river further up where it is quite a bit wider. That higher inland traverse leads from the sign upwards and slightly to the left, while the correct way to the cableway leads forward and slightly down. This confusing sign caused us to head on the higher inland traverse first, by accident, which was annoying since we climbed way more than we had to
04) The old Dillon hut
. On the way back to the sign, though, Theo found a lovely blue mushroom to take a picture of, so perhaps that made the sign error worthwhile.Following the sign the correct direction, we found ourselves right along the banks of the river climbing roots and rocks and, further on, actually climbing nearly vertical cliffs and trees to bypass a slide. Then we were at the cableway, and pulled the cart towards us from the center of the river. Unlike the cable cars we have used on the Vancouver Island's West Coast Trail, the cars are much smaller and meant for only one person, and also, the cable is meant to be pulled by a person who stays at the end. In case someone wants to do a solo traverse, there is a bizzare contraption inside the car (a kind of hook/pull wrench) which would assuredly be a complete pain to use. In the rain, Theo crossed first, and then Nadine came afterwards. Because the cable was hung slightly loosely and the river underneath was raging in flood, the crossing was extremely exciting!!
At the other side we were faced with a climb over a headwall. The route switchbacked at more than a 70 degree angle up through rooted ledges for nearly 100 meters, and after a kilometer walk up top, went back down again to the side of the river. On the way down it follows a rocky creek, and both of us fell quite nastily on the slippery rocks
05) Light rain along the Taupo River
.We were now on the other side of the river, and would stay there for quite a few kilometers longer. The going was fairly easy, with flats separated by creeks coming off the ridges to the west. The water levels in the creeks were quite high, but with skilled rock hopping you could keep your feet pretty dry. Nadine struggled with one river crossing (Theo's long legs and new gortex boots kept his feet dry) and ended up wading right through it! We saw bumble bees sleeping underneath thistles, deer routes in the grass, large cicadas buzzed in the trees around us (and we even saw one up close). Twice we had to traverse back into the trees for a while along a steeper section of the riverbank, but then we were at Upper Taupo hut. This small little hut had a lot of character, and the see-through roof lit up the inside to make it very pleasant. We had some snacks and relaxed in the sunny warmth for a while before going on.
From Upper Taupo hut we had to walk about 1km more on the true left before crossing a long wire bridge to the other bank, on a skinny trail that was quite swampy. Just on the other side of the bridge, we encountered a couple who had come from Julia hut. They had not been able to find the hot springs there. We continued walking on a fairly rocky but wide trail which stayed a bit further back from the river
06) Smurf mushroom!
. It climbed for about an hour, and then descended underneath beautiful dripping moss cliffs towards a 3-wire bridge over a raging creek. Sadly, this bridge did not have the airy feel (ie. very scary) of the Dusky trail bridges, since they had decided to tie mesh between the wires. Continuing on the other side, the trail became a boulder climb along the river, and we could sometimes smell sulphur in places, indicating perhaps that there were qiute a few hotsprings in the area. A small climb up through trees and past a nearly invisible lake, brought us to a grassy meadow with the old Julia hut in it. It was basically a tin shed with rotting mattresses in it. Just a few minutes further down the hill brought us to the newer Julia hut, empty just for us, and with a decent supply of firewood. The rain got worse, and the clouds settled in so that we could not see the other side of the river. Nadine played pyromanic all night, and kept running out in the rain with the axe to chop wood. She would lean the wet wood against the side of the stove, and within an hour the wood was dry and ready to burn! All of our clothes and boots were bone dry before night fall!The next morning it was still raining, and things had not really improved. We kept resetting the alarm only to wake up to more rain and socked in conditions. We eventually decided to head down to the hot springs. If we needed to stay here an extra day to wait for the weather to improve, so be it -- it was a lovely spot
07) Crossing the Taupo river via cable car
. Wearing just underwear under our goretex pants and jackets, we walked back past old Julia hut and followed the cairn-indicated trail climbing down towards the river near the hot springs. There we found scalding pools of water coming out of the rocks along the side of the river, stinking like sulphur, and indications that previous people had moved gravel and rocks to try to make basins where the scalding hot water could be nicely mixed with the freezing cold river water. We proceeded to dig out our own mixing basins, and just as we got into our pools ... the sun came out! The nice weather had arrived as the weather forecast days ago had promised! After finishing our washing quickly, we scrambled back to the hut and finished packing our bags, and then set out up the trail ...Just minutes after leaving Julia Hut, the trail crosses another 3-wire bridge over Mary creek, near the junction of Julia creek (and from that junction down, it is called the Taupo river). This 3-wire bridge is bolted onto some very large boulders. On the other side, the trail rapidly climbs up through roots and leaves up the true left of Mary creek, to avoid the gorge. For a while it is not possible to see much, and there was still a lot of cloud up valley, but eventually we popped out of the tops of the trees to see a fair bit more of a view, up valley and back the way we had come. Somewhere, around 8km in distance and 1.5km in elevation, was Harmann pass
08) Sleeping bees...
.We would come to scree slopes and sometimes grassy banks, and be forced to climb up through brush, but it was all fairly steep country to both sides of the creek. There were a few orange route markers when the going was less obvious, but for the most part we followed cairns and hoped that we would not waste too much time by getting too close, or too far, from the creek. Eventually we got to an avalanche zone, and there were large piles of dirt-covered snow still remaining. It looked like a good place to cross the swift-moving creek, so we rock-hopped to the other side and continued. We continued boulder hopping and crossing the river from side to side, traveling on the route which looked easier. A while later we crossed the creek and remained high on the true left above it in the tussock terrace for a while, until finally we crossed for the last time to head up the bluffs. The clouds around us finally opened up and showed us just how tall the mountains around us were -- true monsters! Last bit of hiking to the pass was very steep with loose rocks in tall grass, and then we were on the flat little saddle of Harman Pass. From the other side (coming from Carrington Hut) we could see a couple making their way up, and we sat and waited for them, excited to talk to people likely hiking up Whitehorn Pass and who might have an up-to-date weather forecast. It was clear weather over Whitehorn Pass, and if we were going to cross it today we could not hang out for too long as it was about 4 hrs to Park Morpeth Hut
09) Time to shave...
. The prospects for camping on the other side of the pass (before the hut) were unclear due to the low resolution of our maps, and therefore we would probably have to hike for another 4hrs, minimum. We chatted with the couple briefly (they were going to Julia Hut but seemed very unprepared and no sign that they had a map).We picked up our packs and headed south towards the snowy approach of Whitehorn Pass, and 2 minutes later were on the ridge line looking at the lovely Ariel tarns. It was just so lovely in the sun, so instead of continuing we decided to tent right there. We were a little bit afraid once again of camping up so high, having been hassled by keas (large parrots) 2 years before near the Dart glacier. But the lakes were not surrounded by the grasses that we think they sleep in. We had an amazing afternoon and evening, bathing in the lake and enjoying the beautiful views. Around 6 or 7pm the clouds started coming in below us; by sunset we were enveloped in the fog. We heard some kea cries in the distance, but never saw one. We had a peaceful and magical sleep in the fog!
The next morning we were up at 6:30am, but visibility was perhaps 4 meters. We needed fairly decent visibility for Whitehorn Pass, so we slept for another hour to see more pea soup fog
10) Hot springs near Julia's Hut!
. We remembered that the weather was forecasted to be clear today, so we went back to sleep again, finally getting up at 8:30am to have some breakfast in the vestibule. We kicked ourselves for not heading over the pass last night, although tenting on Harman Pass has been very beautiful. We decided that if the fog was still present by noon we would navigate with our map and compass and GPS, and make our way carefully to Park Morpeth Hut. Around 10am the foggy silence was interupted by voices - it sounded like a couple lost in the fog! As the voices became clearer, Nadine smiled and yelled out of the tent "is that Sarah's voice?!!!!". She recognized Sarah from Brisbane (we met Sarah and Ant on our Nelson's Lake hike) and ran out of the tent to say hello! Although Sarah and Ant were visible from our tent, they could not see the tent or the trail marker through the soupy fog. They followed our voices to our tent and we laughed at the location of our second meeting! They had come from Carrington Hut, hiking in yesterday and having had to cross the chest deep river numerous times. They had been using their navigational tools in the fog and soon continued up towards Whitehorn Pass, and we started packing up our tent. The sun was starting to poke through the clouds, and soon we could hear a few more people and then see them through the fog - walking away from the trail markers and not even noticing us! We shouted towards them, and eventually they saw our tent and walked towards us and the next trail marker
11) Crossing the Taupo River...
. They were Kiwis (a group of 4 in their fifties or sixties) and they had also come from Carrington Hut. They stopped for a soup, and we could see more blue sky breaking through the clouds as we got our gear together. They were meeting up with another group of Kiwis who were walking the tramp in reverse; they were doing a swap of car keys!! As we departed Ariel tarns around 11am there were blue skies all around!. The route goes around the tarns and crosses a hump -- from then on it is just a pile of giant rocks and such until the start of the glacier. The snow was still nice and stiff, and we made rapid progress up the glacier, trying to avoid obvious places where there might be some crevasses. Soon we were on top of the ridge, able to see an enormous hanging glacier above us (Cronin glacier). We caught up to Sarah and Ant (who were having a snack) and chatted with them for a little while, and then took the downroute. This was a switchback through loose boulders which started on the west side of the ridge, and then cut back and underneath some cliff bands. Then it stuck high along some morraine tops for a kilometer or so, before dropping down steeply through very loose rocks to be closer to the Cronin creek We continued down the true left, sometimes on flats, and sometimes having to bypass rocky gullies. Soon after a dirty downclimb onto a flat, there was a place where two streams joined right near each other, from the left. That is a fine place to cross to the true right, and Theo did so
12) At Harman Pass, route to Whitehorn behind us..
. Nadine however stayed on the other side, following a series of cairns there. One has to eventually cross to the true right because that is where the bush trail leaves the gully, but there is no definite place to do it. Nadine ended up taking her boots off much further down the river (as the river was knee deep and there was still lots of hiking to do), so perhaps a bit earlier is better though.Just beyond a fairly large avalance slope on the true right, about 30 meters above the creek there is a large marker, and a real trail starts again in the bush. This crosses two narrow and deep gullies and then slowly makes the way down to a set of marshy ponds. Not much further from there is Park Morpeth hut (where we ran into the group of 4 kiwis going the other way) by the junction of Cronin creek and the Wilberforce river. We had a snack, and then when Sarah and Ant arrived, we took off, heading up the true left of the Wilberforce river. We found two Canada geese in the river, and they honked very loudly at us to stay away. After about 2km or so, this splits into numerous rivers, and on the otherside of the Wilberforce there is a memorial built up. Facing north, one can quite clearly see the old switchbacking trail (built during the gold mining days) which leads up to Browning pass, perhaps 400m elevation gain. Further to the west we could also see the massive Browning falls, but we were not going that way
13) Gorgeous campsite at Ariel Tarns...
.It was getting a bit late in the day, and there were clouds in the sky coming flying by southwards, especially west by the waterfall. But at the pass above us it did not appear bad at all. The sun was still shining. We set out up the switchbacks, which soon petered out, and then it is steep scree and scrambling up to the top. As we got to the top it seemed to perhaps be a little more damn and cool, but nothing prepared us for the moment when we stepped out of the sun into a 1 meter visibility super damn high speed wind! The other side was totally socked in by a storm! We were only wearing shorts and tshirts, so we ran forward and found a ditch or sorts which sheltered us from the storm. We put on more layers of clothes and ate the remainders of our trail mix. The situation was dire! We were supposed to camp up here, but not in this kind of wind!
A few quirk comparisons between the GPS map and the paper map kind of let us know where the expected boundaries of the lake were, and what the route down the other side might be. We'd been told that there were sheltered spots on the other side of the lake, so we set out to try to find them. Walking along, we finally found the lake when we were 2 meters from it, and it was nearly white capped under the strength
of the wind
14) Relaxing as the fog moved in...
! We continued along, slowly getting the picture that Browning pass is a flat basin with a lake on it, huddled along the top of a cliff to the south. The ground was swampy in places, and giant Canada geese features and their feces too, were everywhere. In good weather, they like this place. At the other end of the lake it was becoming clear that there was a drainage creek, and no trees to shelter us. We tried to go down the trail which continues, but the markers did not match the maps, and since we could not see them 30m ahead of us, and sometimes we could see non-routes ahead of us which seemed really steep -- this was turning into a navagation nightmare. Meanwhile, we were tired, hungry, and grumpy, so we turned back and Nadine managed to find us a mostly wind-sheltered flat place next to the lake. A hill to our north-west was kind of stopping the wind from hitting us there. After clearing enough rocks out of the way to make a platform, we set up the tent. We were too cold to wash in the lake, so we washed up with Wet wipes and cooked food in the vestibule. Then when it was ready, we closed the tent vestibule up, and ate the food inside in the warmth.About half an hour later we opened the vestibule to... clear skies! The fog and clouds had all disappeared! That said, the sun was going to set in about 30 minutes, so we made the best of our time running around and taking lots of pictures of the area
14) Theo pumping water from the lake
. Then we settled in for the night. We heard a few keas, but no one bothered us. We also heard some Canada geese return for the evening too.In the morning the skies were reasonably clear, so we packed up very quickly, because we wanted to take any opportunity we could to get out of here quickly -- the DOC times for what we needed to finish added up to over 10 hours, and we wanted to get to the road while we could still hitchhike into Hokitika. Otherwise we would likely lose a day, and be back in Christchurch without enough time to see the kids Rose and James again before we left for Calgary.
With clear skies it was easier to see the way. We followed the poles towards where we had been blind and confused the day earlier, and then were really happy that we had not attempted to go down yesterday. The route ahead switchbacked steeply down into a broken landscape with waterfalls and no where until the bottom was there anyplace to pitch a tent. The DOC times had said something like 4 hours, but only 2 hours later we found ourselves at Harmon Hut. Nadine dried out her boots (wrung out her socks and dried her insoles for 10min in the sun) and we set off on the next leg.
After going through a swampy highland, we had to traverse a very high and long bridge over a canyon, and then we found ourselves on a wide trail (perhaps a road from the gold rush era) following the Arusha valley side all the way to the intersection with the Styx saddle
15) Pea soup fog as Sarah and Ant hiked by...
. We took a left turn and crossed through the Styx saddle (high tall grass hiding swampy pits in the ground.. grrr) and then hiked down the road along the Styx river, crossing it and another tributary just before Grassy Flats Hut. There we were met by a weka who was very curious (apparently looking for shiney things). We moved our boots and gaitors as the thought of having to chase a weka running away with our gear seemed too much at this point in the hike.After a snack, we continued hiking flats along the Styx river's true left for about 2km before crossing it, and then spending the next two hours crossing the numerous tributaries from that side, all the way to the parking lot. The trail was very easy going, albeit very wet so it was easy to make good time. Nadine got stung by stinging nettle and had large painful welts appear on her right arm. After a combination of hydrocortisone cream and lidocaine cream was applied to the wounds, the pain receeded and Nadine stopped whining!
The trail kind of ends in an old farm, and then farm roads continue for many kilometers. Dodging cow poo in the hot sun after walking +25km is not fun. It seemed to take forever to reach a small road, and even then the cars were far and few between and people ignored us with our thumb out
16) Heading up to Whitehorn pass
. And our cell phone did not yet have any coverage, so we couldn't even call a taxi! An older couple heading to Hokitika stopped but seemed a bit overwhelmed at stuffing us in their already loaded car, but then ironically came back about 15min later, having driven halfway to town thinking about us having to walk to dusty, hot long road. They were able to get most of their gear in their trunk with our packs. They were very sweet and were world travellers themselves, currently on a round the world trip that started in Africa (they were from the UK originally but were living in the countryside of France now).Arriving in Hokitika outskirts, our first order of business was to find and eat ice cream. We walked the last kilometer into town and found a backpackers place to stay at that had laundy as well (we had no clean clothes!). After showers, Theo ran off and changed the flight back to Christchurch to be on the next day (instead of two days later). Then we tried to get dinner at the local pubby restaurant, but instead eventually found an Indian curry house to eat at. With full bellies we made our way to the beach to watch the gorgeous sunset.
What a grand adventure!
The next morning we took a taxi to the tiny Hokitika airport. The plane came in, and we were amazed how small it was! We had managed to get seats on the opposite side of the plane, which is fairly normal when it only has 19 seats, 10 on the right and 9 on the left. Before taxiing on the runway, Theo turned on his GPS and thus was able to track our route (though he forgot to turn off the altimiter, and therefore the GPS calculated elevation from the pressurized air pressure instead of from the GPS location, leaving us at a steady 450 meters elevation
17) Looking back towards Harman Pass
. However it was announced that the flying route was at 14,000ft, and the really neat thing is that the route turns out to cross our hiking route twice.Arriving in Christchurch we went downtown via city bus. This would be our last day in Christchurch and we wanted to do a bit more shopping and try to clean our tent and gear before flying home. Mapworld had finally managed to get the "DOC hut poster" - which we had first seen on the north island after finished our first hike in NZ. It had photos of 66 of the most colorful and unique (ie. small and old) huts in NZ, some which we had stayed at! Theo set up the tent in a park and let it dry out, and boots and gaitors were dried in the sun as one finally load of laundry was done. Back to Ashley's to hang out with him and Rose and James for our last night!
