Cascade Saddle to Daley Flats
Trip Start
Jan 19, 2006
1
19
20
Trip End
Feb 23, 2006
Mt. Aspiring National Park,
New Zealand
Tuesday, February 7, 2006
See some great maps of the Rees-Dart Track (including elevations changes). Maps are part of "Photodiary of a Nomad" at http://www.gang-gang.net/nomad.
Cascade Saddle to Dart Hut- 8km
Dart Hut to Daleys Flat - approx. 16km
At 5:40 in the morning, the first cry of a kea was heard. Theo, protector of the
tent from all things avian, rustled awake, and peered outside the tent. To his eyes,
everything appeared pretty much dark still. A few mountain ridges could be seen,
and it was cloudy up high. It was not yet really light out, yet to the Kea felt it was time to be "curious" again. A time for shuffling, peering at the vestibule of promise, and maybe even, if no one threw rocks at them, a time for some shredding of expensive hiker gear.
Theo had protected the tent until at least 1:40 in the morning, when the last kea had
taken a run at the tent. Not much sleep.
2 minutes after that warning cry, the first pair of kea started their shuffle towards
the tent. Theo would have to protect the tent longer. A rock was sent in the general direction of the birds, and they backed down. For a minute or two. Then more of them
came...
It looked like it would be a gloomy day outside.
01) Sun poking through onto Mt. Edward...
It was cold and very windy. Ironically the orange garbage bag that Nadine had gotten Theo to place on the rocky ridge as a kea distraction, finally was doing its job in the wind. The bag was blowing around and the keas were enthralled, with about 10 of them lined up by the bag, pecking at it. Nadine got close enough to see keas with tasty orange garbage bag bits in their beaks!As a bit more light arrived outside. We slowly started packing up (grab a rock, throw it), dressing warmly since it was cold out (toss another rock), and tried to get as much ready for when we would finally go outside. The keas were starting to fixate more on the orange garbage bag, which gave us a break and allowed us to pack up the tent and our gear. Due to the wind, we decided against doing breakfast up on the pass -- we would do it later, down below. It was a bit of a chore putting the tent away, because it was rustling all over the place. Finally -- wearing all of our warm gear, we took our leave of the land of the kea (though they followed us for another hour...)
The hike back from the saddle and Dart glacier was still stunning, even with the grey skies. After an hour or two we stumbled upon the couple who had lent us white gas; they were day hiking from Dart Hut to Cascade Saddle, although they had less than ideal conditions in the light rain, howling wind and grey skies. They laughed about are kea story and we wished each other well as we went our separate ways. The wind was at our back, so the dust from the river bed down below was only a small nuisance.
02) Blurry pic of keas with the orange garbage bag
We continued on for a couple of hours, passing two more day hikers from Dart Hut, who were amazed to hear that we had camped on the saddle! Since we had skipped breakfast in the morning, we were weakening, and finally had to stop. It took a bit of hunting to find a spot as there was a light rain. We were still about an hour from Dart Hut, but we wanted to avoid the wind heading up the valley. So we finally chose a spot, and rediscovered a previous menace -- SAND FLIES! (There had been no sand flies on Cascade Saddle). Maybe breakfast with keas and wind would have been better?We arrived at Dart hut soon, and performed some foot repair on Theo. Then we decided to hike on to the next hut. Why would we entertain such a stupid thought? We had done an epic hike the day before, barely slept, had some foot problems happening already, and now we were going to do more? The day was gloomy and grey, and we couldn't bear to hang out all day in our tent (and then have to protect it from keas). The thought of hanging out in Dart Hut was also terrible; the "hutters" (as we called the hut people) had started the coal store inside (it was close to 20 degrees even in the gloom) and were huddling around it for warmth. And we realized that Dart Hut has kea AND sand flies (as our ankles started noticing very quickly). And precisely how do you fight both of these pests at the same time? You cannot be in a tent avoiding sand flies and also be throwing rocks at the kea to keep them away! And if a kea rips a hole in your tent, the sand flies will get in!!!A look at the topographic map showed that on average the hike towards the next hut was "flat" or "downhill", though we know that is never really true in this country.
03) Yum, yum, orange plastic is tasty!
So after a peanut butter sandwich (life is always better after a peanut butter sandwich), we started the second part of our hike to Daleys Flat.The trail sign said it was 45 minutes to the ?? turnoff, and then 6-7 hours to the next hut. Well, we got to the turnoff in 30 minutes, but the new trail sign said only 5-6 hours. Ranger math is funny that way.
We continued for quite a while through side slopes of beech, staying high above the true left of the bank for quite a while. Eventually the trail exits the forest, and comes down to the first of three large flats. Cattle Flats is a natural grassland along the river, well, it is not really just grass, but many other kinds of smaller flowers and strange things grow on these rocky terraces. Occasionally small tracks through the grass would cross our tracks and head down towards the river, and eventually we came to the assumption that this must be the deer introduced about 100 years ago into New Zealand. The light rain kept coming down, blowing at our backs, with occasional bursts that made us put are hoods on, then off 2min later when the burst would stop. By now we were absolutely in the Canadian hiking Zombie mode of operation. We started getting confused as to where we were, since we knew there were a few flats, separated by chunks of forest, but it was not quite clear which forest chunks divided which. Eventually we reached a sign pointing at a particular rock bivy just off the trail, showing that we had just finally crossed our first flat, not 3 as thought! We had a ways to go! And thus, crossing more forest, we eventually got to Quinns Flat, and then did the very long jaunt through the forest before we would arrive at Daleys Flat and the hut.
04) Heading back down the saddle along Dart R.
This last bit was the most wearing, since it was some of the most rocky and root infested terrain we have ever covered. And the trail had decided that it wanted to be a creek, or was it that someone had decided to run the trail straight down an existing creek? Theo had given up on taking photos so Nadine became the official photographer at this point!!Just before reaching the hut we crossed a small flat and could faintly smell a coal fire. But no, we had another 10 minutes walk before we reached another flat, and could finally see the hut on the other side. Perhaps back there, hidden in the woods, was a hut used by some hermit, or by the trappers who are trying to control the mice and stoat (which they have recently started to control the populations of, since they have been attacking the eggs of certain threatened bird species).
We found a spot in the trees below the hut, nearer the river, and set up our tent rapidly. The sand flies were HORRID, so we sprayed huge amounts of bug spray (DEET rules!) onto ourselves. We made a quick meal of something, and jumped into the tent. At this point, one of the most amazing things of the entire trip started to happen.
Sand flies could smell us (we assume anyone within 10 meters could as well!) and they started congregating en masse, all over the screens of the tent. There were perhaps about 50 on each mesh screen. And it started to lightly rain. And more and more flies came towards our smells, and also, because the rain forces them to find more shelter. And then the little rock wrens came. These little birds are almost round, with very short little wings. They have yellow markings on their under bellies, and they twitter about two or three funny sounds at each other, as they found out how many flies we had, they got VERY excited! They more very rapidly, almost erratically. And now a group of them came to feed on the sand flies. They were all over our tent, even inside the vestibule, hanging upside down with their teeny claws from the edge of the open tent fly, and then flying in a tight swoop as they grabbed a fly, then they would come back for more. We sat silently and watched, trying not to giggle. They came back and visited us a few more times, whenever the rain slightly relaxed...but they were too quick with their hopping and quick flying for us to get a photo of them. We drifted off peacefully, no keas anywhere near, only the sound of twittering rock wrens and the gentle lull of the rain...
