seattle blogger Archives — Wild Country Found

04/25/202304/25/2023

New Zealand part 14 – Northern Tongariro Circuit

Day 1 – Whakapapa village to Waihohonu Hut

“You definitely won’t be the only ones out there” the ranger says for perhaps the fifth time during the 15 minutes it takes for us to fill out the information for our parking permit. I know they’re trying to be reassuring, after all, most people get nervous in the backcountry, but in all truth, I could do with a fewer people and a little more solitude.

When Keith and I planned this trip we stuck to known routes, Great Walks, and trips with backcountry huts that we could easily book online. After all, we had no idea what difficult meant when it came to New Zealand. What did phrases like “for advanced trampers only” (tramping being the New Zealand phrase for backpacking) actually mean? Advanced like scrambling and route finding? Or like difficult river crossings and bushwhacking? Or was it just a reference to distance and elevation gain? Between trip reports and Department of Conservation (DOC) sites the word advanced seemed to mean any number of different things. Compounding on that, references to deaths and injuries were prevalent as were dire warnings around weather and flooding. What we learned upon arriving in country was that advanced largely referred to mileage and fitness while most resources were written under the assumption that the reader had little to no backcountry experience and apparently was incapable or unwilling to check the weather.

Which is not to say that our trip has been anything short of delightful. Having access to the hut system has made our hikes easier and packs lighter. While shorter milage days have allowed time for socializing, writing, and sleeping in. Still, some of my fondest backpacking trips have been ones in which I was miles away from the closest person. Solo backcountry trips are what made me fall in love with this activity and sleeping in huts with five to 20 of my closest friends has been a little draining. I find myself longing for time spent sleeping in my own personal patch of dirt far away from the snoring of the next closest human.

Day 2 – Waihohonu Hut to Oturere Hut

The wind and rain explode all around us and I have dreams of thunder and lightning; running from ridge tops as the sky ignites and fear boils in my gut with the certainty of doom. When the door blows open for the third time I finally awake in the dark hut surrounded by the gentle snores and rustling of strangers. I acquiesce to my body’s base needs and meander to the outdoor hut toilets, facing the lashing wind in service of a pee.

Outside the New Zealand rain billows in vertical waves, like a stage curtain tousseled by hands and bodies unseen. I have come to recognize this behavior as endemic of the rain here. Like a great jellyfish undulating its way across the sky with tentacles dripping down towards the ground. Even in my blurry sleepiness I pause to watch the wind and rain put on their mesmerizing dance knowing that tomorrow the skies will have cleared and the only evidence of this effervescence will be the puddles on the ground.

Day 3 Oturere Hut to roads end

The climb to the high point of the Tongariro Northern Circuit is a comically Sisyphean effort. Each upward step met with a sliding backwards as the dark, volcanic soil gives way under foot, like trodding across a vertical garden bed full of marbles. Distantly my mind tries to conjure up fear of a hypothetical fall, a slide with impotent fingers slicing without purchase, a body, my body, tumbling without recourse into the still-steaming volcanic crater and all the while a thousand million tourists in bright Nike trainers watch on. I keep staring at my feet, keep plodding upwards into the fog while below me the violently green chemical lakes of the volcano glow in the cloudy half-light. The ranger’s words from the start of this trip roll across my consciousness: “you definitely won’t be the only ones out there,” drawing a half-mad laugh from my lips as I swim up an unrelenting stream of other hikers. Amazing, how amid the otherworldly, barren scene that is the Tongariro crossing we are still hiking in a crowd. Suddenly the idea of life on Mars doesn’t feel so unlikely.

04/09/202304/11/2023

New Zealand part 13 – Unnecessary

The nice part of the trail with Mount Taranaki.

“You’ll want to move your foot off that first hold as quickly as possible,” I say down to Keith from my perch atop the muddy chimney, “it’s going to want to collapse from underneath you.”

“Gotcha,” comes his ever-stoic response as he begins to climb the near-vertical mud wall. Hauling himself up hand over hand, moving from root to rock before each perilous hold can slide from beneath him. I scoot aside so we can both share the small rocky bench above the first 10 foot pitch. With more than 700 feet left to climb to our hut I feel suddenly overwhelmed at how long this is going to take. The rest of the day had been on well groomed and even better maintained trail, courtesy of New Zealand’s Department of Conservation. The first 2000 feet of climbing passing in, if not easy, at least manageable grades. But this, a slippery, muddy, barely consolidated mess that could only be approached in a bear crawl of sorts, fingers reaching for every sturdy rock or well-planted rock, this too felt like something DOC would call a trail. In fact, over the course of this trip Keith and I had spent several days on designated trails that were only slightly less ridiculous than this.

I turn my face to the next pitch, huck my trekking poles up and into a bush so they won’t get in the way and begin to climb. Another 15 feet up on hands and feet gets me to another flat spot to rest, Keith coming up shortly behind me. This new perch reveals something else, another hiker walking, no, strolling along in jeans and a cheap school backpack. At first my brain has trouble comprehending what I am seeing. But Keith gets it, letting out a low “I am so sorry” before I bark a cackling laugh of absurdity and amusement. Our mud-covered micro expedition has been on the old trail, on the barely-there trail, on the this is a muddy disaster so let’s reroute trail. Our casual fellow hikers glance confusedly at us as I retrieve my poles from the bush. I might feel like an idiot were I not so relieved that we wouldn’t be scrambling up a vertical mud wall the rest of the way to the hut. Bemused and a little abashed we make our way the last mile, tired legs forgotten and grateful for the trail beneath our feet.

01/25/201901/24/2019

Hometown Tourist

There are endless articles written about how to avoid looking like a tourist.
How to fit in, feel like a local, and conceal the fact that you don’t know everything about a given destination. Some of these articles focus on concealing your lack of knowledge for the purposes of safety. But far more promote the idea that to be a tourist is to somehow lack in an essential sort of cool reserved only for locals.

I’m here to tell you the opposite of what all of those articles say. I think you should embrace being a tourist whether you’re visiting or a recent transplant. There is something special about visiting the sights that cities promote as essential parts of themselves. Yes, the Space Needle is expensive and a little cheesy. But it’s also an engineering marvel that offers visitors a wonderful way to orient themselves in a city full of funny shapes and lakes that must be navigated. And sure, the Seattle waterfront is a little kitsch but it’s also teaming with smiling faces.

This weekend I decided to embrace everything that is touristy about this new place that I’m lucky enough to call home. Because enthusiastically taking the same picture that 1,000 people before me have taken doesn’t mean I had any less fun.