Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Summit Luncheon & Tongariro River Rafting

Have you ever seen Santa Claus lash on a pair of crampons and take hold of an ice-axe before?  Neither had I, till Saturday morning as we were preparing to climb Mt. Ruapehu, the North Island’s highest peak, for the annual Summit Luncheon.  Students representing tramping and alpine clubs from around the North Island dressed as funky disco boys, fair Chinese maidens, and reindeer pulling a shopping cart sleigh gathered at Massey University Alpine Club hut at Turora hoping for good weather.  With an early wakeup on Saturday morning (not unlike Christmas mind you) we discovered what we were after—no not the shiny new train set—but fine blue skies, crisp mountain air, and a view of the mountain.  Because the sun beat down so warmly, the snow melted quick and before long we felt our boots sinking into the snow.  We pushed on higher, where wind and slightly crustier conditions prevailed.  After 4 ½ hours of tramping, we reached the summit plateau and I pulled out of my pack a few surprises, including four dressed chickens for carving, smoked Alaskan salmon, meringue, a business suit, and a cigar.  After all, this was a formal event.  Following a photo shoot, waltz, and game of bocce balls the feast was prepared—and a feast it was, consisting of numerous dishes and a scrumptious dessert.  All atop an active volcano with a crater lake and a splendid 360 degree view.  (To view more photos of the summit luncheon click here).



On Sunday many trampers, including myself, opted to take part in an avalanche course organized and taught by one of our own highly skilled mountaineers.  We went over avalanche theory, snow profiles, compression block testing, and transceiver searches.  Even though I have seen numerous avalanches go off in my life and even been very close to them in person, I had never taken a course on the devastating natural phenomena before and found the session highly beneficial.  I was particularly impressed by the accuracy and easy functionality of the transceivers, which are used to locate people buried in the snow (granted they must also be wearing a transceiver).  I’m glad to know the Auckland University Tramping club owns five and I can borrow one if I’m ever going on a big expedition.  They have some pretty sweet gear available for hire, which I am very pleased about and have already taken full advantage of.


Well, that was this past weekend, but I’ve been staying busy as always.  Last week for instance, I scheduled half a dozen presentations to give to Rotary clubs around Auckland and put the finishing touches on my PowerPoint slides.  I also had my thesis approved by the Geography Department and have been continuing with my research, reading many interesting articles on evacuation planning and the use of GIS in emergency management.  I even made it over to the Auckland Regional Council to talk with the hazard managers and GIS technicians about trying to get transport data released for my thesis study (no luck yet).  On Tuesday night, my sponsoring Rotary Club, RC of Newmarket, put on a pub quiz night which I and my friends Soren and Marcel joined in.  We helped propel team “Aliens Abroad” to a close victory over President Roger Harvey’s squad.  Afterwards we had to do a bit of searching for Soren’s car though as we had accidentally parked outside a few closed shops, which displayed “night towing area” signs.  Who would have thought you can’t park in front of closed shops at night?  Obviously not this naïve Alaskan boy living for the first time in the big city… Sometimes you have to learn the lesson the hard way or in Soren’s case, learn the lesson twice!

(Some random folks rafting the Tongariro River--photo off the internet as I did not want to get my camera wet).

The weekend before last (19-20 September) I went with the Canoe Club (a dubious name as they are really a bunch of kayakers) to the Tongariro River for the dam release flow—a biannual pilgrimage for North Island paddlers.  As my kayaking skills are not yet up to whitewater par, I settled on using my packraft, which weighs less than three kilos, fits in my backpack, and handles whitewater fairly well (though I learned high volume class IV is really pushing it).  Though I went for a few swims, my dry-suit proved its weight in gold and I stayed warm and dry.  I’ve also learned to quickly pop back into my boat and to hang onto my paddle for dear life—a lost paddle could spell ruin in turbulent whitewater.  On the class III sections with large whitewater but fewer holes and suck eddies my packraft handled beautifully and I’m beginning to feel very comfortable in it.  The next step is to take it on some grand backcountry expeditions combining rafting with tramping, which I’m really looking forward to.  The South Island must be just spectacular for this.  I can’t wait!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

South Island Extravaganza

No blog updates for the past three weeks…  There are two reasonable hypotheses:
1) I was being lame and didn’t feel like writing about it or
2) I was off doing something exciting and didn’t have time to write about it. 
As many of you know, hypothesis one can be quickly rejected thereby leaving two as the only plausible solution.  No how to write about it…
The South Island is epic.  This word gets used a lot by kiwis, especially by friend Hamish from the ski club, but in this case it is very fitting.  From the moment Soren and I crossed Cook Straight in his tiny Toyota Tracel, I was in love.  Driving a tiny coup jam packed with gear, food, and plans at 6 A.M. along the Kaikoura Coast I had the pull over, the sun was rising—magnificently.  The picture below does not come near doing the harmonious explosion of light justice, it was just one of those movements you felt great to be alive.  After a filling breakfast at a café along the road, Soren and I switched out and I fell fast asleep.  Four hours later I awoke in Central Otago, a region of brown, grassy steppe, majestic blue-green lakes, and steeply rising mountains with snow capped pinnacles.  We made a couple of rest/photo stops, but continued to drive on and arrived in Wanaka around 3 P.M.  26 hours after leaving Auckland. 

In Wanaka we meet up with the rest of the team from the University of Auckland.  For the next four days we planned to ski the Southern Alps, competing in the Uni Snow Games.  Unfortunately, things don’t always go according to plan.  Day one was a washout; the wind was so strong the entire ski resort was closed down.  This did however allow me to get my Salomon skis which I purchased off trademe (the kiwi version of eBay) for an unbelievable $70 NZD remounted to fit my boots and waxed for the conditions.  Even these adjustments could not save me in the skier-cross competition held on Monday however.  Never having competitively downhill skied before, let alone head to head with three other guys over jumps and banked turns, the competition proved interesting to say the least.  Placing 3rd in both heats, I still had a blast and thankfully skied off injury free and all the wiser about how crucial inside turns are. 

Tuesday Soren, I, and a few other guys from the team headed out to Treble Cone, a mountain just west of Wanaka in the Aspiring Range (check my google map).  It is the largest ski resort I have ever been to operating on just two lifts.  With these two magic chairs (super high speed and quite large capacity) an incredible amount of country is open to the keen skier capable of tackling black diamond runs.  The snow was nice and fluffy the day we went and skiing was a real joy minus the low visibility and high winds.  Snacking on lunch at the base café I saw my first kea as well.  Kea are mountain parrots, with beautiful coloration (particularly under their wings) and extremely inquisitive.  They have been known to tear the rubber gaskets off cars and decimate leather hiking boots.  Fortunately that day I was able to enjoy their simple magnificence without worrying about their destructive habits.

Tuesday night I met up with my friend Sam who had been a Rotary exchange student in Switzerland with me.  Sam lives in Wanaka and is working on her private pilot’s license, which would be awesome if she gets as she has agreed to take me on a flight around Central Otago sometime.  We played some billiards and discussed ideas of where to travel on the South Island after the games finished.  I still had one event left though before everything was said and done—cross country skiing. 
 
Wednesday morning I awoke to fresh snow and hitched a ride up to Snow Farm, the only cross-country ski resort in New Zealand in the first in the world I have ever skied at located on top of a mountain.  As my skis had not arrived yet from New York, I rented a pair and hit the trails for some good training.  One thing you tend to take for granted skiing in the forest like we do in Alaska is the wind and on top of mountains it causes snow drifts.  While the skiing was great fun, it was also a challenge at times requiring ample plowing through the soft drifts of powder.  I skied about 20 km of warm up before the rest of the competition arrived and took a water break while watching the kiwis ski.  Well, the juxtaposition between the Canadian national team, who I had seen train in the morning, and the group of uni students, many of whom had never XC skied before was quite startling.  I tried to help a few out with the skate-skiing technique before the race started.  As it stood, my biggest competition was “Caesar” from Venezuela who was in New Zealand to train in the offseason.  With the help of a few race tricks (like using Caesar as a wind-block on the long uphill) and a great burst of speed in the last ½ k, I won the race by a decent margin as seen in the picture below.  This was the only gold medal the University of Auckland claimed in the games and an accomplishment I felt quite proud of.

Even though the games had concluded on Wednesday, Soren and I decided to stick around Wanaka another day to ski at Cardrona and met up three other friends that evening.  Two of them, Kari and Ben, followed us up over Haast Pass.  The moment we broke the crest of the Alps, we knew we had reached the almost mythical West Coast.  The entire ecosystem changed in what seemed like a flash.  No longer in the dry grasslands of Central Otago, we emerged in a dense rainforest where even in the middle of winter, everything was bursting in vibrant shades of green.  At the Copland Track trailhead, we made a quick lunch stop (how I love apples and peanut butter) before heading 17 km into the rainforest roughly to the base of Mount Cook.  The tramp took us over numerous one-man bridges, by some amazing whitewater I would love to take my packraft down, and through head high water cut ravines.  We tramped into the night, but our efforts were well rewarded—with a bath in the hot pools by full moonlight.  It was magnificent as we basked in the hot water staring up at the snow capped mountains.  I swear I even saw a shooting star…

Saturday we left out, blazed the 17 k’s in no time, and found a nice spot on the beach to camp out.  After a satisfying dinner of pasta (the true staple of camping, coupled with oatmeal for breakfast), we took a stroll on the beach.  As the stars glowed in the night sky, we saw flames erupt far off down the beach, so we went to investigate.  As it turned out, two young farm hands were having a bonfire—with the help of gasoline—to celebrate the end of the rain.  Apparently it had rained near continuously for the past few weeks (the West Coast gets 2-3 m of rain annually, hence the rainforest biome).  We dragged a few logs over and warmed up by their fire before retiring for the night.

Clear blue skies greeted us on Sunday as we set off up to the base of Fox Glacier, intending to find our way onto the snow and ice.  Our initial reconnaissance proved poor leading to unnecessary river crossings (anyone that has ever stepped foot in a glacial river, knows what that implicates).  Finally, we discovered a route up the north side and around past the terminus of the glacier, which is also the most unstable part.  After climbing onto the glacier, we attached our crampons, grabbed our ice axes (all of which I had been able to borrow from the tramping club) and headed out.  Though I have been on glaciers in three or four countries in my life, I have never been hiked where guides chopped stairs into the ice to make the walking easier.  We quickly expended the extent of this tourist track and headed on to more rugged parts of the glacier, which proved more challenging and rewarding.  The most difficult bit (as always) was the decent, trying to find a suitable route back to the trail leading to the terminus and carpark beyond.  We made it back carrying a small bit of glacier ice to enjoy with our refreshments.  It was simply a grand day.
  
At Fox Glacier we split company.  Kari headed back to work on the Banks Peninsula, while Ben headed south to Queenstown, and Soren and I drove north to Greymouth.  The primary attraction of Greymouth, the largest city on the West Coast with just under 10,000 inhabitants, is Monteith’s Brewery.  Begun in 1868, it is one of the oldest in New Zealand and still brews according to the original recipe (sounds a little like Bavaria doesn’t it).  Monteith’s is a craft beer produced in small quantities, but one of the finest brews in kiwiland.  Just recently they started producing Crushed Apple Cider, which we were able to sample and I can report is most excellent.  After a filling lamb lunch, Soren and I drove up over Arthur’s Pass and into Methven, the staging ground for our final ski adventure on Mount Hutt.
After learning we could get 2 for 1 lift passes at Mount Hutt with our Interislander ferry ticket, Sore and I decided we absolutely must go there.  One of the main differences about ski resorts in New Zealand is that you have to drive to the slopes.  There are no resort towns in the traditional sense of the world, because the slopes have to be located at such high altitude.  In the case of Mount Hutt, the approach was a 15 km bumpy gravel road, somewhat resembling the Denali Highway.  The skiing was well worth the drive however and we enjoyed yet another fine day in the Southern Alps.

On Wednesday, after a night of camping and dinner of pasta-mussels a la lift, we began heading north along the east coast of the South Island.  We stopped in the town of Kaikoura and viewed the fur seal colony located just outside town.  The limited number of mammals in New Zealand means that when you get to see them it is all the more exciting.  The seals were so lazy basking in the sun and generally having a ball, quite easy to photograph I must admit.  Next we stopped in Picton, to catch the ferry back to the North Island.  Picton is truly a beautiful town with palm trees and a fantastic promenade along the harbor.  Soren and I were able to soak it all in while enjoying some classic fish and chips wrapped—as per tradition—in newspaper.
 


Now back at uni, I deeply miss the South Island and eagerly await the next opportunity I will have to travel back.  There is always summer…    :-)
 
 P.S. to view more pictures from my trip to the South Island click here