Rambling through Rivendell

Yesterday we finally got a bit of summer weather here in Wellington, and we decided to go check out a part of Kaitoke Regional Park we'd never explored.

After a look around the camping and picnic area for possible future reference (and I was surprised how many people were using the campground considering it's not summer vacation time yet) we headed to the area best known for being the Rivendell set for Lord of the Rings.

There is no longer anything there to suggest elves, art nouveau architecture or anything else. Just a small, grassy flat with forest in the background. Nonetheless, we saw at least 2 movie tour vans in the carpark.

We decided to walk part of the Ridge Track, a track that leads from the Rivendell site to the reservoir "lakes" a few kilometres south.

The track is mostly wooded. It was the kind of forest I really enjoy - lush and green and full of fresh air! It was easy walking, although a bit mucky in places. The place was absolutely packed with ferns, from little kidney ferns to full blown tree ferns and everything in between. This one was just finishing the last unfurling of new growth.

Most of the track was in the bush, but we did get one view from the top of the ridge, where a memorial bench was set up to take in the surroundings.

Later we passed a tree that had fallen over, but never made it to the ground because the surrounding trees were holding it up. I wonder how long it will take before it finally finished the short journey to the ground.

We had an easy day of it, only walking for a few hours. But it was a pleasant way to spend one of the first warm, non-windy Saturdays of the season. Hopefully there are more to come!

It's All Downhill With Heli-hiking

View from Table Mountain, Cape Town

Last week there was an article in my local newspaper about a particular branch of glamping called heli-hiking. This involves taking a helicopter up to some scenic outlook, and then making your way back to civilization with a guided hike. If you have to ask how much it costs, you probably can't afford it!

My first reaction to this was to label it "cheating". After all, those who slog their way up the hill to the scenic outlook have earned the view - those who flew up in a helicopter have not!

On the other hand, there are lots of places around the world where people take a cable car or some other mode of transportation up a hill and then wander their way back down. The only difference with heli-hiking is that the location may be more remote or challenging.

Admittedly, I used a similar "cheat" in Cape Town, although the other way around. After slogging our way up the steep, rocky path to the top of Table Mountain, we took the Cable Car back down to the bottom to save our knees (and some time.)

Cable Car on Table Mountain

In the end, everyone has their own limits, and their own idea of how much effort is enjoyable and how much is just suffering for the sake of suffering. The only time I would rail against the heli-hikers is if they start using areas that are popular with regular hikers, and ruin the atmosphere with their noisy flights.

Anyone out there been on a heli-hike? I'd be curious to hear what you thought of it. Leave a comment.

7 in 7 Challenge Update

A while back I blogged about a trail runner named Mal Law who is doing an absolutely insane fundraising challenge called the Mizone 7 in 7 Challenge.

The challenge: Run 360kms through iconic New Zealand landscapes, traversing the 7 Great Walks in just 7 days, to raise $50,000 for the Leukaemia & Blood Foundation.

The start of Mal's big run is just two weeks away, and it seems fundraising efforts are going well. He's already past the $43,000 mark. And Mal assures me that the costs involved with the run are all covered by his team and sponsors, so the money donated will all go to the Leukaemia & Blood Foundation.

If you're keen to support Mal's madness, or just want to follow along, he has a website and a Facebook group.

Don't believe everything you read!

Someone has been up to some mischeif down here in New Zealand recently. On the famous Routeburn Track, visitors have been greeted with official looking signs laying down some unusual toileting rules.
Photo: Southland Times

The signs are fakes, and have been removed by actual Department of Conservation staff. But it's not yet clear how many visitors were thinking they'd have to wear a diaper on their tramp!

Just for Fun

This one is making the rounds by e-mail, but here it is if you've missed it:
http://www.thingsbearslove.com/

Going the Distance in Australia

Cape York (photo: Government of Queensland)

Sometimes it's easy to forget just how big Australia is. It's around the size of the lower 48 states in the US, but with less than 10% of the population. That sure leaves a lot of room to go "walkabout"!

There are already some pretty long walks available around Aussie. There's the Bubbulmun Track, which covers nearly 1000km from the outskirts of Perth to the southern coast. There's also the Larapinta Trail, just 225km long but starting in the outback town of Alice Springs and heading through some of the hottest desert conditions you could ever hope to encounter.

Now there's a new trail in the works, and it will encompass some very different scenery and climate than the existing trails. Up at the tippy top of Queensland near Cape York, there is a plan to create The Dreaming Trails. (The Dreaming is the aboriginal Australian creation mythology, which encorporates features of the landscape into tales of how the earth was formed.)

Rather than a single route, The Dreaming Trails are meant to incorporate a 2,000km network of walking tracks. This approach may give them much more flexiblity to offer different levels of difficulty, different scenery and conditions, and different types of facilities to cater to a wide range of visitors.

It all sounds very lovely, and they're looking for input to figure out what kinds of things hikers and bushwalkers are looking for in these trails. So if you're keen, go to their website and take 5 minutes to go through their survey. Who knows, they may end up creating the trail of your dreams!

Coyote Attack

Photo: Naturescapes Starters

Every once in a while there is a tragedy that reminds me why I don't go out into the wilderness alone. The quiet and solitude must be wonderful, but for me they are more than counter-balanced by the fear of getting lost, getting injured and being unable to contact anyone, and in some places the possibility of becoming prey for an animal or group of animals.

This last danger has been in the news lately, after a 19 year old Canadian woman was attacked by two coyotes in Nova Scotia and died from her injuries. This is a very unusual situation, as coyotes are not often brave enough to go after people, and prefer to pick off pets or other small wildlife. Sometimes they team up to take down deer.

Nobody is sure what happened, since the woman was alone and didn't live to tell the story. She may have run from the coyotes, thus triggering their chase instincts. She may have tried to get too close to them. They may have been desperately hungry and willing to kill whatever they could find.

One thing I feel fairly confident about is that it wouldn't have happened if she hadn't been alone. Attacking lone prey is much easier than attacking a group. In fact, they probably would have stayed hidden if there had been a group of people around.

I know that many people cherish their solo time in the wilderness. Hopefully they have taken the time to learn about the local wildlife, and how to protect themselves in case of a threat. I consider it a real treat to spot wildlife in its natural habitat, but I'm all too aware that I'm on their turf and need to play by their rules.

If you want to read about the woman attacked by the coyotes, there's a story here. In the mean time, please be careful out there!

Cool idea - the rain skirt

Photo: Craftzine.com

One of the least used items in my outdoors wardrobe is my pair of rain pants. They are a pain to put on once I'm on the trail because they don't go over my boots. They make me so sweaty that I end up soaked through anyway. They are, generally speaking, not worth the bother unless it's absolutely pouring.

Craftzine, a blog for the sew-it-yourself crowd, recently put up a post on how to make yourself a rain skirt out of an old raincoat. This is quite brilliant! You can put it on over your hiking pants and shorts, and take it off again, easily and without removing your boots! The open bottom makes it much less sweaty than rain pants too.

I can see that in rough terrain, where scrambling is necessary for instance, a long skirt would not be practical. But for other hikes where the trail is fairly flat or well benched, this could be an awesome solution.

In fact, I'm surprised none of the outdoor clothing manufacturers have tried this yet. The only change I would make to the suggested method on the Craftzine blog is that I would put snaps all the way down the opening. That way you can put it on and take it off easily, and you can have them closed up for more protection, or open some for more freedom of movement.

Now all I need is a sewing machine...

Mt. Kilimanjaro - part 3

Frosty ground at Barranco Camp the morning of day four

The fourth day of our trek started off frosty, with a coating of white on the ground and our tent.

Our walk for the day began with the dreaded Barranco Wall. This is a fairly steep climb up a rocky bluff, which involves a fair bit of scrambling (especially for short legs like mine).

The top of the Barranco Wall

Thanks to the altitude it was more tiring than it should have been. It took us two hours to reach the top. However, I really felt for the porters who were scaling the same bluff, but carrying heavy loads on their backs, or heads, or both!

The top of the wall got us up to around 4,200m, which was our high spot for the day. But it was by no means the end of our climbing. The rest of the day's trek involved lots of up and down, some of it quite steep. However, since we didn't climb too high I managed to get through the day without a headache or nausea - so that was a bonus.

On day five we were off to Barufo Camp, which sits at around 4,600m. This is the launching point for the summit, so the excitement was starting to grow.

Cairn marking the way to Barufo Camp, summit in the distance.

We got there by early afternoon, and found to our surprise that there were folks up there selling t-shirts, sodas, chocolate bars, and even beer! All for greatly inflated prices of course - after all they had to drag the stuff up to 4,600m.

The campsite was long and narrow, and on a fairly sloping ridge. We camped at the far end, which was fine with me as it meant less walking later on, when we started for the summit.

After lunch we were sent off to nap in our tents for a few hours. Then we woke at 5pm for an early dinner, then more napping. It was freezing cold at this altitude, so there wasn't much sleep to be had. And of course we were getting anxious about the summit attempt.

Sunset from Barufo Camp, summit of Mt Meru in the distance

We got up at 11pm for tea and cookies, then put on all our layers to head up. I was wearing a silkweight shirt, a thermal shirt, two merino layers, a fleece, and my rain jacket on top. On the bottom I wore thermals, hiking pants and rain pants. I also had a warm hat and fleece gloves. We set off at midnight.

It was the day after the full moon, so although we had our headlamps with us we didn't really need them. It was preferable to climb in the moonlight, so we could see beyond the few feet in front of us.

It was a steep, rocky start, which meant I had to scramble up onto the rocks quite a bit. This left me winded at altitude after the first half hour. Our guide insisted on carrying my pack after that. He and the assistant guide were not carrying anything - not even water! This didn't seem terribly bright to me, but it does give them the ability to carry our crap when we can't any more.

We continued up, feeling exhausted, nauseated and cold. The rocks changed to ash and scree. The steep angle never really changed. G was not looking well, and I was concerned that he might push himself too far, not wanting to quit if I was still going. Eventually he handed over his pack to one of the guides too.

We tried to drink our water, although a couple of sips now and then was all I could manage. Our pockets were stuffed with snacks, but we felt to awful to eat. I think I had 3 dried apricots on the entire climb. Eventually, all I could think about was sitting down to rest. Somehow I convinced myself to keep shuffling upwards.

Around 5:45am we reached Stella Point, which is the end of the steep climb. From there it is almost flat to Uhuru Point, which is the summit. There is only a 100m vertical difference between the two. Along the way you pass the top of a glacier, and you can feel the icy wind blowing off it. Very pretty - but I wasn't stopping to get my camera out!

We got to the summit at around 6:25, just after sunrise. The sign at the summit was the congregation point as climbers posed for the obligatory picture there. Around 20 others were on top when we arrived.

The obligatory summit photo

We posed for our summit photo, and it was absolutely freezing up there! I was glad to have made it, but not particularly interested in lingering up there. Down seemed like a great way to go!

Mt Kilimanjaro - part 2

Above the clouds on Kilimanjaro

From the second day, the terrain became much more volcanic. The lush jungle of day one was left behind (or below) and the vegetation became scrubby and sparse.

The track also became steeper and more rocky, but the most noticeable change was the dust! We were climbing in dry season, which means the track was unlikely to be muddy and slippery. Instead there was dust everywhere, including up my nose and in my teeth!

Our guide on the volcanic terrain

However, it was a sunny, hot day and we got to our next camp, Shira Camp, by 1:30pm for a late lunch. Shira Camp sits at around 3,800m, and by the time we arrived my head was aching from the altitude. I took some pain relief, and that helped ease it off a bit - but having already felt the effects of the altitude on day two I was pretty concerned about how I would hold up for the rest of the trip.

My worries intensified that night. About an hour after dinner I began to feel unwell, but was taken by surprise when I suddenly had to stick my head outside the tent and vomit. It happened a second time later that night (although by this time I had a plastic bag at the ready!) I knew this was a common reaction to altitude, but it did little for my confidence. It was only day two!!

I did manage to hold down my porridge the next morning (I avoided eating anything more rich than that) which was good because day three involved quite a long walk. We ascended to 4,600m at a place called the Lava Tower, then descended to Barranco Camp, back down at 3,900m for the evening.

We came across a little striped mouse on one of our breaks, who was busy looking for dropped crumbs and other goodies.

By the time we were approaching the Lava Tower my head was hurting again, as this was another new high altitude. I was hopeful that as we went back down towards the camp the headache would subside. That's the point of these "acclimatisation days" where you walk up to a higher altitude, then sleep lower down. To some extent I did feel better when we got to camp, consider the seven hours we'd been walking.

In front of the Lava Tower

As a reward for our efforts, the clouds parted and we got a clear view of the summit before it got too dark.