Rees Dart Tramp

Once again, it has been a week without us posting. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to everyone who is so enthralled with our adventures that they are checking every day, but end up disappointed 6 days a week. Although the back country huts in New Zealand have running water, they unfortunately do not have wireless.

The Rees-Dart hike was awesome in many ways. We had sunny weather for most of the hike and there was no rain. The company in the huts was great and we met lots of cool people from pretty much all over the world. The scenery was also incredible.

The hike started with a hike up the Rees valley. There were great views of the surrounding peaks for much of the first day. On the second day, we climbed over the Rees saddle into the Dart valley. The view from the saddle was awesome and we were able to climb a bit higher to get a 360 degree panorama of the area. On the third day we did a side trip to the Cascade Saddle and got probably the best view we have ever had. It was a pretty difficult climb and we were scrambling in places, but it was definitely worth the effort. Behind us was the massive Dart Glacier and in front of us was the massive, snowy Mt. Aspiring, the mountain that the national park we were hiking in is named after. The other side of the saddle dropped 600 feet into a beautiful valley and it was pretty crazy to sit on the edge of the cliff and look out on the valley below. The pictures from the saddle look like they are taken from a helicopter. It was a pretty hard to walk down from the saddle, and not just because the trail was so steep. The last two days were spent walking out through the Dart valley along the beautiful Dart river. I think that the pictures speak a lot louder than words for this hike.

I would just like to mention a few other things about this hike:

1. Bear Army: For those people who do not know what Bear Army is, it is basically an organization of people who like to hike slow, take in the scenery, and enjoy eating honey and berries (and chocolate). We met the couple who actually started Bear Army on this trip. Seriously. They were waaayyy later than everyone else getting to a hut one night because they stopped to take a nap in the sun. And they admitted that they have eaten a 250g chocolate bar in a day. They were pretty awesome.

2.Quinoa: (pronounced keen-wa): It is a grain from South America that is really good. It cooks like rice but has more flavor. It is also a contains all of the essential amino acids, unlike rice. We ate it every day on this trip and enjoyed it. It gets our stamp of approval.

3.Superfine merino: I bought a new shirt made of superfine merino wool, and it is awesome. It is as soft as cotton, but wicks away sweat. It is also not too hot or itchy like wool can be. It also did not stink after five days of sweating (And I mean really sweating. One day I drank 3L of water sweating.). Also, I think that it is pretty fashionable (it is the green shirt in the pictures). We actually went back to the store to buy more superfine merino garments after the hike.
After the hike, we had a Fergburger (a very large and delicious burger in Queenstown), a beer, and ice cream.

We are now in Franz Josef on the West Coast. We have taken it pretty easy for two days and tomorrow we are shelling out some cash to do a glacier walk. The glaciers are pretty unique here because the toes end in rainforest and we are only a few kilometers from the coast.

Well, that is about it for my update. I hope you enjoy Jay's pictures from the hike and the saga of his toes.