On the first day, it snowed uphill.  It fell down one side of the valley and the wind blew it back up the other, into my path, blinding and horizontal.  That night, camping at Laguna Salto, I lay in my tent listening to the wind.  It would begin as a low rumbling, somewhere behind the hills, and build steadily into a locomotive of rushing air and frightening sound until it was on top of me, flattening the windward side of my tent until it flapped around my ears where I lay.  I curled up in my sleeping bag and jacket, hearing the elements thrash it out, feeling small and powerless.  On the second day the sunshine coaxed me out of my down cocoon.  Peaks bright with morning light caught my eyes and stirred me into action, up the hill, across the approach to Paso Australia.  I achieved the pass but the celebratory dance was cut off abruptly as the wind slammed into me with the force of an 18-wheeler, pushing me off my feet until I sat, just below the pass, with my back and pack to the wind and my heels dug into the scree against being thrown all the way to the lake at the bottom.  The wind was spinning miniature tornadoes across the lake surface in all directions.  It was even worse at the bottom of the second pass.  I was walking across a deep glacial trough, alongside a lake.  Jagged slices of granite surrounded me on all sides.  The sky was still bright and blue above me, but I was wearing gloves and a hat and jacket, moving into the wind, gritting my teeth and screaming back at it when it blew hard enough to stop me in my tracks.  I found shelter behind a tall rock and stopped to catch my breath.  The wind was like a living thing, ripping down from the peaks, over rocks and through the thin tufts of grass growing next to the lake.  It snapped, like a plastic tarp being torn off a woodpile and shredded.  By the end of the day, I was exhausted of wind, blown raw.  Even after I’d found a sheltered campsite for the night, the sound of the breeze being dispersed among the trees made me flinch.  Why am I here, I wondered, and for a brief moment, wished I was elsewhere.  The wind scared me.

On day three, I woke with silence ringing in my ears.  Stillness greeted me as I climbed out of my tent, and I cooked breakfast outside, without needing to build a wind-break.  I walked on tip-toe the entire day, holding my breath as I summitted Monte Bettinelli in sunshine and calm air and reached the rustic hut on the shores of Lago Windhond.  Day four, the same.  Not a breath of wind to impede me.  I retraced my steps over Monte Bettinelli, marveling for the second day in a row at the panorama that lay spread before me.  To the south, the islands of Cape Horn, dark blue and misty, but visible.  Westward gleamed the white steep peaks of the Cordillera Darwin, and between here and there, the rough spine of the Dientes themselves, the soggy yellowish lowlands of Navarino, and countless lagoons and beaver ponds, sapphires in a gold setting.  Superlatives rolled through my head, but not through my heart.  For the first time in many solo hiking missions, I was not content.  Something had changed.  I’d shot myself up with my usual fix, but failed to reach the same high.  The wind had stripped away my confidence, my courage, and pressed  an acute awareness of my mortality into my skin.  Alone on the top of Monte Bettinelli, I felt no awe, no wonder or magic at the landscape.  I felt alone.  This was what I’d wanted: to be on my own at the end of the world, fighting the elements, testing myself.  And now I felt only a desire to be safely on the other side of the hills, finished, and back among people.

see the rest of my photos from the island

After such a show, Puerto Williams was only going to be anticlimactic.  My arrival coincided with the afternoon siesta.  I got a ride from the airport with a father and son in a blue flatbed truck who were picking up packages and supplies from the plane to deliver in town.  They dropped me off in the centro commercial, a muddy square smaller than a city block, boxed in by a series of diminutive shops and restaurants, all closed.  A ten minute walking tour let me drop my backpack at my hostel and showed me all the town had to offer.  The town’s most interesting attraction is the prow of the ship Yelcho, amputated from the rest of its body and planted in a small plot of grass in front of the naval barracks.  This is the prow of the Chilean naval vessel that rescued Shackleton’s men from Elephant Island in 1916.  I sat in the grass next to the monument and ate a cream pastry I’d bought at the (only) bakery.  I tried to imagine the gray steel ship breaking through the ice-clogged water, appearing like a beacon of hope to the men who’d been stranded for months, but the sun and the sound of the navy men doing calisthenics in the gymnasium behind me were distracting.  It’s hard to appreciate history when it’s 1) decapitated and 2) surrounded by a white picket fence.

The shops began to open again at 2:30, and I made the rounds, hunting for gas cannisters for my stove.  Two hours and six stores later, I now possess the only four cannisters that exist on the island.  They’re all half empty, but they’re all I have.  I am also now officially recognized on the street as “that crazy gringa who’s going to hike the Dientes Circuit – ALONE (¡dios mios!)”.  After I registered my hiking intentions with the local carabiñeros (police), I was stopped twice by uniformed officers, asking if I wasn’t afraid to be hiking by myself, and didn’t I want an official escort?  Word spreads fast in a small island town, and today, the crazy gringa and her search for “¿gas para camping? is the most interesting thing happening.  I extended my plane ticket yesterday to allow myself an extra two days in town after I finish the circuit (7-8 days), thinking that I’d want time to explore the urban Isla Navarino in addition to its wilds.  Little did I know.  Ah well – the mountains await.

Two weeks I had, between the Teton mountains and the unique thermal and wilderness attractions of Yellowstone.  On my own, without a car, I became dependent on the kindness of strangers.  Initially, I had my doubts.  Are Americans willing to trust?  Are they capable of being open-minded and generous?  Or are hitchhikers a species extinct – killed off by the culture of suspicion and distrust that is growing steadily in our country?  Standing at trail heads with my thumb raised high, I saw confusion, shock, discomfort.  I watched the faces driving past, some looking resolutely ahead, ignoring me, others staring unabashedly, mouths open in disbelief.  What is she doing?! I never had to wait long, though, and in each case the individuals who stopped to offer me a lift were friendly, helpful, and full of concerned goodwill.  Each of them (I caught perhaps fifteen separate rides, anywhere from two miles to eighty) expressed admiration colored heavily with concern.  “You’re pretty gutsy…but jeez, girl, you gotta watch out for those weirdos!  Aren’t you worried?  Aren’t you afraid?” asked Paul the insurance investigator.  Some, like the three old friends on their way to a funeral, told me stories of when they were my age and hitched across the whole west, from national park to park.  “But people aren’t like they used to be – be careful!”  Some were hesitant.  Three thirty-something surgeons from Texas, in Jackson for a conference, told me they would never pick up a hitchhiker, normally.  Others were excited for me.  Jason, a Gulf War vet, on vacation with his seven-year-old son, wished he could be doing what I was.  “It’s so great to meet a true adventurer!  That deserves a ride.”  Some only wanted company.  The emphysemic painter from Las Vegas was almost too wrapped up in his own affairs to ask where I wanted to be dropped off before launching into his life story.  I found it interesting that those who were open-minded enough to pick me up, still maintained a sort of blanket distrust of other people – as if they were the sole safe bet in a world full of serial killers.  Are we too large, as a country?  Are we all strangers to one another, and therefore incapable of trust?  Even I, open-minded world traveler, began in a cynical state of mind.  Not that I was fearful, but that I doubted whether my fellow Americans would be willing to lend a helping hand.  I was reassured, my faith in humanity – Americans specifically – restored, recharged.  I needed help, and got it – over and over again.

Beyond the hitchhiking, there were a few notable encounters with folks interesting, generous, and fun…

There was Jan, the German cyclist, whom I talked into joining me for a spectacular day hike in the Tetons.  Hooray for someone young!  Someone my own age!

Then there was Steve, the Hollywood paparazzi photographer.  When not taking pictures of Brittney Spears shaving her head in a barber shop (oh, yes, that was him), he volunteers as the campground manager at the Mammoth Campground, which is where I met him.  He watched me set up my tent in the freezing rain (this was the evening of the morning during which I was eating oatmeal in the bathroom) before approaching me, shyly.  “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way.  I’m not trying to hit on you, but I do have a pull out couch in my RV that you’re welcome to have, if you want it…I have two daughters about your age, and, well, I’d like to know that someone would take care of them, too.”  So, for two glorious nights I had a warm, dry, soft bed and a roof over my head, and a flat screen TV with surround sound to watch movies on.  Thank you, Steve!

Lou, the trip organizer, is a local antiques dealer with whom I’ve become acquainted over the summer. The other two, Joe and Tom, are friends of his from way back. The trip is an annual one for them. For the last twelve years running, they (and sometimes other friends) spend the last week in August tramping, fishing, or otherwise enjoying the great, Wyoming outdoors. My invitation was rather more spontaneous. I was standing in line at the grocery store in front of Lou and Tom as they bought a few last minute supplies.
“How’s it going, Lou? What are you up to this week?”
“Hey, Susan, not too bad. Getting ready to head up into the mountains for a few days, up into the Winds, maybe up to the divide. Want to come?”

Experience has taught me to jump with both feet forward; that “yes” is almost always the right answer; that “why not?” can be a way of life. Still, I had to pause before responding to Lou’s invitation. Trust has been a much harder thing to cultivate since I’ve returned to the States. Ours is a culture of suspicion, and it took less than two weeks at home before I was reeled back in. That night, I considered the invitation, worst-case scenarios flitting through my mind. Little, bright red warning flags waved frantically, but I wanted to go. I recalled having similar qualms back in May when I was packing to move in with Bob for the summer: can I trust this man? At the time, a good friend asked me to consider the situation in terms of my experiences in NZ. If I was in NZ, would I be worried? No. So why am I concerned now? Is an American somehow more likely to be dishonest and out to take advantage of me? No. I took her advice, took a deep breath, and I’ve had a great summer. I decided to apply the same thinking to this hiking trip. I packed an extra knife, put on my best “Not a Victim” face, and on Saturday evening strolled into Lou’s house with my shoulders squared and the hopeful conviction that all would be well. Trust inspires trustworthy behavior, I thought. I shook hands with Joe and Tom as we were introduced, firmly, and with confidence. You do not intend me harm, I told them silently.

Sunday morning. We drove an hour east of Dubois, entered the Wind River Indian Reservation, and then rattled along for another hour on a narrow, steep, dirt road that was studded with rocks that seemed intent on gouging out the bottom of Lou’s van. Ruby the yellow Labrador stood with her forelegs on the console between the front seats, trying to keep her balance and watch the road at the same time. At the trailhead, Lou distributed bags of food, carefully doling out equal weights. Except for me, that is. I got the dried bags of pasta and the granola bars: the lightweight stuff. I frowned, but quietly packed away my share. How are they to know that I carried forty-five pounds for ten days through the Fiordland wilderness? The men swing their packs onto their backs, and I begin to do the same, but suddenly Lou is there behind me, lifting my pack off the ground for me. He’s trying to be helpful, but it’s far more awkward this way.

We have an easy afternoon to start. It’s three and a half miles to Twin Lakes, where we set up camp on a wide, rock ledge overlooking the two lakes. There’s a deep rift in the rocks between the lakes where water flows from one lake down to the next, and the sound of the rushing cataract is an excellent soundtrack to our first night. Marinated pork tenderloin and pasta cook slowly on the open fire while Joe plies the water of the calm lower lake with his fly rod. I wander about with my camera and Tom and Lou bathe discretely behind a piney outcrop. Later, we eat, and watch the sun go down. The guys tell me that they’re pleased to have me along: “12 years, and we finally get a woman to come!” It takes a while for the group dynamic to gel, however. I can see my uncertainties reflected in their eyes. Where I worry about harrassment, they worry about having to carry my pack or having to listen to complaints about dirt, blisters, and food. They say it’s not specifically a “boy’s trip”, but I see them wondering if this means they won’t be able to swear and burp and tell dirty jokes. Their instincts tend toward gallantry; mine keep me distrustful. As we bed down for the night, the sky threatens rain, and Lou tells me that I’m welcome to “platonically” share his tent if it starts to pour. I thank him politely, thinking privately that it will take something close to a hurricane to make me feel comfortable about crawling in next to him.

Day two and three pass without incident. The terrain of the Wind River range is stunning. With each foot of elevation gained, the views become progressively more spectacular. Lofty peaks, crashing streams, and pristine pools. There’s even a beach at the end of one lake! Tom and I can’t resist climbing down the rough, cliffy drop to walk barefoot on the coarse, yellow sand. This is heaven. We reach our base camp destination, Lake Solitude, elevation 10,800 feet. It is a breathtaking spot, as far west as a person can walk before coming up against the wall of the continental divide. The weather has been fantastic. We can’t believe our luck: nothing but sunshine, blue skies, and warm nights. I’ve slept outside every night, within shouting distance, but out of sight of the men. On the 27^th, I lay in my sleeping bag and stared at the sky as the shadow of the earth slowly eclipsed the moon and turned it dark orange. The men have warmed to me, and I to them, and every night we cook together, drink camp margaritas (powdered lemon Gatorade, tequila, and sliced limes), share stories, and argue over who has to get water to wash dishes. We tease and harass each other with careless impunity, and I laugh like I haven’t in a while.

Chivalry is still looms large. Lou, in particular, seems incapable of believing that I am competent enough to take care of myself. We have to cross a river, and I actually have to argue with him to be allowed to carry my own pack across. I endure a number of instructional sessions on fire building, trail finding, and pack adjusting. It’s not that I think I know it all, or that I can’t appreciate a helping hand, but I resent the unspoken assumption that because I am young and female, I need someone to take care of me. I get along more easily with Joe and Tom. I earned their admiration on day three when they caught sight of the quarter-sized blister I’d been nursing without complaint since day one. After that, they treated me with easy-going respect, as an equal. I’m pleased to be able to upset their stereotypes of women in the backcountry, and even more pleased to see my own concerns made ridiculous. These are good guys. There is, however, a distinct element of pursuit in our trip, a subtle wooing, an unmistakable flirtation. I am young, healthy, and single. They are older, divorced, and incapable of hiding their interest. It’s a scenario I’ve experienced and witnessed on countless occasions throughout my travels: the attraction of older men to younger women. Between Tom, Joe, Lou, and me, the immediate attraction is sexual; as the days progress, their interest changes. “I envy you, what you’re doing with your twenties,” Lou tells me. “It’s taken me to my forties, and now I’m ready to start over again and do like you.” Tom says my stories of backpacking and living out of a car remind him of his own youth: “I love your spirit, how adventurous you are.”

Summit day! From Lake Solitude we climb 1,000 feet to the continental divide, then haul ourselves through the thin air, up another 500 feet to the top of Mt. Kavageah (which may or may not be the correct name). I lag behind, constantly stopping to gawk at the view. Mountains! I am in awe, in my element. Following the men, I range in and out of hearing distance. All morning, they’ve been talking about potential business opportunities. Cash flow, real estate, interest rates, and locations. I can’t relate. Even as we reach the peak, they’re still weighing the pros and cons. I smile. This is hiking with 40-year-old men: not lewd suggestions, not salacious winks or outright aggression. Instead they discuss remodeling plans for houses, disputes with neighbors, and investment strategies, topics considered from the perspective of three men on the brink of middle age, looking for something to lend a little bit of spice to their lives. It occurs to me that this has been the theme of my summer: older men. An entire summer of feeling young, inexperienced, naïve and slightly off-balance. Constantly negotiating the questionable waters of male-female interactions, from staving off (or simply fearing) sexual advances, to fighting to prove my physical and mental capabilities, to trying to be a good listener for a recent divorcee. How wonderful it will be to spend time with women. To seriously discuss the mid-twenties growing pains with friends who understand rather than to nod politely at the concerns of men undergoing a mid-forties crisis.

After achieving the peak of Mt. Kavageah, and spending a second night on the shore of Lake Solitude, the four of us make our way back to our camp of the first night. Twin Lakes, the return. It is a hot, dusty afternoon when we arrive, and I announce that I’m going to swim to the island. “It’s just begging to be swum to,” I declare, dropping my pack and moving toward the shore before I can cool down or change my mind. “Better you than me!” Joe calls. I can hear them behind me having their doubts. It’s about thirty yards away, and the water is chilly. Still, I try to breathe rhythmically and keep my body moving, keep the blood pumping. Halfway there, I wonder if this is a mistake. Even when I reach the island, I will have to swim back. Have I, in my determination to step foot on that island, made a bad call? I’ve survived for two years on instincts and stubborn determination. I’ve willfully ignored the dangerous undercurrents of human interaction like I’ve chosen to disregard the substantial distance from the shore to the island. I keep swimming. Too late to turn around now. Five minutes later, I pull myself onto the rocks of the island, and hear the men cheering distantly. I grin to myself and wave victoriously in their direction. I’m winded, and cold, but I made it, with energy to spare for the return. Sheer guts and luck, I’m sure, have a limited capacity. But not today. This trip, these six days, has hit the recharge button on my trust. And when I make back to the main shore, I’m going to sit in the sun and drink the cup of hot tea that Lou has promised to have waiting, and enjoy the easy camaraderie of four hiking companions around the campfire next to a lake in Wyoming.

Trip photos here!

Work commences at eight, when the sun climbs from behind the trees and shines in our eyes. We’re nearing the end of the renovation! The railing has been built. The stairs have new stringers and have been sanded and refinished. I’ve patched holes in the kitchen floor, scraped it clean of old vinyl and cardboard backing, and laid down sheets of plywood to create a solid base for the new vinyl, which we’ll be installing sometime next week. We replaced all ten windows in a two-day marathon, tearing out the old, warped frames and panes with flat bars before fitting in the new. Two more days saw us perched outside on ladders with chisels and mallets, carving out the old logs to fit in new cedar trim, and presently we’re working on building window sills and frames inside. I did all of the work on two of the window frames all by myself! I built the frame for my own room out of smooth, aromatic cedar, and then engineered a rustic-looking structure out of old, weathered barn wood for a second bedroom. Bob wrote me a report card for my window frame work – my first independent construction project! “Windows: A+”, the card read. I found an old magnet and stuck it on the fridge. I am getting the hang of this carpentry thing. I’m not allowed to use the table saw, and I am hopeless at the quick figuring of measurements, fractions, and anything math-based, but my pencil and my tape measure have become new, indispensable appendages, and my arm muscles are becoming stronger and steadier with each blow of the hammer or swing of the mallet. My days are made up of foam insulation, wooden shims, joint compound, caulking guns, sand paper and nail guns. My life is construction and creation.

It is boring. And yet – good. For the first time since I can remember, I have time. I read (Vonnegut, Les Miserables, Baudelaire, Bill Bryson, the final Harry Potter book), I write emails, I write for myself. I’m cooking and baking: pita bread, chili, falafel, biscuits, pizza, corn bread, fried rice, curry. Bob and I are still working with the horses, though now we’re riding and training and spend two or three hours with them every night. Cal comes by in the evenings once or twice a week with a bottle of wine. To write it in detail would become quickly redundant. I could describe to you the hundreds of subtle variations of the light as it plays on the steep red sides of the canyon, or the way that storm clouds build, a bluish-black backdrop to the golden, waving grass in the field. The way the wind blows every afternoon at a certain time or the ongoing war I’ve waged against the mice in the house. There are a thousand small details to flesh out the life I’m leading, but to focus on them with deep description or attention would be to negate the unassuming charm that makes them magic. Every day is an adventure, true, but it’s a smaller, more subtle adventure. It is the adventure of a settled, unremarkable life: worthy, wonderful, but hardly cinematic or inspiring. If there is inspiration to be had, it is in learning to love the simplicity and to exist without the need to invent excitement or chaos or distraction: peace.

And now there is a soft gray cat in my lap.  Oh, the simple pleasures.

If I visualize this period of transition as a piece of music, then at this moment what I am hearing is the quiet reflective melody that follows a particularly powerful crescendo: The Hollyford Mission!  It was a ten day trip, through the remote wilds of Fiordland in the southwestern corner of the South Island.  Three days tramping along the beaten path of the Hollyford River valley with a few other hardy souls, three days living in a hut on the beach waiting for bad weather to clear, and four days of complete solitude on the hardest trail I’ve ever walked.  On day one, I hiked 30 km (18 miles – Huge.) and felt six of my ten toes and the bottom of my right heel develop large, swollen blisters.  On day three, I found myself caught out in a torrential downpour, complete with jagged bolts of lightning and crashing thunder, on the wrong side of a flooded river, and had to spend the night huddled between flax plants in a wet tent in a wet sleeping bag.  On day four, I waited for the eye of the storm, packed all of my (sopping wet) gear, crossed the river, and all but sprinted the last three kilometers to the Big Bay Hut.  Big Bay (as the name would suggest), is a large, rectangle-shaped bay on the northern coast of Fiordland.  It’s accessible only by helicopter, small fixed-wing planes, or a four day walk from the nearest road.  Remote.  Beautiful.  Even in the throes of the storm, the wild seas and gray, rocky beach were magic.  What a place to be stuck.

I waited out the weather for two and a half days, and could have easily let myself forget the outside world and simply stay.  There were three surfers stranded with me for the first day, waiting for a break in the clouds so that their airplane could land on the beach and take them home.  Before they left they introduced me to our neighbor, a hunter named Aussie Bob, who was spending a few weeks in his private hut a kilometer further down the beach.  When the surfers finally soared away, it was just Bob and me and the beach and the wind and rain.  Bob was perhaps fifty years old, a sheep-shearer, and for 17 years had been hunting the coast and hills of northern Fiordland.  I wished, repeatedly, that I had a tape recorder to capture the stories he shared.  A genuine, multi-faceted individual, a true man of the land who could gauge deer’s bloodlines from the shape of the antlers of the stags he’d killed.  He described himself as a redneck, but he was the most open-minded and accepting redneck I’ve ever met.  “Different strokes for different folks,” he’d say as he shook his head over the lifestyles of the various people he’s met in his long and varied life.  He wasn’t sure what to make of me at first: a young woman on her own in the absolute last frontier of the NZ bush, confident of my abilities yet responsible and aware of the risks of the back country and the measures needed to counter them.  I walked down the beach to his hut the first night to listen to the weather forecast on his mountain radio, and stayed to chat over a can of beer.  As he listened to my stories of Antarctica and past tramping experience, I could see his respect for my independence grow at the same time as he sought to protect me.  Bob sent me home with flour and yeast to bake bread in my hut’s camp oven, and the next afternoon showed up with fresh venison back steaks (the nicest part of the animal) wrapped in a plastic bag.  These I cooked in a curry, using the ingredients that the surfers had left behind.  Venison curry and fresh bread baked on a wood stove in a little hut on the beach in Fiordland in NZ.  I’m not sure that cuisine gets any better than that.

For two days, life took on a simplicity and a peace that I would find difficult to recapture.  In the mornings, I stoked the fire, got it roaring, with a kettle on top of the stove for tea, then ventured out to the beach to check the weather and gather more driftwood to feed the fire.  The water would be hot when I got back, and Bob would pop in and join me for a cuppa while spinning yarns about his work and his misadventures as a young, redneck Aussie visiting New Zealand for the first time.  After tea I’d have a wash at the faucet behind the hut, sweep out the sand, mix up a batch of bread dough to rise, then sit and read and watch the birds, fantails, wax-eyes and tomtits, swoop and dive outside the window.  Eventually the rain stopped and I could go for walks on the beach, taking pictures and collecting shells.  In the evenings I’d walk over to Bob’s hut to catch the weather and listen to his stories.  I’d inevitably show up barefoot (it was warm enough, and it was easier than putting on wet hiking boots), which would make Bob shake his head.  ”You’re a tough bitch, aren’t you?” he said, in a tone of deep respect and admiration.  The night before I left, three of Bob’s hunting mates arrived by fixed-wing plane, and he invited me to come over for a roast (wild boar, pumpkin, kumara).  There I sat, smack in the middle of a kiwi hunting “man’s weekend”…how did I get here?  I marveled.

The rest of the trip was along the Pyke River valley: tough going.  This was a track that sought to break me.  It had already sent blisters, lightning, wind, rain, floods.  The second half tried to turn me back with fallen trees, mud, lakes, suffocating bush, thorns, vines, roots, slips, trips, falls, cuts, and bruises.  It thrashed me good, and then dared me to keep going – and I did.  Yet my memories are tinged with a glowing sort of magic.  I saw no one.  Red deer grazed along the sides of the rivers, and stags roared terrifyingly in the bush.  A NZ falcon swooped down from its lofty perch to examine me close up.  At one side creek, I balked at the murky orange water of questionable depth and the half-submerged tree stumps that poked out ominously.  Instead of walking through it, I took a gamble on a fallen tree that conveniently bridged the 8-foot creek.  It was narrow and smooth.  Too narrow and smooth.  So much for my dry sleeping bag and my mobile phone!  The next day I walked around Lake Wilmot, a small lake made nearly impassable by windfalls – it took me four hours to cover one kilometer.  Next was the Black Swamp, where I had to leap between tiny tussock mounds to avoid the sucking, stinking mud that at one point swallowed both of my legs up to my groin.  On the last day, I walked five kilometers through Lake Alabaster (yes, I had to walk IN the lake), climbing over slippery rocks and fallen trees, staring tiredly through my raincoat hood (it was raining again) at the waterfalls pouring down the cliffs on the other side of the lake.  Like the creature from the Black Lagoon, I rose from the lake at the end of the day, trudged wetly across the beach to the hut, and stood solidly on the porch.  I turned and surveyed the length of the lake I’d just conquered, and cheered.  The Hollyford – Pyke/Big Bay Mission: DONE!!  Satisfaction supreme.

24 April, 2007

(A real time update: Kelli and I are in Taupo, in the middle of the North Island, and all is well.  More to come as the (mis)adventures continue!)

A week of sunshine followed by two weeks of pouring rain saw me doing my best to help Susan out around the Dreamhouse.  Washing windows, edging gardens, cooking meals, vacuuming, dusting, mowing lawns, hauling wood, etc.  The rain cleared for a weekend, just long enough for the whole family to travel south to Hokitika for the world-famous Wildfoods Festival.  It’s an annual event on the Coast that draws up to 30,000 visitors from both NZ and around the world and celebrates the – ahem – wilder side of West Coast cuisine.  By way of example, I present a list of the delicacies that I, personally, consumed: venison, wild mushrooms, crickets (they were in peanut butter truffles, so they tasted okay, but when I was still picking legs out of my mouth a half hour later, I had to rate the crickets as the nastiest thing of the day), snails, homemade ice cream with organic strawberries, kava (a traditional beverage from Fiji), corn on the cob, kangaroo, crocodile (tastes like chicken), elderflower champagne, worms (chopped up and served in chocolate truffles), punga (native ferns), possum, horse (that one I could have done without), and huhu grubs (fat, white wood-boring critters that taste like nuts when roasted).  It was a day for daring and for strong stomachs.  I met up with Andre and Genevieve, two of my favorite Ice people, and spent the night with them out on the beach, relishing the opportunity to enjoy their company in the real world.  More rain…I visited Geoffrey’s gold mining claim and fell on my bum in the mud.  I also got to watch the whole mining process, do a bit of panning for myself, and actually hold raw nuggets of gold in my hand.  We escaped the rain for another weekend, this time across the Alps to Christchurch to watch the Crusaders (the local professional rugby team) bash the Bulls, a team from South Africa.

All in all, I spent a refreshing, fun (if a bit wet) three and a half weeks with Geoffrey, Susan and Navare.  It was longer than I’d planned to stay, but I’d mapped out a 9-day hike through the main divide of the Southern Alps, and couldn’t attempt it til the rains quit, as it involved numerous river crossings and fairly rugged, un-marked terrain.  Just as I was beginning to think I’d have to scrap the whole thing and move on, the rains cleared, and I was off.  Nine days… The idea for the trip originated with Lumir, and it was a doozie: gorgeous river valleys, tempting tall peaks, pristine lakes, natural hot springs, and two challenging mountain passes in the very heart of the Alps.  Definitely the road less traveled by.  For the first four days I was completely alone.  There wasn’t a soul living or breathing for miles…just me.  It was an incredible, empowering experience, having to use a map and compass to find a safe route, having to problem solve and navigate and take complete responsibility for every aspect of the trip.  The first night out, I slept next to the Waiheke River in a bivouac that I constructed out of a large blue tarp and a length of rope.  I woke during the night, rolled onto my back, and stared directly up into the clear, starry sky: wow.  I waded up one river, crested the first pass (the Amuri), and spent four days wandering the river valleys of the eastern Alps.  I camped next to Lake Sumner and was almost carried away, bivouac and all, by sandflies (wicked, demon biting insects that travel in gangs of millions) but was rescued by a kind, retired schoolteacher-turned-fisherman-and-violin-maker who loaned me an extra tent for the night.  He also shared his wife’s homemade cake with me and in the morning, wouldn’t let me leave until l’d sat and had a cup of tea with him.  Love, love, love this Kiwi generosity.  On the second to last day of the trip, I stood on top of the Harpers Pass (936 meters – approx 3,000 ft.) after a long, extremely difficult morning’s climb, and felt my soul absolutely fill to bursting with triumph – I had done it!!  Nine days in the back country, completely self-sufficient, learning, growing, and loving every minute.  It was a bit anti-climatic then, when I came down from the pass and had to stay put in a hut, a mere sixteen kilometers from the end of the trip and civilization, waiting for two whole extra days because of a wicked rainstorm and flooded rivers.  Two days, alone in a hut, reading, playing solitaire, watching the rain, doing jumping jacks, stoking the fire, and staving off the stir-crazies by working on the 1,000 piece jigsaw that some kind, blessed soul had left behind.  It was a relaxing way to end the trip, if a bit boring.  Eleven days later (nine days tramping, two days sitting), I strode out of the bush and made my way back to the Dreamhouse on the hill, stinking, filthy, but revived.

So now: freshly showered, clothing laundered and hiking boots dried, I’m off.   Last night Susan and Navare and I had a farewell marshmallow roast in the gia (a Mongolian dwelling, like a yurt…yes, they’ve got a yurt as well as a boat on their property.  They’re a pretty unique family.), and this morning Navare presented me with a piece of a possum jawbone for good luck.  It’s hanging from Dr. Gonzo’s rear view mirror, along with a piece of shell that Jenny gave me before I left Methven.  Ahhh, it’s good to be on the road again.  I’ve got three weeks before Kelli gets here, and way, way too many things to try and fit into that time.  Oh well.  A full life is a good life.  I’m back to the internet cafe scene, which means less time for emails and website updates.  With any luck I’ll be in the mountains most of the time anyway.  I’m a month and a half away from the Ice, and a month and a half away from home.  I’m at the balancing point, ready to make the most of the downward journey.  Let’s go have some fun!!