Arthur's Pass

Wondering if the sunny weather report was wrong...

On Monday, under the cover of muggy clouds, I left for my next adventures in Arthur's Pass. Luckily the weather opened up and I was greeted with blue skies as I reached the base of the pass. The drive was pleasant, and not very stressful considering it is a narrow 2 lane highway. I stopped a couple of time along the way to enjoy the view.

I stopped at Castle Hill where there are a million boulders on the hill side and a nice walk that lets you explore them. Just when I was wondering if it was a good place to climb, I saw a couple walking up the trail with a fall pad. I talked to a couple other climbers who said it was a very popular place for people to boulder. (I saw a Japanese guy fall from half way up a nice sized rock, and apparently hurt himself slightly cause he was pissed at his girlfriend for her placement of the pad... Yikes!)

I arrived in Arthur's Pass Village around 2:00pm and decided to take advantage of the fantastic weather and do a short hike. I settled on Temple Basin, because it was advertised as having nice views. That is certainly did have! It was also fairly steep and mostly loose gravel. More than once I had to climb up the hillside. I got about 3/4 of the way to the end (you could see the ski club at the end of the trail) and decided to turn back, because I KNEW the way down would be hard on my knees. It was, and in many spots felt like I was walking on marbles. More than once I almost slipped!  

View from the top

My full day in A.P. I decided to do two shorter hikes to save my knee for glacier walking later this week. I found a 3-4hr hike on the Dept. of Conservation website which sounded nice. It was really nice... but I think their estimated time must have been how long it takes a blind one legged midget to hike the track... It took me 30 min to get to the end of the trail, and I thought maybe I went to the wrong place. I checked my map and I had done exactly what was on the map. (Later looking at a different brochure put out by the DOC it said the trail takes 1.5hrs return...) The upside was the weather was amazing, I had the entire place to myself, and I was able to tan in peace. Ha ha.

Interesting moss and root patterns

Tramping around the rocks up the river

In the afternoon I had plans to go on a short hike with a Japanese girl I met at the hostel. She and I took a short walk out to a nice waterfall, but decided we wanted a little more exercise so we went BACK to the same track I did in the morning. We found a big flat rock and took a nap! Before heading back I decided I had to put my feet in the water, especially since we met some swimmers coming back from the waterfall. HOLY cow it was cold! Your feet would probably go numb if you left them in there too long!

There are so many different hikes to do here, you could probably stay for weeks and never repeat the same path, but this was only a short stop for me. Next up is Fox Glacier!