Routeburn Birthdays Intermission, Day 1 – Jacob’s Birthday

Today is the alpine crossing portion of the Routeburn Track.  We had stunning views as we climbed a well-graded track up through a high valley.  We walked around Lake Harris, a surprisingly large lake to find at such an altitude.  We made a side trip to the top of a nearby peak, which had 360-degree views and the kind of wind you can lean deeply into without falling over.

We ate lunch at the saddle.  There are two day shelters here - one run by DoC, and the other run by Ultimate Hikes, a company that runs guided walks on the Routeburn for $1,000 per person.  They have a parallel hut system along the whole track, where trampers get a cooked meal each night, and don’t have to carry any gear except their clothing.  We passed a number of people on these guided walks, since they run opposite to the direction most non-guided trampers walk.  Blair and I were surprised to find that most of them were not old or infirm, and spent a long time speculating on what motivates someone to spend so much money on a three-day hike.

On the whole it was a gorgeous day and the scenery could not be beat.  We didn’t have far to walk, so we took it slow and enjoyed it, and soon found everyone on the trail was ahead of us!

On the trail approaching Lake MacKenzie, we came across several sturdy nylon “shopping bags” filled with gravel, each a meter and a half across.  Talking to the hut warden confirmed these were dropped by helicopter, and during the day when no one was at the hut he would go out and empty them to cover the trail.  Each bag contained about nine hundred kilograms of gravel, and he could shift five or six of them in a day.  At first I wondered if this was possible – some quick calculations revealed this was six tons of material – but then I recalled the old song “Sixteen Tons,” about coal mining, and figured moving a ton is not so hard if you’re doing it a shovelful at a time.

The warden was a shovel-nosed fellow with a big Canadian Mountie’s hat and a quiet demeanor.  His evening speech started out quite dull, but as he went on, his dry sense of humor shone through, until he had the whole hut in stitches.  He was close to the polar opposite of the warden from last night.

We spent the evening again with the Kiwis from Australia, playing cards and yakking and having a grand old time.  They were all impressed that I could do a bridge shuffle – apparently it’s not at all common here.

Blair brought out a steamed pudding with a candle in it, and the whole table sang Happy Birthday.  It was quite nice.