Tramping at Arthur's Pass

We hope that everyone enjoyed the Easter weekend! We could see that you all took time out from gorging on chocolate and jelly beans to vote for your favorite scavengers. We’d like to officially congratulate Team Awesome! for winning the people’s choice award! Well done making fools of yourselves around the city earning top honors for ridiculousness! Thanks to everyone who voted too! We’re glad we could entertain you.

This past weekend, we decided to celebrate Easter by going tramping at nearby Arthur’s Pass. We had heard that it was a beautiful place and it definitely did not disappoint! We headed out early Saturday morning to get a full day of tramping in. With Crystal’s expert driving and Hannan’s navigation, we got there pretty quickly (although I really wouldn’t know since I did fall asleep in the back seat). As we got out of the car, the weather was a bit overcast, but not too bad. We started day one in high spirits and enjoyed being out in the wilderness.

After a couple hours, the rain started to pick up and we got pretty wet. We also had to make river crossings along the trail about every half an hour, so our feet didn’t get much time to dry out. It was all good though as the weather wasn’t really too cold and the rain actually felt nice. We stopped a few times along the way to get our bearings, eat, try to push giant rocks over, you know, the usual. After a long 6 hourish day of hiking, we were ready for the dry shelter of Hamilton Hut which would be our home for the night. The 20 bunk hut was pretty swank as far as campsites go. There was plenty of heat and cooking facilities and, most importantly, a nice big table for us to spread out our camp food and enjoy some wine in our vintage St. Paddy’s day “mugs”. It was the perfect place for some card playing to top off the end of the first day.

When we woke up early on day two, we couldn’t believe the difference! The sun was shining and the mountains looked beautiful! So this was what we missed yesterday? We thought the view was pretty great from the hut, but everywhere we went on the trail just got better and better. We got to go over some cool swinging bridges and pretend we were on the amazing race. What could be better?! The second day was a much longer hike, but was well worth it for the amazing scenery. We stopped at a bunch of places to rest and take photos and Chris even took a super quick swim in the freezing cold river. The weather was much warmer, but the water, not so much.

As we continued on our way, we climbed up and up and up and up until we finally reached the absolute best spot on the trail. The views in all directions were spectacular! The weather was clear and sunny and just made the view even that much more amazing. It was totally worth all of the climbing (and the subsequent descent). We hung out at the top for a little while enjoying the views before starting the long, long descent back down to river level. We finally made it to the car park at the end of the trail after hiking for about 8 hours total. Luckily, another group finished at about the same time and was able to give Crystal a ride back to the trailhead where we left the car the day before. Man, it would have sucked to have walked the 11km back to car after finishing!

Overall, it was an awesome weekend and we all had a great time! We hope that you enjoy the photos. It was very hard to choose which ones to put on since we took so many!

All of us at the Hamilton Hut (Day 2)

Jen crosses the first swinging bridge

At the river post swim

Jen relaxing along the river

Chris cooling off for the afternoon

Chris on the trail

Jen checks out the view

We enjoy the awesome view!

The beautiful scenery