Avalanche Peak.

Last weekend headed up Avalanche Peak with Kylie, Maaike and Simone. It’s great to be able to drive just a couple of hours and be well up into the hills.

It’s quite a grunt up to the summit – the track climbs steeply from the valley floor in Arthurs Pass village.

So, the valley floor is at about 700m, and the top of the bush line is about 1200m… so, very roughly, everything in The Netherlands would fit within the area marked in red. Well, everything physical – obviously the personalities would never fit in such a space ;)

Ehem.

Onwards and upwards we went – the ridges can be quite spectacular.

There is quite the view from the top – though the cloud could have been a little kinder. Mind you, I tend to fry in the sun here – so a bit of cloud cover is probably quite a good thing for me really.

And a quick video of the panorama from the top.

All in all it took us about 3 1/2 hours to get to the top.. and then there’s about another hour to walk down from the top and further along the tops until you get to a scree slope you descend to the valley floor. There are *lots* of different scree slopes coming off – so it’s quite important to find the right one – otherwise you end up being caught by cliffs. Which is never a good thing.

On the left one of the scree slopes you don’t want to descend – and on the right – the one you do want to.

Running down a scree slope is a practised art – and one I’d not tried until coming to NZ. On nice scree (which this wasn’t today) with small sandy / pebbley scree it’s extremely pleasant. Basically you rest on your heels and slip and slide down the hill. It’s a fast convenient way to descend rapidly. This slope sees a lot of traffic, so it’s not quite so pleasant to get down.

At the bottom Maaike and I realised that our friend Mike had caught up with us (he said he would probably join – but not definitely) so started a little chant pf ‘we have a secret, we have a secret‘ – which Kylie and Simone didn’t quite understand (understandably) to begin with.. Simone looked at Mike for a good 10 secs when he did finally catch up with us. Hilarious.

Also, and at least as importantly – Mike had been testing cakes for his wedding, and brought along a delicious (and miraculously intact) cake for desert. Very very impressive.

Not the best nights sleep (brought my winter sleeping bag when it definitely should have been the summer one) – but a great trip nonetheless, and great to be out stretching the legs before solid socialising for 7ish weeks. Can’t wait.