A Day Without Stairs

After yesterday’s many hikes I figured I’d take it a little bit easier today, and started the day after sunrise for the first time so far on this trip. The morning’s destination was to an overlook of the Tasman Glacier, which at 24 km in length is New Zealand’s largest. Unfortunately, since the 1990s it has been retreating at a rate of about 200 meters every year, and while I remain optimistic that we’ll remedy the climate change issue at some point, it’s still sad to see such a massive force of nature and know that we’ve lost over three miles of it in my lifetime.

While visiting the glacier and the large lake at its face there was a constant sound of flightseeing planes and helicopters overhead, and only while hearing that did I realize how absent the sound of aircraft has been on this trip. I suppose that New Zealand isn’t under many flight paths, but it’s been nice having stillness that is seldom interrupted by anything other than birds flying overhead.

After a short rest, the plan for the afternoon was to hike the Red Tarns Track, which unlike the Sealy Tarns Track has only about 1000 steps. However, while walking to the trailhead I noticed that the mountain was out and showing off under clear skies, and since I didn’t need a lot of convincing to skip another brutal cardio workout it was off to the Hooker Valley Track for the third time in two days. Today I reached the trail during Saturday afternoon rush hour, but even having to weave between people every minute didn’t take away from the awe on this route. What’s more, the mountain was being fully cooperative, and I arrived back at my lodging five hours later with a huge number of mountain pictures to sort through.

Tonight I’m off on a stargazing trip (this area is part of a dark sky reserve since it has nearly zero light pollution), and the plan for tomorrow is to give the Red Tarns stairmaster Track a try before sadly leaving the park and heading south to Glenorchy.