I am currenlty sitting in a little internet cafe in Arthur's Pass Village and it is freezing cold. After all, it IS a pass I suppose. I came back from a 5-day tramp today. It was a blast. I was warned that this is an area for the more experienced tramper as there aren't really any tracks so an ability to read maps is essential. The first day I summited Avlanche Peak. Now I have summited Avalanche Peak in two countries! It was gorgeous at the top. I made about 20 friends, and when I say friends I mean birds. The Kea is a large green bird with a rainbow wingspan. At the peak they were coming very close to me and I was relishing the attention but then I realized they were habituated when they started dragging my fleece away and my loaf of bread. I retreived both items and started throwing rocks at them and they eventually left. My first night I stayed alone in a hut near a glacier in a river valley. The hut shook at night because of the strong wind. The second day I had to walk in rivers and in the rain all day but when I arrived at the hut the fire was already going and I made some friends. Two kiwi men and a group of 2 american and 1 german study abroad students. I ended up hiking with the study abroaders for the following three days. They were a lot of fun and I was glad to be with them since there were some sketchy areas with route finding and many river crossings. In fact, yesterday we had to cross the river by individually going on a small cart while the others cranked a wheel. It would have been hard to do that by myself. We also got lost a few times but I would have been fine on my own since I was the one who usually found the way. It was rough hiking since there weren't any tracks. We were crossing rivers, boulder-hopping and going over passes for about 8 hours each day. The 3d night was a hut with 6 beds and there were 5 of us. Later that night a group of 6 came so we were cozy. The group of six was going to head out via the river on these strange intertube type things that one of the men had invented. It was pretty fascinating. There were hotsprings nearby as well so we sat in them at night with the beautiful southern hemisphere starry night and gloworms on the canyon walls so that it was hard to tell the differnce between the sky and the canyon walls. Today on the hike out I lost my camera and had to go back down the pass for an hour before I found it but it was worth it. I was glad to have met the americans. We laughed a lot and having them around distracted me from my own thoughts, which can cause insanity after a while.
Tomorrow I head to a glacier and then on to the Mt Cook area. I now have a return ticket! I fly back to LA on May 22 because I have recently decided to return to Yellowstone for another summer. I had been seriosuly planning on staying here for up to a year and heading on to Australia and Asia but for some reason I feel I am supposed to be in Yellowstone. It has been an extremely difficult decision and either way I would have wanted to be at the other place but the decision has been made. I have been lamenting a little bit since I would like to stay here, but now I'll just have to come back and I sure can't complain about 5 months in new zealand. And I've still got a month and a half. I am looking forward to being back in yellowstone as well and I am learning that its hard to be in multiple places at once. I have added pictures as well so check them out!
Oh, and I almost fogot. This trip I rented a Personal Locator Beacon in case I had injured myself, but with hiking buddies that was not longer a concern. But I am so glad I had a personal locator beacon. I feel very special.
