Featured Image: Incredible photograph of me gawking at the sunset from David at @eosenthusist
The Lead-Up
This story begins when Nathan and I part ways at the beautiful shores of Lake Hawea with Abel. Our plan is to drive up the west coast to a highly recommended mountain hut, Mount Brown hut. Usually, the best adventures happens when we part ways with Abel so I should’ve known something was in the works. The next part of the roadie was a blast. We picked up Ha (not her actual name since it’s too hard to pronounce), a hitchhiker from Vietnam on working holidays with the promise of a bit of sightseeing and getting her as far up towards Auckland as possible. We did some touristy stuff, had many interesting conversations, one particular one about how getting a working holiday visa in Vietnam was like doing a speed competition. She told us how she practiced for months at an internet cafe on how to fill in the application form as quickly as possible.
We stopped for the night at a small town called Hokitika, or as Nathan calls it, Ho-ho-Hokitika. A pretty town with beach views, Christmas lights still up and a cool clock tower in the middle of town. We spent a magical evening picnicking on a beach, watching the sunset and eating couscous and instant noodles. It was all #vanlife kinda of magical until we pulled up to our campsite for the night…
One thing I did not consider when I took my brand new MLD duomid tarp to New Zealand is the bugs. So sandflies go away at night right? I should be fine with a tarp! I forgot they have mosquitos too… they don’t go to sleep. I woke up early after a fierce night of fighting with mosquitos. the bug net I purchased in NZ worked pretty well at trapping the mosquitos in a more confined space with me instead of keeping them out. The entire night I was involved in a guerrilla war.
The routine was… get bit, wake up, wave my arm in frustration trying to kill the mosquitos until they somehow just all disappeared, go back to bed satisfied with my progress, wake up again with more bites. Finally, morning comes, I stroll over to Nathan sleeping in the car and he opens the door and said, “I’m not camping on the west coast again!” He gestures at the ceiling of the car and I thought someone painted the interior with polka dots. “I had to kill so many mosquitos during the night!” I laughed and said, “Well good thing we are hiking up to that hut tonight.”
The Preparation
We were eager to adventure on to Mount Brown for a night of sleeping in a hut away from all the bugs and itching. Mount Brown hut is on Mount Brown (lol) by the beautiful Lake Kaniere, first come first serve hut with four bunks available. That means there’s a chance of sleeping on the floor or outside if everyone decides to flock to this hut today. We said goodbye to Ha and started the first step to our adventure, going to the I-site. It’s the proper information center in towns, distinguished from every tour operators claiming to be an information center. Arriving there, we saw a couple we met at the campsite, asking about the mount brown hut. “oh Hiii, we are going there too! I guess we have to race you up!” I said as I pretended to book for the door. Kidding but not kidding, I want a bed. We found out that water is scarce so we needed to carry lots of water and full backpacking gear to sleep outside if necessary. (spoiler: Nope!)
The Adventure Begins
The hot day up 1000 meters of elevation gain with a full pack of 4 litres of water is starting to make this day sound more and more like a challenge and the incoming rain and clouds make the quest for a view a bit bleak. Nevertheless, we started on the steep trail and oh boy was it steep. A lot of the trail requires grabbing roots with hands to climb the almost vertical trail. We ran into a couple people coming down, so we were able to confirm that the hut was empty. With Nathan being tired from the hikes before, eventually I went ahead, a bit eager to get out of the never-ending forests. That’s the one great thing about hiking in Alberta compared to New Zealand. It’s so easy to hike out of the treeline. Like 90% of the time being out of the treeline vs 10 % of the time in New Zealand. The jungle can be a bit claustrophobic for me at some points being used to the more open pine forests. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its pretty charm though.
I raced up the steep track, hoping to get out as soon as I could. Ended up drenched in sweat and rain, exhausted by the time I got up to the hut. Unfortunately, the views were a bit “disappointing” with the rain and the clouds covering a lot of the surrounding mountains. After exploring a bit, I opted for a nap on the comfy bed of my choice, my prize of being the first one up.
I was woken up by the sound of Nathan making his way to the hut, followed by the couple from the I-site shortly after. The cool thing about huts is that you get to meet so many interesting people from all over the world. The couple are artists from the UK named Pippa and Alphie. Pippa is working with music living in Melbourne and Alphie is a painter living in the UK. We had a great time finding more about each other, spending a large amount of time helping Pippa pick out the next ideal city to move to that doesn’t rain like London and vibrant in culture. Calgary is out for one reason and Vancouver is out for another.
A bit later, we ended up meeting are two (current and former) glacier guides from the west coast, Ben and Tom. Ben told us some great stories, my favorite was about the time when they got so drunk that they got a sober friend to drive 2 and half hours to Ferg burgers in Queenstown to get burgers. Apparently, after leaving half of the burger in the car on a hot day eating it a day later and getting sick, it was still worth it. (I later found out Fergburgers was not all hype, best burger I’ve had)
The two guys moved on to find a spot somewhere down the Ridge as the hut was full. Much later another two guys show up, two friends from Christchurch, David and Royce, who are a bit surprised that there are more foreign visitors than locals at this obscure hut. David was also another avid photographer who we had fun talking about New Zealand and photography with. As the conversations winds down and I get more tired from the day of hiking, I thought to myself, this turned out to be a quiet night, looks like I will be getting a lot of sleep… Nope
The Magical Moment
Relaxing in the warm hut after dinner, I started to realize that it’s about time for the sun to go down, so I crawled out of my warm bed and decided to venture out for a look on the rare chance that the sunset was pretty with all heavy rain clouds around.
Slowly crawling up the hill next to the hut, mind drifting to other thoughts, I crest the hill and froze. My mind jointed to a full awareness of the incomprehensive sight my brain is trying to process. The sun, sitting just above the horizon, a big fireball spewing out rays of light in every direction, bathing everything orange… And I mean everything. A couple of our hut mates were already there and I silently wished I got there sooner. We kinda looked at each other and I basically had the look of “Is this even real”. It took a moment to deal with the shock of all the blood rushing to my eyes to get a better look, then I stumbled out… “I should probably go tell the others.” (#Selfless) Luckily, everyone else was walking up the hill already and I shouted, “come quickly, you have to see this.” The others hurried their pace and I was treated with facial expressions that are probably equal to mine.
The next half an hour was a blur as I split my time between looking at the sunset and looking at the double rainbow from all the moisture the sunset is creating behind us. At some point, David from Christchurch joked, “Best sunset of 2018?” (It was January 4th) I silently nodded thinking that I might be able to make that statement on December 31, 2018.
Finding beauty in our world is sometimes luck but mostly perseverance. Being able to say, “Hey let’s give it a shot” despite low expectations and a large amount of discomfort can produce the most rewarding moment.
When in doubt, set aside expectations and just go, there’s so much freedom in being okay with disappointment. When you step outdoors, the worst case scenario is spending a day on an adventure and being able to justify that burger afterwards.
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