Today started off with a surprise. When we went to bed last night there were 3 of us. When we woke up there was a 4th. A kiwi guy had snuck in just after we all passed out (he said he got in at 9:45pm). After some food and pleasant conversation, the 3 of us left from the hut.

A steep descent down to the river and then up up up up. About 800m of climb to get to the top of Mt. Ellis. The climb started off steep but flattened out the closer we got to the top. The wind also increased significantly. Like a lot. Fun times. But the views from the top were amazing. And there was cell reception so we checked the weather forecast.

We arrived at the midway hut for the day, after a really awful boulder field we had to descend through. Had some lunch. Contemplated the section ahead. The notes talk about it being extremely challenging. The TA website has a warning up about it saying there are places where handholds and footholds are hard to come by. Needless to say, we’ve been worried about this section for days.

It was, by far, the easiest hard section on the trail. And absolutely beautiful. It’s possible someone had been through doing some work on the trail since the notes were published and the alert went up, but really, it wasn’t that bad at all. It was challenging. But it wasn’t terrible. It had some nice trail side drops. But I never felt afraid of my footing. And I’m afraid of heights, so a 50 foot drop about 18 inches to my left would normally terrify me but I didn’t really feel any amount of fear on these spots. There were a couple of times I slowed down because awkward footing combined with steep drop meant I should be careful, but I wasn’t afraid at all, just cautious.

A section that was rated as 4 hours and very nasty, took us about 3.5 and was thoroughly enjoyable.

And at the end, a beautiful swimming hole. Ice cold, but it felt so good at the end of today.

Tomorrow starts off with a huge climb, and some descending and more climb. Should be fun.