After spending the night in Invercargill, I made my way back up to Wanaka. I got there around 2pm, but by the time I had eaten some lunch and done all my chores, it was already past 5pm so I decided to wait until the next morning to get to Mt Aspiring park. I camped at the Holiday Park and tried out my new sleeping bag liner. I hadn’t thought that it was supposed a really night, but I didn’t feel overly warm in my tent and was thinking that the liner wasn’t worth much until I got up in the morning to discover ice covering my fly.

I got up to the Raspberry creek car park a little later than I’d hoped and set off around 9:30 down the track. The first section followed the Matukituki river and had lovely views of the surrounding peaks.

There was a peekaboo view of the Rob Roy glacier at one point.

I arrived at the Aspiring hut at 11:15 and took a quick break. I saw that Caroline had signed the intentions book and that she had left up the Cascade saddle track a few hours before. The ranger seemed to think it was ok for me to continue despite it taking 8-10 hours to get across to Dart hut. So off I went, up and up and up. The first part of the climb is through forest but after a couple of kms, it emerges above the trees and then gets insanely steep with a lot of scrambling. It was tough going with a pack full of food and my extra warm gear, but the views on the way up and from the top were more than worth it.

After the climb, the trail meanders through some alpine terrain before getting to the actual saddle. From the saddle, there are amazing views of the Dart Glacier.

I stopped and had some food and dried out my tent while enjoying the view. I didn’t want to finish in the dark so I got going again and the last 10 km followed the Dart river while descending, steeply at first but then much more gradually.

Along this section, I finally caught up with Caroline and we did the last bit to the hut together while catching up. We got to the hut just after 6pm as it was just starting to get dark, perfect timing. The Dart hut is quite comfortable with a stove, large common area and four sleeping rooms with 8 bunks in each. It even had toilets with flushing water and TP. Today’s hike truly was special and unique, one of my favorite days of hiking overall. It was tough, but it was really cool and interesting to see a glacier from closer up and to see so many glaciers, which isn’t something TA offers. It didn’t hurt that it was a gorgeous sunny day and that conditions were ideal.

The next morning dawned nice and sunny again. It was cool again though as those that had camped tents’ were coated in ice. When the sun finally hit the hut, all of a sudden all this water started dripping off the roof, but it had been toasty enough inside. Caroline and I got going around 9:30 to give some time for the track to thaw out. The track started with a climb up to the Rees saddle.

It was a definite climb but nothing compared to the previous day’s. The saddle was a lovely spot with stunning views and we spent a while there soaking them in.

We set off again down the Rees river valley against a small tide of people doing the Rees-Dart track over Easter Weekend. The valley was stunning and we eventually stopped for lunch and enjoyed the view so much that it took us for ever to get going again.

We finally did get going and soon came to Shelter Rock hut. It was quite early still and although the flushing toilets and warmth were tempting, we kept going. We met another tide of hikers going up to this hut, some asking a bit desperately if they were close. The track continued to follow the river valley and entered some forest for a while.

We emerged from the forest to a larger grassy area and found a camping spot under some trees. The sun had already disappeared from the valley even though it was only 4 something pm and it was quite cool in the open grassy area but thankfully it was a little bit warmer under the trees. Still, we got our camp chores done and had an early dinner so that we could get into our sleeping bags to stay warm by dark, around 7pm. I put my silk liner around my sleeping bag and used my thermal liner inside the bag, as well as making a hot water bottle. I’m hoping that my damp shoes and socks won’t freeze overnight under the tent tarp.

I was pleasantly surprised to find very little condensation and no ice on my tent in the morning. There was some frost on the grass in the flats, but it seemed the trees protected us. I had been plenty warm during the night, even too warm so had taken off some layers. The track quickly entered the forest again, which was lit up with morning sun and magical.

It didn’t take very long to come to the park boundary and to emerge into more flats alongside the river. We decided to do a side trail up to Kea basin and so forded the river to find the track. It was a good climb but with switch backs so much more reasonable than most. There were some great views of the river valley along the way.

We got to the basin, where there’s a bivy under a rock overhang. We stopped for a long lunch break but decided not to spend the night.

We headed down and continued to walk out of the valley. We were hoping for a ride to Glenorchy from the trail head, but saw a car way before this. It turned out to be some hunters and they weren’t going that far, only to a private hut, but they did give us a lift that far. We had another few kms to go after this lift to get to the trailhead. The views looking back down the valley were still stunning.

As we got to the trailhead, a car came by and we got a lift into Glenorchy, such perfect timing and a great way to end a magical few days.