After the Dusky Track Marcin and I were determined to get out of the bush and up in the mountains. We wanted to see some alpine views and good weather. We hitched to Gillespie Pass from Lake Wanaka, which is a gateway to the Southern Alps. We decided to take three days to do the Gillespie Pass Circuit (http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/otago/places/mount-aspiring-national-park/things-to-do/gillespie-pass-circuit/), which takes you up a beautiful pass, and another detour to an alpine lake.
A rest day in Lake Wanaka
An American named Miles picked us up in his rented campervan and took us to the trail head. As it turns out, he was doing the same hike. We started a bit late, so we hiked in just until the first campsite, which was only about 3 hours in. The temperature, time of day, and access to water made for some heavy, heavy sandfly invasions at the campsite. So we jumped in our tent and called it a night.
Bridge on the Gillespie pass trail
The next day we got up early and hiked another 3 hours to Young Hut. A large hut, with 20 bunks, we decided to stay the night there and just make a day trip to the pass. We were already a bit disappointed with the trail since a lot of it was in the bush, so our expectations were very low.
However, as it turned out, as soon as we left the hut we climbed up to the pass and had some incredible views! The climb was very steep and slow going. But thankfully we had beautiful weather with little to no wind. We got to the pass and took a long break taking photos and just taking in the mountain air. This was much better than the Dusky Track. This is exactly what we wanted.
Mt. Awful looming behind us...
On the way back to the hut we ran into an Israeli couple who were in need of help due to a broken ankle. The ankle was twice the size and he was in pain. Unfortunately, we didn't have a phone or any way to call for help. They had another friend who went to the next hut to see if he could call for help. We were about 30 minutes away from the hut, with a good ankle. Marcin thought that maybe he could help carry the injured man to the hut. It took multiple tries but it was just too dangerous to carry him to the hut. Plus we didn't really need to. He had water, food, and we had an extra tent that we could let him borrow. We stopped at a nice flat spot where a helicopter could easily land and Marcin and I ran back to the hut to grab the tent to lend to them.
When we got back to the tent, their friend had already called for a helicopter. Marcin took the bright orange fly of our tent and ran back to the injured party and spread it out so the helicopter could easily spot them. A few hours later, they were picked up and taken to the hospital. It was an unexpected end to our day, but it also made me tread a bit more carefully.
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