Land into Dunedin hours later than scheduled, stock up on supplies in Dunedin before everything closes, drive to Te Anau. Wake up the next morning and drive to the Hollyford Road end to start fieldwork in the rain. It was a rather frantic start to the field season. The focus of this season would be to collect samples for my student Andre's thermochronology project, which would allow us to better understand the history of uplift and exhumation in the critical strip of land between Fiordland and the Southern Alps. Unfortunately this requires collecting many large samples in remote locations and so needs creative logistic solutions to carry out the fieldwork. The rough plan was to packraft down the Hollyford River, grab samples on both sides of the Hollyford Valley and the Pyke Valley, and somehow hike back out the Hollyford Track with four heavy samples between two of us.
It was cold and rainy when we finally put on to the Hollyford at a very late 4:45p. Andre quickly got the hang of the packraft as we negotiated around plentiful logs and down small riffles. The scenery was stunning between the deep blue-green of the river and the lush bush draping over the banks. The occasional torrential downpours certainly added to the drama. Right as Andre and I were right in the middle of going down one of the more significant riffles a deafening boom of thunder hit. It gave us both an adrenaline rush and felt as if nature was coming to get us!
We did a long, muddy portage around the 500m-long Hollyford Rapid, the only real rapid of consequence on this section of the river. If this was a pleasure trip I would have definitely liked to have run it.
This all took a while and the day was getting on. The original plan to paddle to McKerrow Island Hut seemed a little ill-advised (especially with the now continuously torrential rain) and so we exited at the Pyke Confluence (packrafting 20km) and walked over to Lake Alabaster Hut to weather the storm. At Pyke Lodge we were greeted by the friendly hosts, who after we mentioned the packrafting and fieldwork, suggested we stop by for tea tomorrow. This ended up being a crucial connection. It was 9:30p by the time we reached Lake Alabaster Hut which was quite busy with two large groups. With the low latitude mid-summer days it did not finally start to get dark until after 10:30p. The rain raged until the early morning.
We awoke to a very swollen Lake Alabaster. I managed to spectacularly stub my toe on a hut bench, a painful injury that would stay with me for over a month. We took our day trip field gear back down to the Pyke Confluence. The Pyke and Hollyford were well into flood stage! Fortunately this would not make the river much more challenging and would allow us to make much faster progress to Lake McKerrow. We were able to take a sneak route to bypass the brunt of the Chute Rapid. I enjoyed the interesting exposures of the deltaic deposits in the river banks. We made the 9km to the lake in 45 minutes!
We found an excellent spot to take our first sample on the west side of the lake. We paddled across the strong Hollyford inflow, checked out McKerrow Island Hut briefly, and then paddled to the east shore of the lake. With a little more effort we eventually found a good lithology to sample. We collapsed our boats on the mega-driftwood beach and switched to hiking mode. Some annoying off-trail travel allowed us to intersect the equally annoying Demon Trail back towards the Pyke. The trail was a mess of slippery rocks, 3D root networks, and steep slopes. At the west abutment of the Pyke swingbridge we found the perfect place to grab yet another sample.
We stopped in to say hello to Murray and partner at the Pyke Lodge where we chatted about geology and the valley over tea and tasty home-baking. To my great joy I did not have to ask and it came out organically: "Would you like us to take your rock samples out on a jetboat and fixed-wing backflight?" YES! They found us a cardboard box and we reinforced it with duct tape. We still had one extra sample to grab the next day and would drop it back. We stayed the night again at Lake Alabaster Hut and plotted our last sample location.
The next morning was particularly beautiful with clear skies and a complete lack of wind that turned the lake into a magnificent mirror. It was our first clear view of the Darrans and Mt Tutuko asserted itself. We chose Grebe Creek as our sample site and so set along the lake shore until we reached the creek. The creek was a typical steep frictionless, bouldery creek that required caution and multiple crossings. Andre was not a fan. It was slow going but we eventually reached a suitable outcrop, sampled, and headed back to the hut.
Lake Alabaster Hut, above and below
We dropped off our rock at Pyke Lodge and had some more tea and baking, this time also meeting Bruce the valley's resident hermit. We had a nice chat but we had miles to go. Despite the gracious lack of rocks our packs were still exceptionally heavy and painful to lug along the Hollyford Track despite good trail conditions. Progress was slow, we both were in pain. The swingbridges and Homer Falls broke up the tramp a little bit. We stopped to collapse on the spacious Hidden Falls Hut desk and have a snack. We detoured to Hidden Falls, and then continued our grind to the car park. A quick hovel to check out the Humboldt Falls viewpoint, and then we drove back to Te Anau.
Hidden Falls
No comments:
Post a Comment