It turns out that there is life after the Pacific Crest Trail. Other hikers lament in their blogs about feeling empty or restless or sad or aimless. I cannot relate. One week after celebrating my finish at the Canadian border I was in Flagstaff, AZ preparing for a raft trip on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon with friends new and old. It was amazing. I then proceeded to spend three months on an organic farm in northern California, just west of the Sierras and the PCT, tending greens, hogs, and being a crazy chicken lady to nearly 40 chickens. It was a blast. In February I returned home to my beloved Alaska and skied my days away culminating in a week-long backcountry adventure with 3 of my best friends. Obviously I had no time to lament finishing the PCT.
In May I began my job at Denali National Park as a trail crew laborer. It felt very right to go from hiking a trail to giving back to the hiking community by vastly improving a trail in the DNP entry area and making it accessible to more of its visitors. The work was labor intensive and even getting to our work site involved climbing 1500 feet up Mt. Healy every morning. My co-workers and I guesstimated that we climbed a minimum of 95,000 feet last summer getting to our work place. Then would begin the work of moving giant rocks and boulders with sheer muscle and rock bars to create staircases that looked like they'd been there forever. Ta da! Nothing to it, really....
I skim over all of this to get to where I am now: New Zealand. As I was contemplating what I wanted to do this winter to escape the December/January blues in Interior Alaska, I recalled the Te Araroa trail: a route that goes the length of New Zealand from Cape Reinga on the tip of the North Island to Bluff on the bottom of the South Island. Of course I thought: Why not?
And so. Here I am in a public library in Kerikeri, New Zealand, 138 miles into a 1,900 mile journey. Let's review some highlights, shall we?
The Trail
The Te Araroa (henceforth called the TA) is nothing at all like the PCT. Only established as a complete route in 2011, the TA connects existing trails via beaches, roads, farmlands, and waterways. What constitutes a trail in New Zealand is up for debate as well: none of this 18-inches wide, clear pathway that we were accustomed to in America. I remember some brushy areas on the PCT and we lamented that a crew really needed to get in there and do something about it. Ha!! Walking through the Herekino and Raetea Forests here in New Zealand was like a cross between Lost, the Hunger Games, and Vietnam. I don't know exactly what constitutes a "forest" versus a "jungle," but my environment was lush and green and the greens had greens growing on them. A large tree trunk would be covered in moss and plants and vines and probably also had a fern growing from the crook of it's branches. The trail bed? Mud. Steep mud. Like a ladder whose rungs consisted of trees roots holding a bowl of mud for you to step in. Climbing up was far less hazardous than the slippery decent which was slick and sphincter puckering. Much of the time you could not even see where you needed to plant your foot as there would be giant fern leaves in your way. Once you moved those with your trekking poles and proceeded to move forward your face would be sliced by razor sharp palm fronds. So you duck your head and take a step only to step on one end of a snaking vine, unawares, and as you bring your other foot forward it conveniently snags in the loop that was created by the stiff vine. Now you're off-balance with forward momentum in a mud bog with two long sticks in your hands and a giant pack on your back. For about 13 miles. Fun times, people, fun times. This was some of the most physically and mentally gruelling hiking I've done in many years....feels good that I can still get through it! Maybe not entirely gracefully or without swear words, but still....
The trail begins with a very long beach walk along 90-Mile Beach. The first hour or so were spent frolicking, poking beached jellyfish, and ogling brightly colored clam shells. The next hour was spent in reflection and listening to the waves. The next three days were spent wondering if the beach would ever end. Beach walking is flat....really flat. There are the dunes on the left. There are the waves on the right. And as far as the eye can see, flat, sandy beach. It creates quite the repetitive motion for a body as the same exact muscles are used over and over again: no climbing, no descents. Just walking.
There are miles of road walks along the TA. Some have been on paved, busy roads, but most have been on gravel, bucolic country roads in farmland. On the PCT we moaned if we had a 6-mile road walk into town or a poodle dog bush detour....Bah! I've probably already done more mile on road than all of the PCT! Really, it's just a different mind set and accepting that this is a route, not a trail. One day I spent 5 miles walking in a river...just part of the getting there.
The Hiking Partner
Mary gave me a droll look, took a drag from her cigarette--a habit which she had given up in August when she decided to come on this hike with me--, and croaked out poignantly with her exhale, "I. Don't. Quit."
It was the second day into our hike and we were sitting under a clump of trees just off the beach, soaked to the bone and shivering. We had descended a very long staircase onto 90-Mile Beach where I stopped to eat a snack when I said, "Well, the weather's a little grey, but it could be worse!" Shortly after, it began raining heavily on us with a strong, gusty wind coming directly off the Tasman Sea. The saturated brim of my trucker cap dripped horizontally to my left. It was rather grim walking. Neither one of us had immediately put on rain gear as it the rain started off as just harmless drizzle. Shortly both of us were completely soaked to the bone and unable to stop walking lest we give ourselves a chance to get cold. We saw several tourist buses (they drive up and down the beach for some reason) and Mary looked over at them longingly, joking about hitching a ride to town. There were several comments made by Mary about getting "out of here" or "meetin' ya in town" or "wouldn't have come if I'd known..." I was starting to worry that Mary might actually ditch me.
Mary and I worked together on the Denali trail crew last summer and hit it off right away. She's got a mouth on her and says exactly what she's thinking. She's a really hard worker and I thought she'd be fun to hike with and that we would get along quite well. But since she's never thru-hiked I guess I didn't really know how she'd take to it. I didn't expect her to talk about quitting on the second day, however. When I worriedly asked her in all earnestness, "You're not really going to leave me out here are you?" is when she told me that she never quits. Not even cigarettes.
Never have I been so happy to see Mary smoking. And now when she moans about something (as mentioned, the Raetea gave us much to moan about), I know she's not thrilled with the present conditions, but she is going to hang in there with me. Once she starts something she sticks with it.
Whew! The Pacific Crest Trial is not a problem to take on solo, but between trail conditions and questionable trail markings (it IS possible to get lost out here!), I'm very glad to be part of a duo on this adventure. Mary doesn't complain all the time, she's actually a joy to travel with....
Animal Life
New Zealand only has one native mammal and it's a bat. This is a land of birds. Birds that became so complacent from not having any predators that some of them don't even know how to fly. Of course humans have changed the entire landscape here, but it's interesting nonetheless.
While slipping and sliding through the jungle of Herekino and Raetea, I was relieved that the birds that sounded like shrieking monkeys were indeed not so and I didn't have to worry about one dropping down to attack me for my Cadbury chocolate bar. I was also happy to not have to worry about blindly stepping on a snake or grabbing a python in an attempt not to fall on my butt....it seemed like a perfect place for slithering creatures. There are, however, crazy sounding birds. Everywhere. Birds that sound like R2D2. Birds that sound like Mocking Jays. One bird that landed between mine and Mary's tents that sounded part alien and part chicken. Like maybe a chicken had been abducted by an alien, probed, planted with a mind chip and then sent back to Earth. This same bird also pooped purple diarrhea on my rain fly. There is a giant pigeon-looking bird that looks like it's wearing a wife-beater tank top. Sea birds with long beaks. Or long legs. Or both.
On the other hand there are cows, cows, cows, and sheep, sheep, sheep. Often our route takes us right through the middle of their paddocks. The sheep run away and I'm tempted to attempt a little recreational mutton-busting, but the cows pretend to be spooked and then want to follow you at the same time. Thank goodness they don't realize that they could flatten me if they had a brain in their head.
Also, an entire day can be entirely made by seeing a sow with five tiny piglets running around with her. Four shiny, pink-as-a-newborn piggies and one shiny, black-as-a-newborn piggy. I'm not sure that is the politically correct way of saying that, but I'm also pretty sure not all newborns are pink. Regardless, seeing baby animals can perk up the weariest of hikers.
Well, there is more to be said, but I'm tired of being inside a library on my rest and relaxation day. There are chips and Coke and chocolate cake to be eaten in bed just down the street. I'll do my best to keep y'all updated on the journey....so far, so good! Having a blast, getting reacquainted with the joys and pains of thur-hiking and getting to know New Zealand again 20 years after coming here to go to college for a year. Oh how things have changed.....and stayed the same.
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