Day 76: Danger On Christmas
December 25, 2019
Kilometers: 1855.0-1873.2
Starveall Hut to Rintoul Hut
Danger. Today was the most dangerous and scariest hiking I’ve ever done. This afternoons summits made the rest of the trip so far look safe and easy. But I’ll start from the beginning.
We woke up and instead of opening our stockings we packed up our gear. More muesli and milk for me. Just before 8 we were on the trail. As we left camp we all agreed to a “everyone stay within eyesight of each other” rule.
Luckily, the rain had held off and it was just overcast. If it was raining we would have had to stop hiking before the two summits for safety reasons.
We started out with a couple hundred meter climb to the top of Mount Starveall. The climb was steep and rocky. I could immediately tell that my legs were still tired from yesterday. Some areas called for climbing up rock structures on all fours. It was nothing we hadn’t seen in the Tararuas.
We arrived at the peak and were able to see the summits of Little Rintoul and Mount Rintoul. The whole day we would be along the ridge hiking towards them and eventually up and over them. As we hiked along the ridge I noticed we had some service and was happy to be able to wish friends and family Merry Christmas.
We soon arrived at Slaty Hut. We took a quick break, refilled on water and were off again.
From Slaty Hut we climbed back up to the ridge and towards the large mountains ahead of us. The trail rose and fell with the ridge. The sights were great so we didn’t notice the hard climbs as much as usual.
Eventually we arrived at the bottom of the first big climb to Little Rintoul summit. After a quick lunch we started the hardest part of the day. It began through the forest but was straight up hill. We took many breaks and eventually made it out of the forest and onto the rocky section of the climb. From here it was huge rocks and gravel to the top. The rocks and gravel slid from under your feet making progress slow.
When we reached the top we were very happy. One of the two summits was done and we figured it couldn’t get much worse than what we had just done. We were wrong.
Coming down from Little Rintoul to get to Mount Rintoul was extremely sketchy. We slowly made our way down, rocks sliding and falling with every step we took.
At one point we were, what I would consider, rock climbing and no longer hiking. There was one section where there was rock wall on one side of you and a huge drop off on the other, with only a few small foot and hand holds. This had to be done with extreme caution and deliberateness. One mistake and a serious injury was the best case scenario. The bulky and heavy packs on our backs didn’t help.
The trail immediately took us back up towards the summit of Mount Rintoul. The terrain was the same but the incline got even steeper. There were points where we were climbing at 55 or 60 degrees of incline. Meanwhile the rocks and gravel under our feet were sliding around.
After a few false summits we made it to the top. We held the celebration for later as we knew getting down would be just as hard and dangerous as getting up. The clouds covered us completely at times.
After a short break at the final summit of the day we took off for the hut. The clouds covered us at first as we walked along the ridge.
Soon we made it to a scree slide. We were able to scree ski a few hundred meters down from here. It was fun and efficient.
Not long after the scree scramble we arrived at Rintoul Hut and high fived each other. We had successfully completed possibly both our hardest day and scariest day of hiking on consecutive days.
Unfortunately, the pictures don’t exactly show just how ridiculous some parts of the climb were. I was a little preoccupied with trying to stay alive to capture it fully. It totally pushed me outside my comfort zone and I don’t know how I would have handled it if I was hiking alone. I’m definitely happy it’s behind us.
We all took liter showers and rested before dinner. I had a very fancy three course meal for Christmas dinner. The first course was spiral pasta with a salmon packet. The second course was spiral pasta with a different flavor salmon packet. The third was some chocolate. Next Christmas I’ll be eating something better i’m sure.
It’s nice that we have the hut to ourselves tonight. Ada and Lizzie are now behind us and likely won’t catch up during this section so we are back down to the three of us. We were off to bed early again as we still have three more days in the demanding Richmond Range. Tomorrows biggest obstacle will be a number of big river crossings. Should be some good stuff.