{"id":2884,"date":"2012-02-13T19:00:18","date_gmt":"2012-02-14T02:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebigoutside.com\/?p=2884"},"modified":"2022-09-23T06:08:53","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T12:08:53","slug":"off-the-beaten-track-in-new-zealand-trekking-the-rees-dart-in-mt-aspiring-national-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebigoutside.com\/off-the-beaten-track-in-new-zealand-trekking-the-rees-dart-in-mt-aspiring-national-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Off the Beaten Track in New Zealand: Trekking the Rees-Dart in Mount Aspiring National Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tBy Michael Lanza<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve hiked just thirty minutes from the trailhead when we hit the kind of view that frequently makes you stop and take a deep breath when trekking in New Zealand. The Rees River Valley sprawls out before us, golden grasslands dissected by a braided, meandering, emerald-green river. In the middle distance, a fat and foaming Lennox Falls plunges over a cliff. Farther off and thousands of feet above us, glaciers pour off a row of sharp peaks in the Forbes Range angling into the sky.<\/p>\n

My hiking partner, Gary Kuehn, an American who has lived here on New Zealand\u2019s South Island working as a mountain guide for several years\u2014long enough, apparently, to pick up that semi-intelligible Kiwi accent\u2014looks around, grins, and mutters, \u201cPritty noice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gary has seen a fair bit of these Southern Alps, where vistas like this are so common that they inspire an odd sort of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu that you have stumbled into paradise for something like the fourth time today. And yet, he jumped at the invitation to join me here on the Rees-Dart Track because he\u2019s actually never done this trek.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
The Dart Glacier.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That fact affirms my impression of the Rees-Dart, most of which falls within Mt. Aspiring National Park<\/a>: Although just spitting distance from the world-famous and enormously popular Routeburn Track<\/a>, with scenery copied and pasted from the same Southern Alps template, the longer and more rugged Rees-Dart remains largely overlooked by the armies of international trekkers that invade New Zealand every austral summer. Other than the expected busy atmosphere at the huts, we will spend most of every day out here seeing no one else.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s kind of remarkable, given that just about every living human who\u2019s ever put on a backpack and walked up a trail dreams of trekking in New Zealand (rightly so), and many of them make it here.<\/p>\n

We continue up the valley, sinking calf-deep into just a few mud bogs\u2014pleasantly dry trail conditions for New Zealand. We enter a dark, intensely green forest of moss-draped, twisted beech trees, where ferns obscure the ground\u2014woodlands that make the fictional landscapes of Dr. Seuss look unimaginative\u2014and cross a swinging bridge over the shallow but lively Rees River.<\/p>\n

Climbing higher into the mountains, we leave the forest behind and continue past the usual first-night stop for Rees-Dart trekkers, the Shelter Rock Hut. We hike into the evening across rolling, treeless sub-alpine terrain carpeted with knee-high tussock grasses and the dagger-like fronds of a plant called speargrass. Steep, green mountainsides rear up on both sides. At 4,747-foot (1,447-meter) Rees Saddle, soft evening light makes the greens, browns, and grays seem to glow on mountainsides where enormous fins of rock erupt from the earth. From the pass, we descend steeply into a gorge wallpapered with waterfalls to cross a footbridge over the deafening whitewater roar of boulder-choked Snowy Creek.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Rees <\/a>
Rees Valley, Rees-Dart Track, New Zealand. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rees <\/a>
Rees Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rees <\/a>
Rees Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Lennox <\/a>
Lennox Falls, Rees Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rees <\/a>
Rees River bridge. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rees <\/a>
Rees Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rees <\/a>
Rees Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rees <\/a>
Rees Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rees <\/a>
Rees Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rees <\/a>
Rees Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rees <\/a>
Rees Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rees <\/a>
Rees Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Upper <\/a>
Upper Rees Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Upper <\/a>
Upper Rees Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Upper <\/a>
Upper Rees Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Speargrass, <\/a>
Speargrass, Upper Rees Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Hiking <\/a>
Hiking to Rees Saddle, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rees <\/a>
Rees Saddle, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rees <\/a>
Rees Saddle, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Snowy <\/a>
Snowy Creek, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Snowy <\/a>
Snowy Creek, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Snowy <\/a>
Snowy Creek, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div>
\"Snowy <\/a>
Snowy Creek, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div>
\"Dart <\/a>
Dart Hut, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Dart <\/a>
Dart River, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Dart <\/a>
Dart River, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Dart <\/a>
Cairn, Dart River, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Marshall <\/a>
Marshall Glacier, Cascade Saddle route. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Above <\/a>
Above the Dart Glacier, Cascade Saddle route. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Above <\/a>
Dart Glacier, Cascade Saddle route. <\/div> <\/div>
\"Above <\/a>
Above the Dart Glacier, Cascade Saddle route. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Above <\/a>
Dart Glacier, Cascade Saddle route. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Cascade <\/a>
Cascade Saddle route. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Above <\/a>
Above the Dart Glacier, Cascade Saddle route. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Lower <\/a>
Lower Dart Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div>
\"Lower <\/a>
Lower Dart Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div>
\"Daleys <\/a>
Daleys Flat Hut, Lower Dart Valley, Rees-Dart Track. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Just before dark, Gary and I stroll up to the Dart Hut, perched on a bench above the raucous Dart River. In every direction, slopes of dense greenery rise to bare rock and glaciers. We cook up a late dinner and throw mattresses onto the outdoor deck to spend the clear, cool night under a sky machine-gunned with stars.<\/p>\n

Lying on the deck, fully knackered from our 18-mile, 4,300-foot-uphill first day on the Rees-Dart, I\u2019m hoping for good weather tomorrow for this trek\u2019s highlight segment, Cascade Saddle, which is notorious for fog obliterating the views. Then I see Orion shining brightly\u2014and I have to smile. The familiar constellation offers a reminder that I\u2019m in a place about as playfully exotic as it gets: In the Southern sky, Orion performs a handstand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Gary Kuehn hikes up the Rees River Valley on the Rees-Dart Track in New Zealand’s Mt. Aspiring National Park.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The high-pitched laughter rains down from the sky, volleying side to side on mighty gusts of wind. I look up, scanning the blue for the bird I know is producing that distinctive song. Gary spots them first, points, and says, \u201cKeas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four of the world\u2019s only alpine parrot slice the air acrobatically, issuing their signature high-pitched chortle, as if infinitely amused by the foolishness of humans who would walk high into the mountains just to turn around and go back down again. The kea\u2019s song is New Zealand\u2019s avian answer to North America\u2019s loon: a sound from a wild bird that induces a smile for how it seems to express the joy of being in a stunning, wild place.<\/p>\n

On our second morning, we\u2019re making the 12.4-mile (20k), out-and-back hike from the Dart Hut to 5,000-foot (1,524-meter) Cascade Saddle. And the weather gods are smiling on us: skies are mostly clear. Having walked upstream alongside the angry whitewater of the Dart River, we are now hundreds of feet above the heavily cracked, dirt-streaked Dart Glacier, which spews that gray river from its snout. We zigzag through switchbacks on a steep trail that crosses almost lifeless glacial moraine\u2014rocks, dirt, and little more than mosses, lichens, and those jester keas.<\/p>\n

At Cascade Saddle, Gary and I stand atop cliffs thousands of feet above the lushly green Matukituki River Valley. The sharp pyramid of Mount Aspiring, a peak Gary has guided many times, towers above the valley. Snowy, icy mountains stand shoulder to shoulder for as far as we can see. And we\u2019re the only two people standing here.<\/p>\n

We linger over the scenery for as long as we can stand the blasts of harsh wind, and then start back down to the hut. As we descend, the wind kicks up a dust storm in the upper Dart Valley. We had seen a brown cloud from just such a windstorm while riding in the hiker shuttle van many miles from here yesterday. The van\u2019s driver had told us that wind is the reason to walk the track counterclockwise\u2014up the Rees, down the Dart: \u201cIf the weather\u2019s crrrrap,\u201d he explained in that accent that is impossible to not love, \u201cat least the wind is at your baahck.\u201d<\/p>\n