A Wild Vista

[For more information on the Kepler Track, see Trekking in New Zealand — Kepler Track Resources]

I’m not a morning person. Really, I’m not. So setting an alarm for any time before 6am requires some serious payback. Here it is:

Early morning on the Kepler Track

What you’re looking at there is the ‘alpine section’ of the Kepler Track — a four-day loop amongst New Zealand’s Kepler mountains, on the edge of Fiordland. With easy access from the charming little settlement of Te Anau, the Kepler Track is a spectacular, yet straightforward introduction to multi-day trekking in New Zealand (or ‘tramping’ as the Kiwis call it).

The Kepler Track is also one of the eight ‘Great Walks’ — the NZ Department of Conservation’s (DoC) premier walking tracks. For the Kepler Track, this means that:

• You have to book (this isn’t the case for all the ‘Great Walks’)
• The track is maintained to a very high standard — no pesky tree roots or marshy bits to worry about here
• The huts are palatial (with flushing toilets, no less!)
• The timings (ie. how long it’s suggested it should take you to walk from A to B) are extremely conservative
• You’ll be sharing your tramping ‘experience’ with many others
• If the weather or ground conditions are dodgy enough, they’ll ‘close’ the track

Put another way, the Kepler Track is a carefully managed tourist attraction that has been planned and built with that specific purpose in mind. The Kepler was designed to take the load off two other Great Walks in the region: the Routeburn Track, and the Milford Track.

If this seems to be putting a bit of a downer on the Kepler Track, it isn’t really meant to be. But I think it’s helpful to make it clear what the track’s about — that is, irrespective of the stunning landscape that you’ll be immersing yourself in as you complete the circuit, the Kepler Track might just end up feeling a bit more like a theme park ride than an authentic outdoor adventure, especially if you’re already experienced and used to looking after yourself in the mountains.

The key to enjoying a trek like this of course, is to accept it for what it is, and revel in the extraordinary surroundings. For my trekking companion Chris, and I, the Kepler Track probably seemed excessively groomed and manicured, as we’d recently come off the Dusky Track. Eight days of mud pools, swamp, unavoidable waist-deep water, hook grass, prodigious sandflies, and incessant tangles of slippery tree routes had hardened us somewhat. In that respect, the Kepler was actually a blessed relief!

Another way of looking at it is to consider the track as a thread of relative comfort and safety, passing through terrain that would otherwise be inaccessible to your average Joe (and I count myself as such). The Kepler Track is to this part of Fiordland, what the cables and ladders of the constructed via Ferrata routes are to the sheer rock faces of the Dolomites.

As an example of just how rugged and inhospitable the Fiordland landscape is, consider the following photo:

The Murchison Mountains, from the Kepler Track

Looks good doesn’t it. On the second day of the Kepler Track (assuming you’re doing an anticlockwise circuit), given clear weather, you can gaze north directly into the Murchison Mountains, which lie only a couple of kilometres away. The map excerpt below (from the 1:50 000 TopoMap series) shows the alpine section of the Kepler Track towards the bottom, with the southern boundary of the Murchison Mountains at the top:

Part of the Kepler Track and the Murchison Mountains — click to enlarge. (Contains data sourced from Land Information New Zealand. Land Information New Zealand gives no warranty in relation to the data (including accuracy, reliability, completeness or suitability) and accepts no liability (including, without limitation, liability in negligence) for any loss, damage or costs relating to any use of the data. Crown Copyright Reserved.)

These peaks lie between the South and Middle Fiords of Lake Te Anau, and are within 10km of the town of Te Anau itself — a settlement with over 1500 permanent residents. I tell you all this, because, in 1948, Geoffrey Orbell found a population of Takahē in the Murchison Mountains. This flightless member of the rail family is a large bird, that can reach over 60cm in length, with an average weight of 2.75 kilos — a fair-sized critter then. And declared extinct in 1898.

That a population of Takahē could go completely undetected for the first half of the twentieth century, in a developed country barely larger than the UK, within 10km of a sizeable township, is, to me, remarkable. That this was possible, can of course be attributed to the extreme difficulty of accessing and travelling through these mountains. The lush temperate rain forest so clearly seen in the above photo, acted as an effective barrier to all but the most persistent and competent of explorers. These days, the Murchison Mountains still support a viable population of the birds, and are designated a Takahē Protection Area, putting them out of bounds to any would-be casual visitors.

Back on the Kepler Track, Chris and I had hit a problem that comes with the territory of a carefully managed and controlled visitor attraction. Having to book in advance (and this applies whether you’re staying in the huts, or camping) means you immediately lose flexibility when it comes to delaying or modifying your itinerary due to bad weather. A few days before we were due to start the track in mid-February (we’d made our bookings a couple of weeks before), an unseasonal quantity of snow had fallen on the mountains — indeed, this was from the same storm that had soaked us on the final day of the Dusky Track. At the DoC office in Te Anau, we were told that the central alpine section of the track was closed, and was likely to remain so for a few days.

We made some cursory enquiries re. hiring ice axes and crampons in town, which would potentially enable us to complete the alpine stretch of the track (assuming the avalanche danger was manageable) but in the end, we didn’t go ahead with this, deciding to start on the day we’d planned, and hoping that the track would open fully the following day.

That first evening on the track, at the Luxmore Hut (after the warden had given us all a safety briefing designed to ensure that we didn’t set fire to the hut or each other, or do anything else moronic), we learned that the alpine section would indeed remain closed the following day. We didn’t get anywhere trying to persuade the warden to let as ‘have a look’ in the morning, so left it at that.

The following morning, DoC laid on a series of helicopter flights to take us overnighters at the Luxmore Hut to the far end of the main ridge, thus bypassing the highlight of the route, and leaving us with a tame descent down to Iris Burn. Still, at 45 NZ Dollars each (about £17), it seemed like a bargain. The only alternative was to walk back to Te Anau again and pick up refunds on any unused hut tickets. Staying an extra night at a hut isn’t an option when a string of ticket-wielding punters are already marching up the hill for their night’s lodging.

Flying alongside the Kepler Track

We tried to walk slowly down to the Iris Burn Hut after our short flight, but had still arrived by 3pm. One advantage of trekking on such a well engineered track, is that you can let your mind wander to some extent. Steep sections are furnished with staircases, or carved into precisely graded zig-zags — on the Dusky Track by comparison, a moment’s inattention would have you on your face, eyebrows full of hookgrass seeds, and wallowing in yet another foetid mire.

Having been denied the majority of the airy ridgewalk we’d been anticipating, it was time for a cunning plan. Rumour had it that the alpine section of the track would reopen the following day — not that that was a great deal of use to most of us at the Iris Burn Hut, as we were supposed to be continuing on down towards Lake Manapouri and the Moturau Hut — the last overnight stop on the trek.

The cunning plan, and what led to the ‘awesome day on the Kepler Track’ referenced in this post’s title, went as follows:

1. Get up at 05:30. Pack a day sac, leaving most of our kit at the Iris Burn Hut.
2. Reverse the previous day’s descent by climbing back up onto the ridge, then walk the alpine section of the track back to Luxmore Hut (the ground we’d flown over the previous day).
3. On reaching the Luxmore Hut, turn round, and walk all the way back to the Iris Burn Hut, thus doing a double crossing of the alpine section.
4. Back at the Iris Burn Hut, have a brew, then pack the full sacs, and walk the ‘day’ we were meant to have done to start with, to the Moturau Hut.

This did seem rather ambitious, but to her credit, the warden at Iris Burn Hut (who had by now confirmed that they were opening the track fully the next day) concurred with our plan — but did think we were slightly mad…

And so it was that the 05:30 alarm led us out into the blackness by 6am. There was a fine drizzle in the air, and it wasn’t long after we’d passed an overhang festooned with glow-worms, that we began climbing steeply up the switchbacks, and entered a thick mist. Perhaps the early start wasn’t going to reward with a fine mountain day.

Approaching the boundary of a temperature inversion from below, one gets the same feeling as when nearing a col, or a summit. Somehow, the transition is felt — sensed before it’s reached. So it was here. The thick fog was perceptibly thinning in the dawn glow — the quality of the light altering subtly. Gradually, in what had been featureless fog, a solid object appeared in the sky above. The moon.

Shortly thereafter, we broke through the surface, and could now see the cloud extending away from our feet, thick and grey and stifling, lapping against distant peaks in every direction. Not 20 minutes later, the alpenglow we’d been admiring faded as the sun crested a nearby ridge. This was going to be one hell of a day in the hills. Time to let the pictures do the talking (all clickable for larger versions):

Dawn in the Kepler Mountains

Alpenglow — reserved for early risers

The sun crests the alpine section of the Kepler Track

Mountains stretch to the horizon

This is what it's all about...

The ridge is revealed, layer by layer

The cloud finally clears to reveal Lake Te Anau

We had the entire ridge to ourselves. By the time we dropped off Mount Luxmore, and back down to the Luxmore Hut (we’d promised the warden at Iris Burn that we’d sign-in there before we came back) much of the the cloud had dissipated. We still had a wonderful day ahead of us, but the dawn magic was gone. At the Luxmore Hut, the warden was only just letting that night’s cohort go, having held them until 10am to allow the snow to soften up. It was frustrating to think of what they’d all just missed.

The rest of the day was a bit of a blur. Retracing our steps across the ridge; covering the section of track down to Iris Burn Hut for the third time in 24 hours; a rushed brew and feed at the hut; the pleasant but seemingly never-ending trek to Moturau Hut. The day ended with a magnificent sunset over Lake Manapouri from the hut porch. Earlier frustrations over the regimented inflexibility imposed by a pre-booked trek had dissolved along with the morning’s cloud…

Sunset from Moturau Hut