The Freewalkers Guide to the Milford Track: Day Three: I hate this place.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006 at 6:25PM Blearily, I opened my eyes again. It was lighter outside. Since my midnight foray, I had hardly slept. I had listened to the storm. I had thought about the gear we had for bad weather. I had thought about the potential hazards the trail could throw at us. And I had had disastrous bad weather dreams that would last for about thirty minutes before I would wake with a jerk, and then toss and turn crankily until I fell back asleep.
I couldn’t stand it any more. I turned over, and saw that my wife was awake. Silently, I motioned that we should get up. Downstairs, the majority of the group was bundling up and repacking around the dining tables. I didn’t say anything throughout breakfast. Then, in desperate need of any sort of energy boost, I made the instant coffee that was included in my meal package. Despite all odds, its warmth perked me up enough to discuss our hiking plan with my wife. The plan was simple: wear enough clothes to stay warm, but not hot, and stop as little as possible if it was raining, but get rest; and try to keep our feet dry above all else.
Since I had had a good glimpse of the sideways rain during the night, I knew that it would be a good idea to double insulate the gear we wished to keep dry in our packs. I placed our sleeping bags, clothes, and other gear into a dry sack. I then placed my pack cover over my pack. Clothes-wise, we were decked out in full rain gear. Boots had been standard equipment for throughout the trip, but they were now covered with gaiters that wrapped around rain pants. Above, there was the standard all-weather coat. In my right hand pocket, I had a lightweight set of gloves, and in my left hand pocket, I had a hat and my baklava.
It was hot standing around in the hut with almost all of the clothes we had on. Therefore, there was nothing to do but clump out onto the porch, past the lone Kea on the railing, and into the rain. As we passed Lake Mintaro, I actually thought the weather wasn’t that bad, as compared to the gale of the night before. Sure, water was pooling and running everywhere off of our clothes and packs. Sure, water was dripping off of every surface in the forest. And sure, the multi-layered rocks that we were traversing up the switchback to McKinnon pass were extremely slick and mossy, and we just aching to break an ankle, leg, arm, wrist, or any other bone. But aside from those things, the weather could have been much worse.
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