Chilling out with the Doctor: March 2006

just in case any of y'all were out there wondering what the new and hottest look of '06 will be, here's your answer.

From the River to Glacier

So, I've tried to document an absolutely heroic day of tramping with this above picture of the day's beginning. Early. Not too much after dawn, cool damp and overcast. Here we are at the Dart River, about 16-17km from the Dart Hut. At the dart hut, it is an additional 8km up to the Cascade Saddle. So we decided to haul to the hut, drop our stuff and throw together a day pack. And make use of each hour of the long day (9:30pm sunset!) and get from here, up to the saddle and back to the hut (32km!) in one day. The good news is that we made it, and it was spectacular. We made it to the hut around noon, keeping a good clip!. Threw down some tuna&pita sammiches and grabed our daypacks. We wasted no time and hit the trail up to the saddle right away. Despite protests from my legs (muscles & knees!) I made the 8km and ~1500ft climb to the saddle right around 5pm, which was really too late in the day to arrive at such a beautiful spot. Open views of the Dart Glacier (origins of the river above) and W I D E open views of the valley below - the pics really don't do it justice. We were back in the hut around 9ish, basically just in time to throw down some noodles and collapse into our sleeping bags. Tremendous!

my buddy GJ moments after slipping and falling into the stream.

view from trail

i know the glacier must be up here somewhere...?

Here we're actually almost to the top of the saddle! Most of the climb was through talus and skree, so i'm happy to be on something more stable.

Dart Glacier and the trail as it climbs up to the Cascade Saddle through the short tussock. The view over the saddle was amazing...and by amazing, I mean super sweet.

Upper Dart Glacier

...almost over Cascade Saddle

more mountains and stuff...

This view is from the beginning of the Dart Glacier looking down at the beginnings of the Dart River coming from the mouth of the glacier below

The end of the Dart Valley and the beginning of the Dart Glacier

Upper terrace of the Dart Glacier

Vista of Mt. Aspiring from Cascade Saddle

Mt. Aspiring...being just a little shy

View from the Cascade Saddle looking over into Mt. Aspiring National Park

two scary dudes

some dude ruining a perfectly good picture of the rees valley

Crossing the Rees

Hiking out the Rees Valley as clouds billow over the mountains

Lake Paringa rainbow

campsite #2

Campsite at Lake Paringa

Lake Paringa just before sunset

Lake Paringa at sunset

Stitch #2

so, I know this is a pretty aweful stitch job, but hey, I dunno much about this photoshop buisness anyways. With that said, I hope this picture provides even a small glimpse into the amazing sky we were blessed with while camping at Lake Paringa. Full rainbow painted upon a sky ripe with sunset colors. Just amazing.

The Fox Glacier, one of many large and impressive glaciers on the west coast. First we saw the Fox and then just a little further north we stopped at the FranzJosef