Arthur’s Pass

There are only two major passes crossing the Southern Alps, Lewis Pass and Arthur’s Pass.  Both qualify as highly scenic, if not very fast routes.  In our continuing goal of avoiding the holiday hordes, we continued onward into Arthur’s Pass National Park.  Located right in the heart of the Southern Alps, this park has mountains and valleys to spare.

The road in traverses some fairly intense topography, built around glacially-sculpted valleys.   The  remains of the glacial erosion can still be plainly seen in the form of braided rivers flowing across the valley floors.




The western side of the pass gets over 5 meters (16ft) of rain each year!  The drainage infrastructure is serious business.


If you look closely below, you may see the original road snaking along the valley floor.  Needless to say it was frequently blocked by flooding and landslides.






We camped for the night at the foot of the mountain in the foreground. 


The next day we decided to hike up Avalanche Peak.  This hike has over 1100 meters (3,500 ft) of elevation gain over about 3km.  That is some seriously steep hiking.

So we dragged ourselves up the slopes, zigzagging through the switchbacks, often hiking up still wet streams.




We took a break and noticed a double, full-360-degree rainbow above the valley.


We were distracted by a number of waterfalls coming off the slopes.




The view kept getting better as we wheezed our way ever upwards.


As we neared the half way point the trees became stunted, and the vegetation began the shift to alpine types.






Abruptly we shifted into the alpine herbfields.






A bit steep here, it would take a very long time to stop should one fall.






Hmm, just a bit of snow capping the higher neighbors to the west.


The herbfields gradually gave way to scree fields.








A  reminder of the amount of crustal uplift that has brought what was once ocean floor sediments up to 1800m of elevation.


Finally, even the alpine grasses and herbs give way to bare rock.


But it is definitely not barren.  Even up here in the dry harsh winds, alpine plants are living in the bare crevices.  Often taking decades to grow, many of these plants are older than I am.






The remote wilderness of the central ranges is bared to the eye from here.  Year-round snow caps these rugged peaks.


What may look like a light coating of snow from this distance is actually tens of meters thick glaciers.  Check out those crevasses!






It is hard to imagine, but during the last ice age (about 20,000 years ago) this valley was filled nearly to the top with solid glacial ice.  In places well over 600 meters thick.  That is just below where we are standing in this photo!  These enormous ice flows reached all the way to the sea.


Here is a view looking back about 1/3 of the way down.  The central peak was the summit of this hike.  

T
he small line on the far right of this photo is Arthur’s Pass road on the valley floor.


We managed to spot a Kea flying past us on the Peak (over 1800m high!).  The Kea is NZ’s only native parrot, and the only alpine parrot, living exclusively in the harsh mountain environment.  No photos sadly!