I don’t really remember much about the morning. It was New Year’s Day back home in the states but the second here in New Zealand.
Thank you to all of you who wished me happy birthday, Merry christmas, and happy New Year. 🙂
Chase wanted to hike the Blue River track, a trail that followed the Blue River up from near the Blue Pools, way up into the mountains.
So we went back to the blue pools, jumped in a few times, finding that for some reason the water was a lot warmer than it was the day before.
Not sure how that happened?
There were a lot more people in the water, and there were more people jumping with us off the bridge. A lot more. So that was fun. 🙂
We jumped several times, as I remember, enough to get to the point where we were maybe slightly cold? But for some reason, it was just so much warmer in the water that day, so we never got anywhere near as cold as before.
After getting just slightly chilled, we began to hike up the trail. The beginning of the trail was very steep, going up up up. Because there was so much vegetation, the path basically created steps up the side of the mountain with each step being a tree root, so you’re just climbing up a network of tree roots as though they were steps.
That part of the hike I actually liked a good bit. One of the challenges of the hike, was that it went up and down. It wasn’t a steady climb, and it wasn’t an up and then over and then up and then over. It was an up and then back down and then up and back down.
That’s not so bad on the way up, but when you’re exhausted coming down, having all those ups can be a bit miserable.
I think we follow the trail for two or two and a half hours or so until the trail finally went near enough to the river that we were able to take a little side trail down to the water.
We decided not to go up from there, opting instead to explore the river from that point going down, hoping that we could perhaps make it all the way down the canyon via the river instead of going back on the trail.
Neither of us wanted to go back down the canyon on the trail, but we were all so both quite aware that it was possible that we wouldn’t be able to find a safe way down via the river, as there was enough water in the river that if it got too tight, too narrow, it could be very dangerous if we were to fall in.
So we started hiking downstream, running into obstacles here and there, but finding ways around. At one point we stopped to eat a little bit, and then we continued further.
Finally, we got to a place where we could keep going, but not with our big packs. At that point, we regretted having our big packs with us, as they made it so that we couldn’t cross some places without risking getting everything wet. But, hindsight…
So we can find ourselves to having to hike back, but we wanted to explore the creek a bit further to see if we could find any other cliff jumping spots then the Blue Pools down below.
We did find one that was not nearly as high as the bridge at the Blue Pools, but we waited to jump in, opting to keep exploring.
It was at that point that we ditched our packs, put on our wetsuits, and continued exploring.
As we continued, there were many places where we jumped into the water to make it to the next crossing point. That was fun. I love that kind of exploration.
The water was rushing strongly enough, that when I got a little too close to one of the dams created from wood between boulders, my leg got sucked into the hole and pressed in there for a moment. I had to carefully move my leg backwards to get it out of the hole so that I could keep going.
Strong water. 🙃
After a handful of obstacles that we had to overcome after leaving our packs to explore, we came to one that required a good bit of thinking. Had we hiked up the river, it possibly could have been the end of the line, and we’d be trying to figure out ways to get up the river further. But since we were going down the river, having no idea if there were even more challenging obstacles below us, we didn’t want to risk too much, going down something we wouldn’t be able to get back up and ending up trapped in the canyon where the walls were far too steep to climb out of. Were that to happen, I only chance of getting out would have been rescue.
We generally tell people where we’re going and give a Time for them to call rescue if they don’t hear from us, but still, it’s pretty crappy to put rescue people in that situation to even have to go out and get you for being dumb.
Anyway, so this spot that we got to was a place where the water was easily deep enough for us to Cliff jump into, but the walls trying to get back out were so steep and slippery that it seemed a pretty tall order to try and get any kind of grip up 75° slimy walls while you’re treading water because the water so deep. I think I found one spot that I could have done it, but it would have been a risk.
The thing was, there was a beautiful waterfall coming off the side of the mountain down into the river probably just 100 m or so further down river. We wanted to get to that waterfall to see if maybe there was a cliff jumping spot or to see what else we might be able to see.
Neither Chase nor I or the type of person to be deterred easily, so we tried to come up with ideas to make it down and back up safely. We spend a little while digging out a very long log that we hoped might be able to touch the bottom that we could wedge into the bottom and then against the cliff face and then climb up that way. But it was so heavy that as I was trying to ease it into the water, it slipped down and completely disappeared under the water. 😕
From there, the only option that I could think of would be to send Chase down, as he was lighter than i, and it would be more likely that I could get him back up the cliffside then he trying to get me. So I found a stick that was long enough that if I wedged my right hand into the little space between the two boulders, and then put it into a cupping shape to keep it locked in there so that if tugged on it wouldn’t come out, and then with my left hand I held down a a branch that was about maybe 12 ft long or so, that Branch would reach close enough to the water for Chase to grab it and then if I could keep my right hand locked in between the boulders and my grip was strong enough to keep my left hand solidly holding the branch, then Chase would be able to climb back up.
Right?
Right.
😁
So Chase decided to go for it, and he slips down into the water, past the point of no return, swam downstream toward the waterfall, and took pictures and scouted around to see what he could see while I looked for better branches and sticks and logs to hopefully find a better way of getting him back out.
My search, unfortunately, didn’t yield any better resources. I did grab a couple more branches, but they weren’t really any better. Just additional ones in case something happened to the other.
Once Chase was done exploring downriver, we gave each other the thumbs up, indicating that we were both ready for the attempt at getting him back up where he had jumped down from.
My main concern was that if we had trouble getting him up the little drop in point, because the stick broke, or because I couldn’t hold on to the stick, or because of whatever other reason, that he would be in that really cold water having to swim back and forth in that really cold water and getting overly chilled.
But I gave him the thumbs up, and he gave me the thumbs up, and he headed on over. As he was swimming over, I was positioning myself on the lower of the two absolutely massive boulders, wedging my hand in between them cupping my right hand, putting my legs in a spot where I had just a little bit of a lip on the sloped Rock to have a hold where I could also push with my feet upward, and then I extended the stick down in the best position I can come up with that would allow him to grab it and start climbing but would also allow me to hold it solidly steady.
Chase weighs about 165 lb, so it’s a lot of grip, especially with my left hand to be holding on to a stick while he’s climbing up, but he came swimming over, grabbed a hold of the stick, climbing hand over hand on the stick with feet on the slimy rock, and on the first try, we were able to get him all the way back up without even a hiccup of a problem.
It worked beautifully. 🥳
From there, we started back up the river, stopping at the little cliff-jumping spot we had found earlier, where we had left our packs, and we jumped in a few times before hiking back up the river, turning around and heading down the trail.
The current where you jumped in was super strong; so you’d jump in, and then it would carry you a little ways down, which was nice.
I like jumping into spots where the current takes you to your exit point. 🙂 Less energy expended. More fun possible. 😁
The hike down was a little brutal. I think I mentioned before that it was lots of ups and downs on the way up, and on the way back, it was pretty tough. We were both pretty tired, and all of those “back ups” were brutal.
I kept thinking that we’d made it to the last one, but then there would be yet another “back up.”
We made it down, though, none the worst for wear, and finding ourselves back at the Blue Pools, we decided that we might as well jump from the bridge a few more times. Which we did. 🙃 –helping a couple of people who were scared overcome their fears by showing them how to climb up the railing/cables, etc. They were grateful for our help, excited that they’d been able to conquer their fears and jump. 🙂
We stayed at the Blue Pools for a while after the hike, actually. Jumping a handful of times, and talking to other people who were there and what not. Eventually, though, it was time to leave, and we drove from the Blue Pools to Wanaka area where we found a grocery store that was open late (until 10).
I was basically dead man walking by that point. By the time we got back to the car, I didn’t have almost any energy at all, just completely drained. I think Chase ended up being the one to put most of the groceries away.
Thx, Chase!
I think from there, we drove south until we found a little gravel pit pull off right off the road, where we crashed for the night. I think that was that night, anyway.
Love and hugs. 😊
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 