Day 93 | Waiau Pass & Lake Constance

14 January 2023 | 21°C | 29km

Last evening, Phil and I had an argument of how far we would go today. He feels we could make it over the pass today while I am a bit worried that I will overexert my injured leg. It’s still roughly 22km to where we would start to climb. A useless discussion, as too much planning does not really make sense as things might turn out different anyway.

It’s a lovely sunny day and we are flying over the beautiful “fields of gold” along a river all morning. We cross quite a few southbounders these days and the first ones today are Jens and Connor from our old trail family up north. What a joy! We chat for quite a while and it’s almost a bit sad to move on. When we have a break at Weiau Hut it’s only 1h30pm, it’s seems like we would get to the bottoms of the pass late afternoon, actually a good time to go up and over when it’s not so hot …

The terrain gets a bit more technical with several bowlder and scree fields to cross and we reach the last flat spot for camping by 4pm. Point of no return. Would be weird to stop now, still so much time left, perfect temperature, legs feel good and just 2 (steep) kilometers to go.

It’s a steep rocky climb but I absolutely enjoy climbing like a mountain goat above tree line. Very rewarding to see how quickly we gain elevation and look at the path and the valley behind us.

Reaching the pass at 7pm reveals beautiful views of Lake Constance in the next valley. We head down down a scree field which seems almost harder than going up, no traction on the ground. “You can just slide down” as some southbounders suggested, seems a bit to sketchy.

Luckily, the grassy spotted while going down is as dry and as flat as it looked from above and will become our campsite the the night.