🏔️#58 - Emily Pass, Comedy Photos, First Ladies of Aoraki Mount Cook, & Lots More.

And we are back with the 58th weekly NZ Hiking Newsletter.

Well, the upper North Island is getting hammered. There’s always somewhere that is getting ‘1 in 100-year’ weather events at the moment. Speaking of, if you haven’t seen the Patagonia fires, that’s a horrible thing no one seems to be talking about 😿

Anyway, there are some fun bits in this week’s newsletter to uplift you for a few minutes.

So yea, as usual, I'll let you know what’s going on in the hiking scene in New Zealand, along with other related bits and pieces I find interesting.

Alright, let’s get into it.

Table of Contents

• 🏔️ The First Ladies Of Mount Cook

• 😹 Hiking Funny

• 🛤️ Shoutout To DOC Keeping Track Alerts Up To Dat …

• ☠️ Are Travel Influencers Ruining The Outdoors?

• 🗒️ Other Track News Etc.

• 🧔‍♂️ What I've Been Up To...

🏔️ The First Ladies Of Mount Cook

I mentioned the book Fire & Ice by Hazel Phillips in a newsletter last year. I loved the book. It reminded me of the Spirit of the Stone, about the construction of the Old Ghost Road. It’s awesome when authors dig deep on one thing (like Fire & Ice with Tongariro National Park).

And this week, I was lucky enough to have Hazel Phillips pop into my inbox and mention she’s just finished writing her book with the goal of an October 2026 release. The book:

• Great Hearts: First Lakes of Aoraki Mount Cook

That’s a pretty compelling title, with the book celebrating the early women climbers of NZ’s most iconic alpine region. There will be some great stories for sure. Like have you heard of the three ladies above? I hadn’t, but this photo was taken from the summit of Aoraki Mount Cook in 1953. They were the first all-women, unguided party to summit. How good. That’s worth celebrating.

Now, publishing a book in NZ isn’t what you’d call lucrative. But books like these are great reads. They preserve history and are needed. While the book has been written (all while working a fulltime job), she has a fundraising page to bridge the funding gap (she’s received a couple of grants). The funding will help cover the cost of production such as printing/shipping/photos, pay for additional images, commitment to a flexibound or hardcover edition.

All things that will help make this the best book it can be.

At the time of writing this, she’s closing in on the funding goal. But don’t let that stop you from donating. Every bit helps go above and beyond what will be an amazing story you can help be a part of.

Here’s the fundraising page: https://www.thearts.co.nz/boosted/projects/great-hearts?tab=about

😹 Hiking Funny

🛤️ Shoutout To DOC Keeping Track Alerts Up To Date

With all the chaos happening, DOC will be working overtime to ensure tracks are safe/cleared etc.

I’ve always been impressed at how easy they make it to see if there are any alerts on the track you’re looking at on the DOC website, with the big red section on each track page if there’s an alert.

I’m not sure what’s involved in the backend of this, but keeping this information up to date can’t be easy. And in areas where significant weather events have happened over the last few days, it’s impossible for DOC to assess every track right away, so we need to use common sense sometimes. Some of the key closures are Cathedral Cove and Karangahake Gorge Tracks.

In addition, Northland’s Cape Brett Track and Hut are both closed until further notice.

The Cape Brett Track has had some to and fro-ing recently, with the track being rerouted a few months ago to avoid going over private land that is no longer permitted.

And not everyone thinks the new route is safe due to the water levels at high tide and some exposure. But that is all mentioned on the DOC website for the track (as an alert).

You can read more about different views and the full story here. As one of the 10 most popular bookable huts in the country, hopefully they can reopen soon.

☠️ Are Travel Influencers Ruining The Outdoors?

There’s been some good discussion on Instagram after Abigail Hannah (from the awesome Aotearoa Adventures podcast) posted on Instagram posing the question:

Are Travel Influencers ruining the outdoors?

That came after some of her videos went viral recently and got the full spectrum of comments. She brings up valid points (and goes through her checklist before posting), and the last one resonated soon after when I saw a Facebook post going viral:

• Don’t downplay the risk when it is significant

The comments were going off in the post about Mitre Peak. Sure, it’s a well known spot, but it’s a very hard route (Eli Sweeting’s body hasn’t been found)…and the caption was what possibly triggered the comments section.

The caption:

“Amazing scrambling on Mitre Peak. This peak is a must do and should be on everyone who visits Fjordlands list.”

Now, we all make mistakes and Tom possibly recognised that as the Facebook post is now deleted.

Then I took a quick look at his Instagram, and the post is still up there…

So maybe he didn’t and just didn’t like the heat he was getting on one platform.

But it’s important we keep having these conversations Abigail brought up, both on and offline.

🗒️ Other Track News Etc.

• If you’re after a laugh, these photos from the Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards will do that for you.

• It’s been a couple of months since I’ve heard anything about the Fiordland Moose, but with 12 new moose cameras set up near Dusky Sound…is this year, the year? Full story here.

• Just a few days after the search for Graham Garnett was called off, he was found in Venus Hut. What a story! But there's not much info about what went on for those 3 weeks he was missing (other than he was on the move regularly, trying to find a way out after missing a turn). I'll write more about it next week when hopefully more details available (there are lots of rumours going on...that are just rumours). Here’s the latest.

• What would you do if you found yourself in the situation Nick did while hiking in the Richmond Ranges? He was slightly off the route (50 metres), and when he was working his way back…came across an old grenade (with no pin). His full post here.

• A Te Araroa hiker found a dumped/wild kitten near Lake Sumner. She hiked with it for 3 days until she reached Arthur’s Pass where she managed to get some people to adopt the kitty. Technically, she took a cat into a National Park. Should she be fined? Commonsense prevails here, but it does get complicated! Full story here.

• This is a great profile about Kilian Jornet. While he’s more of a mountaineer/ultrarunner/GOAT, he’s a very inspiring human. If I could choose to have any 5 people over for dinner, he might make the list. Well worth a read.

🧔‍♂️ What I've Been Up To...

Finally! The weather gods played ball, and I got out of Queenstown for a new route. I’d heard of Emily Pass (here on NZ topo) a few years back, but had never gotten around to doing it. There’s not a whole lot of information online about the route, with Alice Adventuring providing the best info about what to expect…and what not to do 🙈 which was helpful. We took the right line up Emily Creek first go.

After leaving the Routeburn Track, it’s a grind going up the river then into the tussock before reaching the crux, the waterfall climb. I’d built this up in my head as a point where I may turn back, but it was all dry and the grippy rock on the waterfall gave me confidence I would be sweet. It’s also awesome (possibly not wise) how much we rely on tussock as good handholds.

Reaching the pass was satisfying. Then after a few minutes of figuring out the best line to get down (shoutout James for the photo from Lake Mackenzie earlier in the week), while avoiding as much snow as possible, we headed towards Lake Mackenzie. We did this well in the end and only had a couple of minutes in the snow on the steeper parts of the descent.

The hike down to Lake Mackenzie seemed to never end, but eventually we got there. From there, the going was quicker as we rejoined the Routeburn Track enroute to the Divide.

Great trip. Would recommend for those experienced with steep off route terrain and self nav.

Have a great week, hike it up.

As always, reply to this email (or message me on Whatsapp +642041702764) with anything and everything…I’m happy to chat.

Chur,

Jub

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