My aim on Christmas was to climb Mount Tyndall, a 2500 metre peak near the West Matukituki valley, south of Mount Aspiring. While we didn’t make it to the top, due to windy and cloudy conditions, we made it above the snowline, and got some epic views of the valley and the surrounding mountains, wearing ourselves out by climbing and descending 2000 metres in a single day.

There was an interesting mix staying at Aspiring Hut on Christmas Eve: a group of Australians from the Sydney Tramping Club on an annual trip, an Israeli couple on an extended holiday in New Zealand, a researcher from Auckland auditing the local Kea population, and finally there was us, the local university students too tight to fork out the extra $7.50 to stay in the hut; we opted to camp 50 metres down the track.

This was the first time that I’ve seen kea in the wild; they’re big, beautiful parrots, with a formidable reputation. While climbing up to the Cascade Pylon, we ran into a shoeless Austrian traveller who had camped alone at Cascade Saddle; walking down in his socks, he was a sorry sight. A couple of kea had chewed their way into his tent and made off with his boots in the early hours of the morning. I gave him a pair of thongs I’d been carrying, but I’m not sure how much they would have helped, as he still had about 1000 metres to descend before making it back to the valley floor.

From the Pylon, we started along the ridgeline towards Tyndall, aware of a band of cloud moving down the valley. We got to within about 500 metres of the main ridgeline to the summit when the clouds engulfed us. After waiting around for 15 minutes to see if it would clear, we gave up and decided to head back down. We did get some amazing views of the valley floor, with whiteout above us, and sunshine below - the valley literally looked like a painting, but, as always, the photo doesn’t do it justice. After a detour to Cascade Saddle for lunch, we began the torturous descent back down to the valley floor, 1200 metres straight down from the Pylon to Aspiring Hut. My legs were like jelly afterwards, but it was definitely worth it.