Some come to laugh their past away

Here's a new trial: blogging in the morning with a fresh cup of coffee. Actually it's a cup of instant coffee and it's not that great. Coffee is a topic I've been meaning to sound off on for a while. There are no drip coffee makers in New Zealand. Anywhere. The people have no use for the phrase "coffee pot." You basically have only a few options to getting a cup of coffee here. The first is to buy a plunger (french press) and ground coffee that is made for a plunger. Pour boiling water over about 3-4 tablespoons of the coffee and let it sit for about 5 minutes. This is decent but it's no Cafe du Monde. Your second option is to buy coffee from a cafe, which is all espresso based. So basically you are limited to how do you want to drink a shot of espresso. There's no equivalent to getting just a cup of Community Coffee house roast. You also cannot find a coffee drink that is more than 6 ounces here.

 I drink coffee everyday without exception and I love it. In fact, it may be the most consisent thing I have done since I was 15. I can remember being served coffee by my parents and grandparents when I was kid. Back then I got about 60% warm milk and 30% coffee and however much sugar I could get in the cup before someone got the jar away from me. I've used this recipe ever since, although I've tapered down on the sugar. It's difficult to recreate this cup of coffee over here, but I'm working on it.

I finally got fed up with having a square on my blog showing the blog template number. Most readers probably did not notice but it aggrevated the daylights out of me. Sorry mister blog template designer, but your work was not so fantastic that it needed to be numbered and permanently marked. So I killed that template and replaced it with a new one that has eliminated the template number but created a whole new set of problems. I'll deal with those later.

The Remarkables Ski Park - Single Cone

If you want to ski/snowboard in the Queenstown area you have a few options. But the closest slopes to town are found at the Remarkables Ski park, or simply "the Remarks". http://www.nzski.com/guides/09/theremarkables/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Remarkables
The remarks has two peaks, single cone and double cone.
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And I'm back. All those periods represent lots of time passing. I started this post on February 3rd in the morning. I rambled on about coffee for 20 minutes and was finally getting to more important topics when I realized the weather was just too damn good to be inside typing on a computer. As with almost every residence I've entered in New Zealand, our house does not have an air conditioner. A consistent breeze blowing through opened windows keeps away stifling heat. The heat reminds me of the cold days and inspires me to get out and enjoy. So I left that morning, with every intention of finishing the post before work. Needless to say, I didn't finish it, but I wasn't about to scrap the writing I had accomplished. And without further ado.......

One of a la carte chefs at the restaraunt is a Brazilian guy named Amauri. Amauri is an avid outdoor athlete and has run the Routeburn Classic. He also skates, snowboards, mountain cycles, runs, etc, etc. We've passed each other on the trails before and had a few conversations about Routeburn and training. It came as no surprise to me last Saturday while at work, Amauri asked if I wanted to go for a hike the next day. Of course I was eager to do a hike as I still have several trails around Queenstown that I have not conquered yet. A few minutes later Amauri remembered that it was going to be a full moon that evening and got very excited about doing an early morning walk to single cone; the idea being that we could hike in the moonlight and watch the sun rise from the peak of the mountain. This sounded unique to me so I agreed to go. Let me point out that every hike I've done in New Zealand as been along a very well laid out track or trail, complete with gravel, steps, and signs. There have been steep climbs and some grueling hills, but still always upright walking. When I first arrived in Queenstown, I walked with some friends up to Lake Alta. Lake Alta is a small body of water that sits in the valley of the remarkables ski field. We drove up to the ski car park, and walked a short distance along the ski lift to the greenish blue lake. From there you can see the single cone and double cone peaks. On that particular day, I thought I saw a trail running along a saddle on the back side of the mountain. And I thought it looked like a relatively easy hike to get up to the top along this trail. So when Amauri suggested walking to single cone, I figured it would be a challenging hike along a well marked trail. And what do we say about ASSUMPTION class????

Amauri picked me up at 3:15 a.m. and we headed towards the ski park. I had plenty of proper cold weather gear this time thanks my care packages from home. The car's outside temperature meter read 11 degrees celcius in Queenstown, and then 7 degrees when we parked up on the mountain. It was chilly. We began walking along ski lift, following the same path I had the first time I went to Alta. I used a head lamp, but Amauri was able to see with just the moonlight. We stopped at Lake Alta but did not stay long as we wanted to ensure that we were at the top of the mountain for the sunrise. We had to stop a little ways up from Alta to soak up one of the most memorable views I've seen in New Zealand. I sat down next to a waterfall running down the mountain and to my left three items formed a perfect triangle. The base of the triangle was the waterfall and if you followed it's path down you would have immediately noticed the second point of the triangle, the sparkling reflection of the full moon on Lake Alta. This would prompt to look up at the third point, the moon itselft, which was magnificent. And then you might happen to notice the mountains themselves. This could not be photograped effectively so I tried to the burn the image into my brain. I think I got a pretty good copy saved.

When we started back uphill I thought that surely we would reach a trail soon. If a trail exists we were not headed for it. I found the mountain getting steeper and solid dirt turning into giant movable rocks. I used to do train with a group called Crossfit in Austin. One of our regular drills was to do "mountain climbers". To complete a mountain climber you drop down to a pushup position with your arms fully extended. The movement is to bring your left leg up, attempting to pull your knee to your chest. As your left leg returns to the floor, you being the same motion with your right leg. I did 50 of these the other day after a run. I soon found myself doing real mountain climbers on a very steep mountain. Amauri and I had to create seperate paths so that I was not directly behind him, in danger of sliding rocks he may have shifted out of their resting state. In hinesight, the darkness really changed the outcome of the excursion. Had we been doing this in broad day light, I would have quickly realized that the climb was going to be much steeper than anything I had ever embarked on. I probably would have turned back. But in the darkness, I could not see exactly what I was getting myself into. The mountain climbers eventually turned into just straight climbing. I don't want to exaggerate. It was not 100% vertical. But there was absolutely no walking anymore. It was one hand on rock, two hands on rock, find a foothold, move one foot into postion and push up placing other foot into the next foothold. As we got higher and higher the sun started to illuminate what lay behind me. And that is when the fear set in.

I've mentioned before that I have a fear of heights. This statement is misleading. I am perfectly fine with being abnormally high of the ground, when I am enclosed. Enclosed in something like an airplane, the space needle in Seattle, the observation deck of the John Hancock Center in Chicago, or the car of the Batman The Ride roller coaster at Six Flags over Texas. When I worked on the rigs, I had no problems climbing a six foot ladder that was strategically placed between the driller's cabin and a large cable tray and running wires. But if you put that same ladder out on the middle of the floor with nothing surrounding it, I would not be able to climb the first two steps and work. My fear is of open spaces. It occurs when I can clearly see and visualize the path from which I will fall. As the sun came up, the climb became steeper and these danger paths started to strike my imagination like a rusty hammer pounding nails into a two by four. Amauri showed no signs of any such fear. He climbed quickly jumping from boulder to boulder with ease. But on several occasions we had to stop so that he could show me exactly where to put my hands and feet to get up a certain section. I should also point out that I have a huge climbing disadvantage in my gargantuan feet. A size fifteen shoe just does not sit in a bit of rock the same way that a size ten does.

So I pretty much spent the last two hours of the ascent in absolute terror of sliding down that mountain. I would reach a certain point, look down and think "How the f*** did I just get up here, there's no way I can go back down where I just came." Then I would look up at where Amauri was and think "How in the f**** am I going to get up to where he is, there's no way I'm climbing that." At these junctures Amauri would scamper back down the mountain and guide me up. Each section that I climbed was an amazing moral victory. A few times I tried to tell Amauri to go on without me, that I wouldn't go any further. But he knew and I knew too, that I wasn't about to get that far and turn back.

At 6:30 a.m. I pulled myself up to the highest point of the single cone of the Remarkables ski field. I looked out, with my back to Queenstown and saw the sun making it's own climb above the clouds BELOW me. I turned around and saw Queenstown, a tiny little playground 5,000 feet below with the full moon still hanging around above. I was cold and tired. The stress of the climb had worn on me. But it was the greatest feeling in the world. I had a climbed a mountain. I traced a path into the earth that will never again be traversed exactly the same by another person. I know this, because I kicked rocks down the mountain in the process. I won't say that I conquered my fear, but I dealt with it. I was cursing Amauri the entire way up, but on the top of the mountain, I thanked him for not letting me bail out.

As with everything else in New Zealand, the pictures do not do justice to what I actually saw, but I think you'll enjoy them none the less. Climbing down was pretty scary as well, but easier than going up as I knew each small section brought me closer to complete safety.

It's 1:53 a.m. now on Sunday morning. My writing brings our timeline up to about 11 a.m. last Sunday. I had an amazing day on Wednesday and then a hell of a road trip on Thursday to Milford Sound. I've got a lot to write about and even more great adventures on the horizon so stay tuned.