Training For The Big One

We have signed up for a 4 day 52.5 km hike among the fiordlands of the South Island called the Milford Track. It’s known as one of the greatest multi day hiking tracks in the world. Our journey for that starts on February 25^th and a college friend of mine, Matt Reinaker will be joining us. We figured a warm up was in order to get our legs and minds ready for the challenge, so we tackled the Pinnacles hike on the Coromandel peninsula.

The Pinnacles hike takes you to the highest point in the Coromandel, promising panoramic views of the eastern and western shoreline among a setting of lush green forest. We made this a two day hike as there is a hut only a 45 minute walk from the peak. First day was uphill virtually the whole way and took us 2.5 hours to get to the hut. We beat the advertised time of 3-4 hours and felt pretty good. We survived the hut experience and even got some sleep in spite of some incessant snoring. The hut was actually fantastic; it has two large rooms with large bunk bed style layout and mattresses that sleeps 80, along with a large kitchen for cooking and a covered deck. Huts like this are fairly prevalent and well frequented in the New Zealand National Parks; the US could learn a lesson here.

We traveled up to the peak the next morning, but unfortunately the clouds stole our panoramic view.

On the way back we took a slightly longer route, hiking downhill for about 4 hours. By the time we got back to the car, we were exhausted, hungry and ready for a shower. We did learn a couple things that should come in handy for our Milford hike: bring entertainment for post hiking evenings (I think we went to sleep around 8:30 because we had nothing else to do), we’ll need more food than we thought we would, and plenty of Advil as our calves were sore for three days after this adventure.