Overland Track Chronicles Part Six: Day Four

The snow changed the landscape completely. The morning was clear, crisp, and the wind was barely blowing. I stepped outside to see my first snow in over a year and breathed the long forgotten, yet always familiar smell of winter. The fog had lifted and I made the startling realization, "Hey, there's a mountain right there!" It was the jagged Barn Bluff, one of the two treacherous climbs I could have taken that day, had there not been snow.

I wasn't the only person who had a cold night. A young British bloke spent the night with merely a blanket. His one pair of socks was soaked from the previous day's walk. The sneakers he brought were still wet and he had no rain coat. The temperature was below freezing that day. Despite this, he pushed on. This is how people die.

There was a young couple watching me eat my breakfast agape. "Are you drinking coffee out of a ceramic mug?" Theirs' were made of lightweight plastic.

"Yeah. It's the only one I have."

"And you just have a regular stainless steel saucepan?" They were eating some sort of just-add-water concoction out of an aluminum mess kit.

"Yep. Gotta cook out of something."

"So last night, I noticed you had three fresh tomatoes in your bag."

"Vitamin C!"

"HOW HEAVY IS YOUR PACK?!"

I sipped my coffee as shamelessly as I could sham. "Way too heavy my friend. Way...too...heavy." At least I wasn't the Dutch guy with a backpack full of canned soup.

I headed out early into what was the easiest day of the trip. The previous day's rain was testing and wet. The wind could blow the soul out of the body. But snow? I'm Minnesotan, damn it! I may not have 52 different names for the stuff, but if there is anything I know, its snow. I spotted patches of ice meters away. I dodged every sink hole and bypassed every buried creek. I was in my element, until I reached the top of the mountain.

Suddenly, I found myself in North Dakota mid-blizzard or maybe on top of mountain mid-blizzard, same difference. I pushed forward through knee-deep snow, which was good, because it stabilized me from being toppled by the wind. I was glad it was only a couple of miles back to Kitchen Hut.

Inside the Kitchen Hut, I found an Aussie family from Brisbane, with a twelve year old child. They started the previous day, but got trapped from the excessive winds. I was actually quite glad to see them safe and alive; other hikers the previous night had told me of this family.

They decided to head back to the park with me, so we headed out into the blizzard. At first it wasn't too bad, but after fifteen meters, the wind came back with a vengeance, the strongest I've faced on the trail. Being from Queensland, the boy had never seen snow before, now he was stuck in Antarctica.

They wisely turned back for the hut. I, however, had a mission. I was to get off this mountain and nothing was going to stop me. Mountain top blizzard? I don't care...I've faced worse getting the mail in Clara City.

The trail was sheet of frozen snow. I slowly duck-walked my way forward, occasionally curling into a ball when the gusts were too strong to allow me to stand. I found the strength to go on by screaming at the top of my lungs while I pushing into the wind and snow, ten feet at a time. There was nobody to see me walking at a 45 degree angle, screaming "AGHHHHHHHHH!!!!" at the top of my lungs. I could not even see a few feet in front of me, but I still recognized where I was; I was upon that wooden boardwalk with the excessive trail markers I noted days earlier. The purpose was now relevant. There was no boardwalk, just endless drifts of snow.

I made decent time considering, hiking those treacherous two miles in just one hour. I may have complained earlier about the cost of all the winter gear, but it was worth every dollar; they very possibly saved my life that day. The Overland Track continued on the windward side for its steep descent off the side of the mountain. I started on the track, but when a gust almost tumbled me off a cliff into the glacial lake below, I composed myself, got up and chose a more sheltered route. As I walked only ten feet off the famous Overland Track, the wind stopped, the snow stopped; all was calm. The sun was shining and I was greeted by blue skies. It was surreal.

Every step further down the mountain brought me closer to spring. The snow was melting off the needles, dripping into puddles and creeks of meltwater. The trail was flooded of course, the only fitting way to end my horrible hike. I joyfully squished my way through the trail, merely laughing at the lake in my boots. It didn't matter, I was going to have a warm shower anyway.

By the time I reached the caravan park, I could barely walk. My pack pushing me down, I literally crawled to my dorm room. That night, drifting off to sleep in my much too hot room, I closed my eyes and wished myself back into the mountains, experimenting with sock combinations, listening to the wind outside, glad I was inside the freezing hut. There is just no winning. At the same time, it was awfully nice to sleep in a bed.