Kepler Track

This last weekend was Luke's 21st birthday, so we celebrated by hiking the first part of the Kepler Track and spending a couple nights at Luxmore Hut. We left on Friday afternoon with 13 people for a great drive to Te Anau. That night we camped near Lake Te Anau, played an epic game of spud, and cooked dinner.

After some delicious breakfast burritos the next morning, we drove down the road to the trailhead. The first part of the trail followed the shore of Lake Te Anau and eventually turned into a series of steep switchbacks through the jungle. After lunch Luke, Eliza, Max, and I pushed ahead for the second half of the 16km and got to the hut in 4 hours. Luxmore Hut was a mansion compared to the huts we have stayed at in the past. It had 55 bunks, and we nearly had the whole place to ourselves.

Once everyone got to the hut we started celebrating Luke's 21st in proper fashion. The night was filled with whiskey slaps, card games, and brownie scramble. We have had about five 21st birthdays while in New Zealand, and every person has done exactly what they wanted. For Luke, spending the night in a hut in the middle of no where was exactly what he needed.












We all had a pretty late start the next morning. After some oatmeal and tea, we hung around the hut for awhile and said farewell to the majority of the group who had to get back to Dunedin. Luke, Max, and I decided to skip class on Monday and stay for one more night. That day we hiked to the summit of Mount Luxmore in the wind and rain. Although the view from the top wasn't the best, it was nice to get out. We had a relaxing day playing cards and farkel by the fire. We cooked up some great dinner and spent the rest of the night talking.

After a great night sleep we woke up to about 6 inches of snow. We were all so pumped to see snow! We had a speedy breakfast and packed up our gear to head out into the storm. We trekked for about 30 minutes through the snow along the ridge. The wind was blowing hard but we were all smiling the whole way down. When we got back to tree line the snow looked so majestic in the jungle. We made it back to the car park in 2 hours and 50 minutes and ate lunch under the shelter. On the drive back the boys let me sprawl out in the back and take a nap. All in all, it was an incredible weekend with the whole crew!