quick recap from 2 weekends ago before I get into the way more exciting trip this past weekend.

With nothing really planned for our first weekend back from break my mates and I made the spur of the moment decision to rent an incredibly small log cabin up the road to an old ski field for the weekend. The cabin was probably 25'x15' with a double bed and 2 twins upstairs in an attic, It was listed only as sleeping 5 so naturally we fit 15 people in. It was a crazy weekend full of all sorts of shenanigans of which I won't go into full detail. There was also a peacock that made its residence around the cabin and he came and visited us both mornings. Saturday we hiked up to the top of the ski field which was basically a large incredibly steep loose sandstone bowl...Sunday when we made it back to Christchurch we met up with Jane, our program leader, and went to Adrenaline Forest. It was a massive high ropes course in a huge stand of pine trees. They gave us a harness and some gloves and sent us on our merry way to go play on 6 different levels of Adrenaline fun full of lots of zip lines, giant rope spider webs to swing into, high wire bridges and heaps of other fun obstacles. the 6th level got up to 20m off the ground, which is almost 70 ft!

Now on to the awesome part. This past weekend, myself and 8 of my friends headed down to Mt. Cook National Park and hiked up to Mueller Hut. The trail covers 1000m vertical and is pretty much straight up. Since we were staying up there, and since I obviously was going to camp instead of staying in the hut, this feat was tackled with a very full pack. We had absolutely beautiful weather Saturday for our ascent, it was crystal clear blue skies and warm out. We had spectacular views of Mt. Cook and the surrounding glaciers for the entire hike which was truly breath taking. It had snowed the night before so once we made it up to the ridge there was fresh snow which was awesome! I hadn't realized how much I had missed seeing it! Due to the warm weather, there were numerous avalanches going on...on the other side of the valley nowhere near us. But we were able to look across and watch them which was pretty wicked. We arrived at the hut and myself and the few others in our group who were camping set up outside on the snow with direct views of the tallest mountain in NZ!!! The hut itself was pretty awesome and we were able to hang out and cook dinner in there which was soooo much nicer than hanging out oustide in the freezing cold. That night a front moved in from the west and brought thick clouds and snow with it. We woke up in the morning to zero visibility and light flurries. The hike back down was through snow and sleet down through the clouds along what was classified as an "unmaintained alpine route" which means we were following orange poles and cairns. It was an incredible experience and we finally burst out of the cloud when we were still about 100m above the valley floor which was a really cool and kind of eerie feeling. Overall it was an awesome awesome awesome time and it felt so good to have a pack on again and be tramping once more. The minivan adventure at the end of break was great in its own right, but it's no substitute for carrying your life on your back. As usual the pictures tell a much better tale than I do so they'll be up very shortly.

I'm looking forward to my next adventure whatever it may be and trying not to think about the fact that i have just over a month left!! It's going way to fast, and I wish I could just pause, rewind and do everything over again.