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Only nine days in New Zealand and I have witnessed the creation of the Garden of Eden and walked among its splendors, though not in that order.  The Milford Trek (53.5 kilometers one way) is often described as one of the most beautiful treks in the world.  It begins at the top of Lake Te Anau traverses along the valley, continues up and over Mackinnon Pass (elevation 1154 meters), and finishes at Milford Sound, a glacier carved fiord, an inlet of the Tasman Sea.  Our guided tour lasted five days with three days of significant hiking sandwiched between two travel days from and to Queenstown.

Day one begins with forty or so of our newest, best friends – our group ranged from early twenties to mid-seventies – boarding a bus in Queenstown for the two to three hour drive to Te Anau, a quaint town nestled at one end of lake Te Anau.  Here we board a boat and leave civilization.  We travel to the far end of the lake, an almost hour cruise through slate gray waters speckled with small wind-whipped white caps. Spectacular, lush green mountains cradle the lake soaring skyward.  There are no beaches or development or anything human along this coastline.  Our boat cruises close to the shore without worry of grounding as these same mountains sink steeply below the surface of the water to a depth of over 1000 meters in some places.  This is the beginning of Fiordlands National Park, New Zealand’s largest park covering 12,607 square kilometers, most of which is inaccessible except by foot.

We dock at the top of the lake, wash our boots to rid them of invasive species and walk a short mile to the first of the four huts we will stay in during the trek.  Everyone is anxious, aware of the awkwardness of knowing we will be together for the next four days.  But as we are shown to our rooms and take in the warm, spacious lodge set among a glorious river in a valley surrounded by rain forests blanketing the mountains, anxieties give way to giddiness, a sense that we are in for a rare, beautiful adventure.  By the way, for those of you who might think after the yoga camp experience that I skimped on the accommodations for this sabbatical, rest assured our deluxe queen room with en suite shower and toilet, though not five star resort, is certainly five star eco lodge.

Settled in our rooms, we meet as a group for a nature walk before dinner.  Our guides (Susan – mid-fifties, Hugo – mid-twenties, Beth and Laura – early twenties) divide us up and lead us into the forest.  This part of New Zealand is wet, a kind of wet that makes even Seattle feel arid.  At the start of the trek, the average annual rainfall is between three and six meters per year.  At the end of the trek, near Milford Sound, the annual rainfall is between seven and nine meters per year.

The rain produces spectacular fauna in every conceivable (and some inconceivable) shades of green. Every inch of every growing thing in the forest is covered in green.  New Zealand has, for example, over 400 types of ferns, some, as we will see on the last day of our trek, grow as tall as trees.  When the sun momentarily breaks through the clouds, the forest shimmers iridescent.  Dull, brown moss coating tree trunks suddenly turns to gold.  Although there are no indigenous mammals in New Zealand, save the long-tail bat, the forest vibrates with life.  I can smell the green.  I feel the plants growing and breathing, if that is possible. 

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The next three days proceed along a similar schedule.  Wake early and make our own lunch, get breakfast and coffee, pack up and hit the trail.  Walk the trail to the next lodge, unpack, gather for drinks and dinner, wash and dry dirty, wet clothes (every lodge is equipped with a laundry room and drying room), attend a short general information session about the next section of the hike, generator off at 10:00 pm, sleep and repeat.

Although each day has a similar schedule, the outings are anything but the same.  Day 2, our first hiking day, dawns glorious and bright after a night of torrential rain.   The air is cool and the weather fickle.  What to wear? I go with shorts, a quick-dry tee shirt under a thin woolen hoody, but keep my raincoat and rain pants handy should the weather turn.  Two kilometers in I shed the wooly.

With the rain from the previous night giving way to a sparkling clear morning, I am walking through Eden.  Waterfalls cascade down the slopes around us sometimes loud and powerful, sometimes a distant sparkling sliver of silver slicing through the green.  Most of these waterfalls will shrink and disappear by nightfall.  Birthed by the night’s rain, they burst upon the valley as if they know their time is limited.

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Walking in this rain forest feels like swimming in a North Georgia lake on a brilliant September day. Pockets of air, like pockets of lake water change magically from cool to warm, but the smells are the most surprising. They too alternate from crisp, rainwater fresh to fertile earth to vibrant green.  And God looked out on her creation and saw that it was good.  Amen, I say with each delicious breath and each plodding, awestruck step.

Five minutes from our second hut we take a short spur towards the canyon walls to find Prairie Lake, filled, it seems by the thundering waterfall plunging, splashing, spraying, crashing rock ledge to rock ledge down the side of the mountain.  On our not so distant rocky shore, the still green waters are tempting in the hot late afternoon sun.  But one quick icy plunge is enough to stop my heart and send me scrambling tender-footed over the rocks to the warmth of the shore.  We have two sisters and their mother with us on the trip, all from Oregon.  Katie, the eldest, a flight attendant for Alaska, a veteran of the Milford, is the quintessential northwest rebel/daredevil.  She not only plunges into the icy bath, but swims the 50 meters across the lake to shower under the waterfall.  Mary Jo, her look alike little sister, matches her stroke for stroke. 

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After dinner, we are briefed on the upcoming day, the toughest one of the hike – unrelenting switchbacks to Mackinnon pass, a stop at the hut at the summit followed by a knee-shattering descent to our third overnight lodge.  Someone asks about the weather forecast.  Someone always asks about the weather forecast.  And every single time our guides tell us that the weather is too unpredictable.  Nonetheless, the questioner persists.  Beth, rolling her eyes with exasperation tells the anxious hiker that the most recent forecast predicts overcast skies but no rain.

When we head out the next morning at 7:00 am, it is pouring.  Over the next eight hours the skies will dump almost 100 ml on us.  Five steps from the hut, I am drenched.  A half-mile from the hut, I am walking in ankle deep streams that did not exist the day before.  A mile in, my rain pants are useless, but my raincoat is still holding up.  Fortunately, it is not cold, only wet, underwater, shoes squishing, pants stuck to your thighs wet, and it is the most beautiful, magical, magnificent walk I have ever taken.

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If the first day was like walking into Eden the day after creation, this second day is walking through Eden as it is being created.  The mountains sing with waterfalls.  The ground moves and flows with water.  Rain-washed rocks bloom purple and green like flowers and everywhere there is the sound of rushing water pumping, flowing and gushing like blood through the veins.  Up to sixty percent of the adult human body is water.  There is no separation between nature and me.  I am drenched in her, embraced by her, innervated by her unabating pulchritude and creativity.

At the summit of Mackinnon pass, the rain stops briefly.  As our guides warned us, we “cool down quickly” in the steady wind. We huddle in the wooden hut dripping puddles on the floor.  Hot tea and coffee are handed around.  We are glad wool insulates wet or dry.  Thirty minutes later, a few of us strike out again heading down the rain washed mountainside.  We plunge through stream after stream of rushing water hurtling itself in riotous delirium down the mountainside.  One stream has become a mini torrent, shin deep, threatening to sweep our feet out from beneath us as we wade cautiously across, the cold water filling our boots. By the time we reach the tree line we are out of the wind and walk the rest of the way beside the roar and ferocity of a river swollen and gorged by the day’s deluge.

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Reaching the lodge in the early afternoon, Melissa and I snack on a few soggy cookies, rehydrate (believe it or not it is necessary even as soaked as we are), and decide to strike out on the “bonus” trek to Sutherland Falls, the highest, continuous falls in New Zealand.  We both know that if we dare take off our shoes or coats, we will not put them on again that day.  Forty minutes later we are squinting in the relentless spray of the falls, the base of which are still a hundred meters from us.  If it is possible to have a rainstorm inside a cloud, this is what it feels like.  The noise, even at this distance is deafening, a 747 endlessly taking off.  

Some members of our group do not make it to the lodge until 7:30 pm that night.  Our guides spend the afternoon shuttling them to safety.  Beth, the lead guide that day, arrives at the lodge with Melissa and me only to immediately race back up the pass loaded with her 22 kilo pack to assist the other guides.  She returns to the lodge a couple hours later carrying not only her own pack but two additional packs from hikers who need assistance.

By 7:30 pm, dry, warm, and freshly showered, I sit at my dinner table humbled and stunned that our guides, some of whom have reached the lodge only minutes ago, are now serving us dinner.  At our nightly briefing, someone again asks for the next day’s weather forecast. Laura, one of the last guides to make it to the shelter that night, says, “stick your head out the window tomorrow morning when you wake up.”  She immediately apologizes.  We all laugh. 

The final day of hiking dawns cool and clear, no hills today, a mostly gentle amble through one of the wettest places on earth to the innermost tip of the Milford Sound. Green takes on a whole new meaning. Ferns become trees.  Moss here is like snow in the Himalayas.  Everything is quiet save the occasional bird songs, some sharp, shrill whistles, others almost mechanical with a mixture of trills and clicks.

A few kilometers from the inlet we stop for our second lunch of the day beside aquamarine waters rippled by a gentle waterfall.  The water in this valley turns off as quickly as it turns on.  We stay in the mist of the falls to keep the sandflies away.  It is said that New Zealand has no poisonous animals, but it has one that will kill you: the sand fly.  Incidentally, only the female sand fly bites.

A boat arrives to take us up the inlet to the Milford Sound Lodge, our last stop.  As I gawk at the ever-widening fiord with its mitre-like peaks on all sides, I sense a different reaction to this vast, magnificent landscape than what I felt on the trail.  I can best describe it this way.  Walking the trail inspired the same reaction I have when listening to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Ode to Joy – light, happy, carried on the melody.  Sailing into Milford sound inspires the feeling I have when listening to Handel’s Messiah – explosive, uplifting, bursting with the majesty and power of the words.  Perhaps the pictures here and in Melissa’s wonderful post about her experiences on this incredible trail will help make manifest something ineffable. 

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A parting note: experiences like this one become all the more powerful to me because they bring to mind, almost instinctually, thoughts of all of you.  It is as if the experience, so powerful and moving, is not quite real and settled until I place you in it with me.