New Zealand
Nov 2019
Everyone told me the weather in New Zealand sucks, and I believed them.
But as my friend, a 10-trip veteran to New Zealand, told me, “This was the wettest I’ve ever seen it.”
My friends had a wedding in Sydney that they asked me to officiate. I interpreted that as an excuse to leave a month early and spend some time skiing in New Zealand, a place I’d never visited. A month before my departure, I was hit by a car while riding my bike in downtown Salt Lake City. As you may imagine, it messed me up, and left me pretty injured. A cortisone shot the day before my departure had me feeling a bit better, so I still went for it.
My second day in the country, I managed to get up high to a hut, and the next day I climbed and skied Mt. Rolleston on Arthur’s Pass. I was in a ping pong ball the entire descent, and ended up skiing three of the wrong routes, having to climb back to the summit each time to try to reorient myself. Eventually I got off the mountain in a rainstorm, hiked to the road, hitchhiked to my car, and headed back to town. The rain that started while I was skiing didn’t let up…until I left, three weeks later.
I had the occasional eight-hour weather window, but because I had (purposely) chosen to visit so late in the season, that was an insufficient amount of time to ski due to the huge approaches necessary to reach the snowline. The one day I somehow mustered the motivation to hike into a hut during a rainstorm—with plans of skiing Mt. Aspiring during a short weather window and hiking out during the next rain storm—the washed-out road was impassible and closed right in front of me.
I couldn’t put up with the defeat that New Zealand had been handing me over the past few weeks, so I repacked my ski gear, zipped the bags closed for the last time, and decided to travel for my remaining days before heading to Tasmania. Those days of travel, sleeping in hostels, doing whatever sounded fun to do in the rain, was a return to the style of traveling a was doing a decade ago, and completely salvaged my trip.
Thanks to that decision, I don’t hate New Zealand.
Mainly thanks to the fact that I hung out with sea lions and saw my very first penguins.
