Whenever I could, I still made an effort to follow the Te Araroa trail route as planned.
But this time was an exception.
Faced with a decision that demanded immediate action, I switched to the four-wheel-drive route—shorter, and perhaps flatter and easier to walk. Not to take the easy way out, but to try to avoid the risk of heavy snow that could trap us in a mountain hut with no way of knowing when we could leave.
—–
It wasn’t an easy mountain path, but we had already spent several days successfully climbing to high elevation and safely crossing steep slopes. Looking at the altitude changes on the map, the road ahead seemed much easier, but we still needed at least two full days to reach the trail exit.
This was originally within our estimated timeline anyway, so we naturally kept moving at our steady pace. It wasn’t until our midday break that I got curious about the weather ahead. I opened my phone and pulled up the weather forecast I’d screenshotted three days earlier when we were about to start the trail. It showed that rain would begin at the hut where we were planning to arrive tonight.
My hiking partner also opened their phone and suddenly cried out, ‘Hey, it’s going to snow tonight!’ The location they were looking at was the high point on our route ahead, which we originally planned to reach at noon the next day—it was the necessary pass to get to the next town.
—–
‘Is the weather forecast from three days ago still accurate? Will it really snow?’ I do love snow’s soft, dreamy appearance, but encountering it in the mountains while hiking, with limited food on my back and trudging along with heavy, clumsy steps, suddenly didn’t seem so appealing.
After all, I had no professional snow gear with me—my crampons were sitting in a box at the post office. I wasn’t wearing hiking boots, just trail running shoes with deeper treads. I’d never expected to encounter snow this early.
Now things were complicated. We had no idea how severe the snow would be. If heavy snow did fall and the conditions became treacherous, we could only end up stuck in tonight’s planned hut, which was at least a day’s walk from town. With snow, it would definitely take much longer. And besides, we had no idea how long the snow would last.
At that moment, I desperately wished we could leave the trail today and avoid the snow that night, but we still had two full days of hiking ahead. I cursed myself for not starting a few days earlier!
I regretted even more that I hadn’t checked the weather in advance—I’d taken the screenshot but never actually read it. Yet I was also somewhat relieved to have discovered the potential situation in time.
—–
Just then, I remembered resting at the previous mountain hut and browsing the information and sign-in log on the wall out of habit. There was a map posted there, and I vaguely recalled that the map showed a fork in the road that split onto a different route from the Te Araroa. Both routes reached near the high point where snow was about to fall, but the alternative was a four-wheel-drive track that was marked as taking one to two hours less.
At the time, I’d thought to myself, ‘So what if it’s faster? I want to walk slowly on the TA route!’
But now I was eager to cover kilometers as quickly as possible. Even if we couldn’t reach town today, the closer we got the better our chances of a quick escape.
I opened the camera and realized I had also snapped a photo of the map. I confirmed that the fork was coming up soon. There was also a mountain hut near the high point. If we could reach it tonight, we’d be only half a day’s walk from town, and if we were lucky, we might even get cell phone signal.
Even though the four-wheel-drive route was faster, it would still take four or five hours to reach. It would likely be dark by then. In less than five minutes of thinking and discussion, we decided right then to abandon the Te Araroa route and sprint at full speed to avoid more uncertainties.
—–
An hour after darkness fell, we finally safely reached the last hut before town. When I woke the next morning, the world outside was white. Sure enough, heavy snow had fallen!
It was my first snow on the trail.
Sitting in the relative warmth of the hut, knowing we were no longer far from town, I felt a sense of relief wash over me. I decided to skip today’s hike.
—–
By noon, the heavy snow had started to ease up. I grabbed my trekking poles, dressed lightly, and carefully stepped through the soft snow to reach the summit for a view. The pristine white made the mountain’s contours appear sharp and strong. Looking down at Lake Hawea below, its graceful, elegant curve gleamed in the filtered sunlight.
I smiled thinking about the last-minute detour decision from the night before. Flexibility and resilience—these were skills accumulated over the entire journey.
Even though we’ll never know what a different choice would have brought, or how earlier awareness of the weather might have rewritten the ending, in this moment, I am truly content with how things turned out.
(Reflecting on diary entry from April 30, 2017)
📍 Te Araroa Trail | New Zealand 3,000 km Hiking Diary| Back to Full Series Index
