Haast Pass to the Southern West Coast

Moving towards the southern west coast via the Haast pass is like moving towards the Oregon coast with touches of Hawaii thrown in, so we’re feeling right at home.  The drive through the pass was a bit overcast as the view up Lake Hawea shows.  However, we had a beautiful evening at our camp site looking up the Haast River Valley at Mt. Brewster.  The rain settled heavily in the next morning, and it didn’t leave for a couple of days (hence the Oregon Coast reference).  The drive was still beautiful, but we didn’t get in as much long hiking as we’d like.  Instead, we settled into a true “sight-seeing” tourist mode and did all of the short little roadside walks, which did allow for some beautiful foggy views.  The rainforest here is thick with beech and pine and nestled in between are HUGE Tree Ferns (hence the HI reference).  The clouds finally did push off enough for us to enjoy a great walk up to the Franz Joseph Glacier.  The glacier area has been a tourist attraction since the late 1800’s so it was more like a nice city walk than a hike (enlarge this photo and see if you can find the hikers on the glacier).  We then landed on a wet coastline that required full sand fly gear to venture out onto the beach.  Given the rain and low clouds we did not get a chance to see Mt. Cook, the high point of the Southern Alps (we will save it for the next trip).