Waiau Pass: Fog and Fortune

Waiau Pass is one of those trail legends, the kind of place hikers talk about long after they’ve finished the Te Araroa. If you Google “New Zealand,” there’s a good chance a picture of Waiau Pass will pop up—jagged peaks, electric-blue lakes, the kind of view that tricks you into thinking the trail is all beauty and none of the brutal effort.

I hiked this stretch with Tim and Marie, who I’d met back in the Richmond Ranges. They had long since transitioned from acquaintances to friends in a short period of time. After a well-earned zero in St. Arnaud, we were back on trail, heading for the pass. St. Arnaud barely qualifies as a village. It’s little more than a hostel, a gas station, and a handful of overpriced snacks that make a hiker think twice about resupplying there. But it had a roof, a shower, and a temporary reprieve from the rain. That was enough.

Blue Lake Hut

Back in the Richmonds, I’d made the mistake of packing too little food for the level of effort I was putting in. By the time I reached St. Arnaud, I was gaunt and determined not to make that mistake again. So, of course, I overcompensated. My resupply was ridiculous: a full kilogram of peanut butter, half a kilo of cheese, and enough food for a week, even though I only needed five days’ worth. I packed it all anyway, choosing sore quads over hunger.

Which, as it turned out, was the right call.

We ended up stuck at Blue Lake Hut, waiting out the weather with twenty-five other hikers in a space meant for sixteen. It was equal parts miserable and entertaining.

Among the crowd was the Williams family, a family of six hiking the full length of the country. Their kids, ages six to thirteen, were somehow always in good spirits. Mornings in the hut were a blur of tangled sleeping bags, half-zipped rain jackets, and the clatter of cookware. Their parents handled it all with the kind of patience that can only be forged through long-term exhaustion.

Alexandra in front of Lake Constance, trying to smile in the wind.

The trail celebrity Alexandra, a Dutch woman with an endless supply of stories. Her trail name was “Princess,” and she wore it with pride. Despite months on trail, she still smelled faintly of roses and always had perfectly shaved armpits. I couldn’t figure out how she managed it. She was a primary school teacher back in Amsterdam, which made sense. She had a way of bringing life into the hut and easily bonded with the Williams’ kids. 

And then, of course, there was Durango. A man so entrenched in trail lore that even hikers who had never met him could recite his misfortunes. A Wyoming native, he had a reputation for bad luck, though he took it all in stride. I personally watched him limp 30 kilometers on a swollen ankle for the promise of a frozen pizza in Boyle. He’d been medevaced, fought off a possum (his retelling included an Oscar-worthy possum impression), and still managed to push forward with a grin. If you walked into a hut and mentioned his name, someone had a story about him.

Once there was a brief reprieve from the rain, I grabbed my gear and pitched my tent outside. As soon as I lay down, I knew I’d made the right choice between the hut floor or a damp tent. The rain pattered against the fabric, the night wrapped around me, and I sank into the kind of deep sleep that only exhaustion allows.

The Pass

My foreboding view for the first few hours of hiking.

The next morning, Tim and I weren’t in a hurry. We left at a lazy 8 a.m., long after most of the hut had packed up and set out, eager to get ahead of the weather. A thick wall of fog swallowed everything. The pass, the valley, the mountains—gone.

Still, we climbed. Boulder fields, shifting scree. The rock gave way like fresh snow, every footfall sinking in before sliding back. Tim’s shoes were absolutely wrecked, barely holding together with waterlogged Leukotape and Tim’s refusal to acknowledge his footwear situation. The damp rocks didn’t help his blisters much, but he persisted. 

The fog refused to lift. We moved through a world reduced to shapes and shadows, the trail little more than a suggestion beneath our feet. Supposedly, this was one of the most beautiful sections of the Te Araroa. Supposedly, there were views.

Then, as we dropped below the cloud line, it happened.

Lake Constance appeared beneath us, an impossible shade of blue, framed by mountains that had only been rumors a moment ago. The wind cut sharp across the ridge, the kind that makes your eyes water, but I barely noticed. The pass was proving itself worthy of its reputation.

We met up with Alexandra and her friends, who were taking a break to celebrate the opportune clearing in the clouds. The views were fleeting. Every few minutes, Waiau’s peaks would emerge, only to disappear again just as quickly. That made them all the more valuable.

Tim Metcalf dutifully posing in front of Lake Constance.

The climb began again, pulling us upward, step by step. Tim, with his tree-trunk legs, flew ahead. I lagged behind. By the time I reached the plateau just under the saddle, I began grumbling to Marie about the loose, steep rock that made my joints feel decades older than they were. She wasn’t listening.

“Merde, Grace, turn around!” she shouted.

I spun around and gasped. The mist had thinned. The world had unfurled itself. The valley stretched below in hues of gold and green, the river a silver thread carving through the land. The mountains, no longer obscured, stood stark against the sky.

“Formidable!” I shouted back in my best (and probably terrible) French accent.

A wave of gratitude surged through me, the kind that wells up so strongly it has nowhere to go but out. I teared up, overwhelmed by the beauty, by the luck of being here, by the sheer improbability of it all. I quietly recited Blue Remembered Hills, a poem that had struck me months earlier in the Ha Giang mountains—a story for another time.

Marie getting ready to ascend once again after taking a well-earned break. The fog was rolling in.

The descent was far more technical than the ascent, a mix of steep scrambles and slick creek crossings. Marie, stressed by the terrain, was ahead of me, her vape clouds blending into the mist around us.

Once the valley flattened, the group separated. Tim sprinted ahead, determined to get a bunk in Waiau Hut. Marie lingered behind, considering wild camping instead of rushing to the next shelter. I took my time in the middle, moseying along the riverbank, letting the moment stretch.

The narrow valley widened into golden grass fields framed by purple mountains. That same swell of gratitude returned. I was alone, but not lonely. The only sounds were the creek beside me and, surprisingly, a flock of Canadian geese overhead.

I hadn’t seen one in years.

The honking took me straight back to Midwestern summers—feeding ducks with my parents, later with my sister. Watching geese pass over Minnesota pine forests. Sitting by the Mississippi with my best friends Rachel and Sumeya. They were everywhere in my childhood, so much a part of the background that I had barely noticed them. Now, after all these years away, they’d finally caught up to me. Now that I had fewer distractions than in my school days, I felt that I could give the geese my full appreciation and attention. 

As they lifted into their V formation, heading south, I grinned. I’d catch up with them in a couple months, both of us were Bluff bound. 

My friends Lukas and Vanessa hiking from Waiau Hut to Anne’s Hut. A gorgeous, flat valley.

For the next few days, as I made my way toward Boyle, I kept hearing them—distant honks echoing down the valley. With every call, more memories surfaced.

Tim, the machine, had pushed from Waiau Hut to Boyle Flat in a single day, and Marie had joined him in Hamner Springs the next day. Most of our hiking bubble had rushed ahead. I decided to take my time, spending a night at Boyle Flat Hut with my new friend Kathy, a section hiker from Christchurch.

I had no way of knowing if I’d see Tim or Marie again. No way of contacting them, but I believed in trail magic 🙂