Last Saturday Blaine and I decided to join a group of resident doctors that I work at the hospital with to go on a hike in Arthur's Pass. I read up about the hike, Avalanche Peak, and discovered the night before embarking that it would include a 1000 meter climb (to me this classifies it as a mountain climb not a "hike") but the book labelled it as 'moderate' so we decided to go ahead.

note: 1000 meters=3,300 feet

Well, lets just say that our group left us within 15 minutes of starting the hike. Blaine and I spent the next hour discussing what could be making it extra hard for us: is it the altitude? did we not eat the right breakfast? maybe we need new insoles for our boots? if we only had a walking stick...

Finally we came to the inevitable answer: we are out of shape for this type climb.

Both of us wondered at different points if we were going to make it. But persevere we did.

I think what did it for Blaine was seeing a 70 year old man on his way down, telling us it wasn't much farther.

I will say it was worth it, once we got above the tree line you could see forever...waterfalls, the valley and river below, snow-capped peaks 360 degrees around us and even a glacier tucked in behind. At the top we encountered Keas (one of the few recorded alpine parrots, known for their curiousity and intellect to survive the harsh climate--only found on the S.Island of NZ). They proved their reputation by stealing a banana out of one of the hiker's backpacks and flying away with it in their beak.

To give you a hint as to how long the 'climb' was...it took us a little over 4 hours to get up and 3 hours to get down. When we got home, Jonny asked us if we would go back and do the hike another time with him at some point and Blaine and I answered simultaneously "NO".