As we travel around and live in different places, I love when people come to visit us, especially when they have an open mind and want to go on some adventures. When my friends Marc and Jessica flew all the way from Manitoba to New Zealand last year, Marisa and I planned a special road trip for them that included two different overnight backcountry hikes in the mountains.

Because there’s so many road side stops that needed to be seen, we got off to a late start on the first hike making our way up to Mt. Brown Hut. Marisa and I had seen pictures of this hut numerous times with no name attached to it and not long before Marc and Jessica arrived we saw it on Instagram and with the tag in order to find it. We hiked a majority of it through the sunset and into the dark so we didn’t see any of the surrounding alpine views until the morning, but it was definitely worth it! Our guests learned the importance of bringing a headlight tramping, and especially when you need both your hands in order to complete the scramble to the top.

Mt. Brown is on the first range of mountains coming up from the West Coast on the South Island, so looking west was a view of the ocean and looking east you stood or sat (on the toilet) looking into the mountains. After a little breakfast and some photos at the hut we carried on down so we could get back on the road to drive around to the other side of this mountain range for the next hike.

The next morning after driving and camping at Lake Pearson we continued our adventure to the Cameron Valley. This is where we would walk 15.6 km (one-way) to Cameron Hut. We first heard about this hut from some fellow splitboarders during our recent winter spent in New Zealand, but never had the chance to get out there until this trip. Although we didn’t get to ski tour there, we wanted to go to the “purple door hut”. Once again, we arrived in the dark and we were pleasantly surprised in the morning with spectacular views of the remaining Cameron Glacier and Arrowsmith mountain range.

After a nice return walk in the sunshine, we were greeted with an amazing sunset before driving back to Queenstown where we left our friends from Manitoba for there last days in New Zealand, and jetted off on another hut trip on our mountain bikes for Marisa’s birthday. It’s always a treat having Marc and Jessica visit us, and we definitely look forward to the next time we get to entertain them with some mountainous activities.

Posted By Mitch