I'm 21! May 20th here did not feel much like my birthday and fell on a Wednesday, the day I have class from 9 to 6pm with a couple one hour breaks. Still, we had a super cool lab for MARI 302 where we dissected baby New Zealand Fur Seals. I stayed late and got to do a bit of further dissecting, like a lateral cut down the heart. Very cool.

Professor Dawson (Steve) weighing the baby seal

Liz Slooten examining the skull fracture that likely killed this seal (Seal clubbing anyone?)

The next day I decided was much more my birthday, since I was born in Alaska and not New Zealand, so I would be officially 21 on the Alaskan May 20th. I received a package sent from home chock full of birthday goodness. Alcoholic chocolates from my sister were a definite highlight since she couldn't buy me my first legal drink. Reading all the cards made me feel so special and loved that of course I started crying (happy tears!) in my room, thinking about Homer and how lovely it will be to go back. The chocolates helped me feel better, which was good because I had to pack for my weekend getaway.

Half the group from the Super Awesome Fijordland Adventure were setting out on a much more adventurous trip to the north part of the south island with the goal of summiting Mt Owen in Kahurangi National Park. The trip was off to a bad start when Harvard's car started making funny noises and kept stalling just a block from my flat.

Calling up AAA a block from my flat, oh noes!

Some people would write off the weekend as a bad job, but not us. We quickly rang up a couple rental places and were soon off and rolling in a nice automatic... and it was only 6pm. We rallied all the way to Omaru where we stopped for groceries. We bought so much food for just the five of us and TWO boxes of wine... it was ridiculous. I also broke down and ate at my first American chain restaurant since leaving the states for the UK. It was Subway... and it was delicious.

The rest of the drive I tried to sleep but it was hard to get comfy in the middle of the back seat. We also only had five mix CDs that Kris had made so I kept drifting off and waking up to power metal... which does not encourage the best sleep. With only a few wrong turns and one or two stops for petrol, we arrived at our trail start with the night sky only barely touched by the approaching morning sun. As we packed up the food and changed, the sky lightened up and we decided we might as well just take off now and rest once we were at the Granity Pass Hut... a six to eight hour tramp away.

Taadaa, twelve hours later at our track start in the new car

That tramp was definitely a test of will power. After twelve hours in a car and at least 36 hours without sleep, it all comes down to your mind willing each step, knowing that it is one step closer to the hut and rest. We actually made good time, arriving at the hut in about 7 hours even with a lunch stop and a detour when we lost the track in the snow. The sun was just going down behind the mountains as we got there so we enjoyed the last rays before trying to make some tea. I say "trying" because what actually happened was the creation of a flaming bomb out of our previously fine stove and the very quick disposal of the bomb into the snow outside. After we settled down from that scary business, no one really wanted tea anymore so I passed around my ginger wine which improved everyone's mood significantly. So did dinner and the consumption of the entire box of red wine over many card games. Surprisingly we did not pass out from exhaustion (no sleep, twelve hours of driving AND a 7 hour tramp with wine laden packs?) and were able to make so much merriment that we got yelled at by the old man who was camping outside. Geez.

On the way up, not looking too shabby all things considered

The next morning we had a late start to Mt Owen which meant that we followed the tracks of the old, unhappy couple that yelled at us the previous night. Since there was so much snow, Mt Owen was going to be quite the effort so we decided to just focus on summitting something. That something was Mt Bell, only 20 m lower than Mt Owen and still absolutely charming. With the gusty winds and abrasive snow it really felt like quite the expedition, one that may have actually required the use of the ice axes and crampons strapped to our bags. Reaching the top was accompanied with silliness like cartwheels and merriment.

More snow and feeling a bit like the Fellowship tramping through the Misty Mountains

Group shot: note the sweet ice axes and the blowing snowflakes

Reversing down the mountain was quick due to sledding on our butts for much of the way. We celebrated our success with delicious pasta, another full box of wine, and many more card games including my first win at hearts. I'm glad I learned how to play hearts in Scotland... it has proved to be a great game for mountain huts. The next morning was a quick jaunt to the car with much lighter packs and a few side explorations. We were almost trampled by a stampede of sheep on our drive out but luckily our rental car survived without a scratch, no doubt cushioned from blows by large amounts of wool. Torben the German drove us home in record, Autobahn time which meant we only had to listen to the same five CDs a couple times each. I learned the lyrics to more power metal songs about Lord of the Rings characters than I ever knew existed in the world that weekend. Great success.

Yay, I'm 21 and I just summitted my first snowy mountain!