Heeding the Heart’s Call

For years, a quiet calling has echoed through my soul, the lure of an alpine adventure. Lately, that calling has only grown louder, amplified by countless hours of Outside Magazine’s legendary podcast stories. For an Aussie raised on sunburnt coastlines, the idea of standing among towering, glaciated peaks feels both distant and magnetic.

Then, a rare, perfect late-May weather window opens. It is time to clear the decks, suspend routine and reset priorities. With two like-minded friends, Richie and Seb, we seize the moment, booking flights across the ditch, compelled at last to listen to the heart, and answer its resounding call.

Three mates. Seventy-five hours on the ground. One shot at an adventure that will leave its mark.

Road Trip to the Trailhead

Touchdown in New Zealand.

A brief stay at the Novotel offers barely three hours sleep before alarms jolt us into action. We caffeinate hard and hit the road before sunrise. Musical riffs fill the cabin as our diesel Ford Everest hums west from Christchurch, cutting across wide pastoral plains and alongside turquoise lakes.

Then, it appears, the Cloud Piercer, Aoraki, looming on the horizon. The banter fades, the volume dips. Quiet settles in as we absorb the reality of the remoteness we’re heading into, a mix of anticipation and nerves.

In southern Māori traditions, Aoraki is a sacred presence watching over the Southern Alps, a reminder that all who explore here are visitors, always.

At the DOC Visitor Centre, we lodge our trip intentions, pick up a personal locator beacon, and step across a threshold. Off grid. Disconnected from the world yet deeply reconnected – to the land, to the purpose, to wonder and awe.

The Hut at the Edge of the Earth

Our objective is part of the Ball Pass Crossing: a high, narrow saddle between the Tasman and Hooker Valleys. It’s alpine country, untracked, unpredictable and raw, where time and tectonic force are written into the land.

The 4WD rattles and lurches through Husky Flats, a tiny speck in a vast landscape. We shoulder backpacks and step into rugged terrain. Husky Gorge, carved open by a 2019 landslide, emerges as our first obstacle. We scramble up an elusive, narrow dirt track, weaving through bush, glancing down at the gaping chasm, where the old trail now concludes abruptly, its broken ends dropping off into the void.

Beyond the gorge, we navigate chaotic moraine fields – enormous, steep, tapering slopes of stone and scree running up the length of the mountain. The aftermath of slips and landslides. These Jenga-like rockfalls feel precarious, and you can’t shake the uneasy sense that one wrong move might set off a domino effect.

To the east, the Tasman Glacier presses forward, its cracked ice and rocky upper layer exposing glowing blue melt pools. The icy mass feeds the milky terminal lake below, its unique colour born from glacial flour – rock finely ground by the glacier’s relentless movement over millennia. The scale is staggering. Awesome. Alien. We press on, absorbing it all.

By twilight, we reach the three-bunk Ball Hut, the atmosphere shifting into cool hues. That night, under a canopy of cosmic light, we dine on rehydrated food paired with sips of warming whiskey – everything tastes better out here. Later, we sit in quiet reverence, each with an ice-cold beer in hand, gazing up at the crescent moon, Mars, Venus, billions of stars, the Milky Way, and fast-streaking satellites, feeling the profound, humbling power of this place.

Rocks, Ridges and Respect  

With the weather window narrowing earlier than expected, we adjust the plan: a challenging day-hike to Caroline Hut and back, skipping the overnight at higher elevation. A sensible call, as heavy weather brews beyond the range.

We climb upward, following scattered clues like cairns, ridgelines, and faint tracks that appear, then vanish. The higher we go, the rarer the markers become. It’s striking how the eye instinctively picks out the unnatural symmetry of a cairn amid swathes of innumerable rocks. We stack a few of our own, a small yet satisfying contribution, a nod to trailblazing.

Seb bounds over boulders with mountain-goat agility, while Richie and I soldier on. Reaching the first ridgeline, we peer down sheer cliffs where the Ball Glacier collides with the Tasman, and a collective “whoa” escapes us, crisp mountain air tracing the ridge and hitting us full in the face.

We push on, gaining nearly 1,000 meters of elevation by the time we crest this local peak, now almost level with Caroline Hut, visible to the south. It feels like a privilege to stand here, especially under such a flawless bluebird sky, face-to-face with the striking 3,724-metre profile of Mt Cook, up close and personal. We pause to rest, sharing a simple but satisfying lunch of peanut butter sandwiches and Snickers bars – humble fuel, practical and lightweight. Around us, distant avalanches crack and rumble, but the view settles the spirit and clears the mind. It’s a special, immersive thirty minutes in this place. Meditative, even.

Then, a group shot, thanks to Seb for hauling the heavy camera gear, before turning our thoughts to the descent. Hiking down taxes our tired legs, each step on the loose rock a sharp reminder that one mistake could matter. But we move carefully, respecting the terrain. Below us, we catch sight of helicopters, sounds of whirring blades, ferrying people out to the glacier. They look like dragonflies against this immense backdrop, a reminder of just how small we are in this grand arena.

After a long dawn-to-dusk day out, we are grateful to return to the Hut. Then Richie surprises us, pulling out a stash of fresh spicy biltong. In this moment, it tastes like the best thing we’ve ever eaten.

Photo cred: Seb Ruiz

Storm Incoming

That night, under a calm, starry sky, we experiment with long-exposure photos and light painting. Eventually, cold and sleep pull us in.

But at 2:00am, stillness shattered. Winds scream down from the peaks, pounding the Hut like a giant fist. Two Kiwi hikers who arrived earlier that evening knock at the door – their tent collapsing – and ask to take refuge on the floor. Without hesitation, we oblige, and they are grateful to have escaped the assault.

With gusts tearing past 50 knots, none of us sleeps much. Before dawn, headlamps slice through the dark as we try to assess the situation. No coffee, no breakfast, just a frantic packing exercise and a hasty retreat, the mountain’s mood unmistakable.

We retrace our steps across the moraine, detouring around the gorge again, which becomes impassable in a heavy downpour. Rain threatens, but the tailwind propels us along, and we make good time, soaking in one last dose of alpine awe before reaching the 4WD.

Re-Entry to Civilisation

Back at the Visitor Centre, we cradle hot, overpriced coffees in cold hands, watching as the peaks disappear beneath heavy clouds and rain. Lucky timing for us.

The drive back to Christchurch is wrapped in a glow of uplifted spirits and the sound of Rüfüs Du Sol’s Innerbloom. A mandatory McDonald’s pitstop adds a touch of processed largess in contrast to the pure living of the past few days. From there, we give the car a quick polish erasing the trail’s scars, and before long we’re checking into The Drifter hostel. It’s straight to the Rambler bar downstairs, where we raise our glasses in spirited celebration, magnifying the endorphin high. A big dinner at Manu follows. At last, exhaustion catches up, and we collapse into a few hours of sleep in our tiny hostel room, before dawn flights back to Sydney.

With time stretched by the wild, it feels like much more – yet in just seventy-five hours, the calling transforms into something real, something etched into memory. It is more than summits or stats. It’s about the awe, the camaraderie, and the undeniable power of the outdoors – to inspire, to heal, to awaken.

Thank you, Richie and Seb, for the journey.

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The trip in photos, featuring a mix of images by Seb and me.

Awed by Aoraki / Mt Cook / The Cloud Piercer

Rocky “road” to the trailhead.

Make your own trail in this infinitely rocky expanse!

The hut at the edge of the earth. We were grateful to find this little sanctuary empty.

Too good not to specifically cred: Seb

Too good not to specifically cred: Seb

Jumbled rock field close to the peak of our objective. Tasman glacier in the background – ever changing, creaking and cracking, consuming the mountainous ramparts one stone at a time with patience and persistence.

Headlamp and candle illuminate the inside of our hut.

Navigating around Husky Gorge.