Day 48 - Mid Wairoa Hut to Old Man Hut

Today I really wanted to catch the two NOBO in front of me. So I set my alarm at 5.20h since I knew they were only one hut ahead of me. It started out with a steep climb in the forest for about 700m altitude in 7km. I left at 7h and made it to the hut after 2.5h but as expected they were already gone. My chance now was to catch them at Rintol Hut where they would possibly stop for lunch – the sign said 5h to the hut when I left at 9.50h. So the race was on!
The landscape was beautiful. Since the clouds were low the entire night and partly still there everything was covered in mist.

Also the lake at Tarn Hut gave some nice views.

 I ran the next km as good as possible since it was still mostly uphill. Views were beautiful with the clouds slowly lifting.

  
 And then I saw Rintol Hut at 12.15 from the saddle – 3km to go! I again mobilised the last reserves and when I arrived at the hut they were still there just packing and about to leave. Yieeehaaaa!!! Just in time. Project catch the NOBOs successfully completed! ?

So the Team NOBO now had three members: Maja & Katie, two girls from New Zealand and Poland and myself. Of course Jay, Breann and Ben have to catch up now.

So we celebrated a little bit with gummy bears and Oreos and I was given a short break before we tackled the apparently most challenging stretch of the entire section. Mt. Rintol gave us great and spectacular views. The climbs were challenging and it was a lot of up and down before we made it to the hut.

  
  
And at the end we had to hurry up since the clouds were coming in again. It looked great but you don’t want to descent on steep scree slopes when they are wet.

 Amazing picture – the dark spot in the rainbow is me!

 Long day for me but worth the effort.