The Gardens of Eden and Allah – a 7 day traverse, from the perspective of a baby dinosaur.

Whāia te iti kahurangi, ki te tuohu koe, me he maunga teitei.

Seek the treasure that you value most dearly, if you bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain

The Adams Wilderness Area is a very special place. It is vast country right in the centre of the Southern Alps where you can really see the impact of glaciation, and a place that still feels very untouched, particularly as it can be very challenging to get to.

It is also one of NZ’s 11 gazetted Wilderness Areas that embody the values of remoteness, challenge, solitude, self-reliance, and discovery—there are no huts or tracks and the area is left untouched to preserve it in its natural state. Nature is left completely in charge.

Championed by Emily, a group of us had been focused on the Garden of Eden for three years. We had attempted to tramp there in 2024 from the east after watching the level of the Clyde River closely—but we were thwarted unexpectedly on day two of our journey by a fast-flowing Frances River.

While we didn’t make it on that attempt, I was still very proud of us for our risk assessment—knowing when to turn back to keep us all safe and not getting so goal driven that we compromised our safety—and for the amazing teamwork we did battling the river multiple times as we attempted to cross it. We left that attempt disappointed but with renewed perseverance and determination.

I was also reminded not to give up by one of my patients at the hospital who had visited the Garden of Eden when he was younger and told me to keep working on my skills in the meantime so I would feel more confident about it. I referred to myself as the “Baby Dinosaur” in the very experienced team of Emily and Mathew (we have always joked that crampon tracks look like dinosaur feet in the snow). 

This time we decided to change things with a mission from the West Coast via Scone Hut in the Perth Valley. The weather forecast on our chosen dates didn’t allow us to set our expectations very high for success, and we even considered not going, but ultimately we decided to set off up valley in the rain and see what would happen.

The Perth Valley was amazing. The southern rātā were in flower and at times we were walking on what seemed to be a beautiful red carpet of flowers that had fallen off the trees. I have never seen such a high density of southern rātā and it was magical.

The bird life was just as impressive. Plump kererū squawked above us. Some trees had a bird on nearly every branch.

The Perth Valley has had intensive predator control, thanks mainly to the remarkable ZIP Project, and it is now a thriving bird metropolis. It was a reminder of what New Zealand once was, and what we are striving to regain with all the predator control work.

After staying at Nolans Hut, we left early next morning to walk to Scone Hut which involved some scrambling and hauling ourselves up over some large boulders. I think Mathew and Emily just bounced up over them while I snailed—cursing the size of West Coast boulders and possibly repeating many times that boulders and I didn’t have an amicable relationship much to the amusement of the others.

Mathew had carried in some flour to make scones in Scone Hut but after having lunch we decided to keep going, so Mathew and Emily both ditched some gear and food since our plan was to come back the same way. My brain was still recovering from the boulder bashing so I defaulted to just carrying everything.

I had been feeling increasingly unwell and tired since lunch thanks to some medication so the next bit was somewhat of a blur for me. We were following a very rough trail from the predator control work with plenty of bush bashing in between, but we were now happily within the borders of the Adams Wilderness Area.

After what felt like an eternity, we finally found ourselves above the bushline looking back down on what we had just fought through. However, we now seemed to be among a mess of boulders that we had to pick our way carefully through to get to pt 1187.

Emily took a hard tumble on the sharp boulders but immediately bounced back up despite bloody wrists and hands. After overshooting up the spur a bit we ended up sidling around at the 1240m level.

We were aiming for Elizabeth Stream as we knew there was a nice plateau to camp. But we were all exhausted and started looking for good campsites before that. I remember trying to convince the others that the side of a mountain with no water or flat area would be decent enough, even though it certainly wasn’t ideal.

Common sense prevailed and after some more sugary snacks we dragged ourselves along to Elizabeth Stream just as the rain and wind made an appearance. On arriving we did indeed find a nice campsite—but I also found I had bleeding legs from awful chafing from walking in the rain, something very unfortunate so early in the trip.

The wind hadn’t abated overnight, and it was cold as we made our way towards the Adverse Glacier. Emily and Mathew wanted to climb pt 2024 to get another 2024 m peak bagged before the end of 2024. I decided to shelter behind a rock as I was still feeling a bit unwell and wanted to rebandage the chafing on my legs so I would be ready for the afternoon of walking.

Making it over the Adverse Glacier to The Great Unknown it finally felt like we were making progress towards the Garden.

The view from the Great Unknown was other worldly. Tall snowcapped mountains in all directions and the Tasman Sea in the distance. Just a trip up to the Great Unknown would be fantastic in itself.

Getting off The Great Unknown down a steep gut took a bit of teamwork as we passed packs and talked through footholds before we were finally back walking on snow and over rocks as we traversed around to the entrance of the Garden of Eden.

We spent New Year’s Eve watching the alpenglow from the entrance to the Garden, discussing the highlights of our tramping year (Emily and I were both pleased to have met our goal of spending 100 days in the hills) and we all went to bed wondering what tomorrow would bring.

We woke up to a surprisingly beautiful day to start off the New Year. Originally, we had planned on a trip just to the Garden and then return to Scone Hut, but with the current weather and an improved weather forecast that came through from Tony on our InReach, our plans quickly changed.

Emily floated the idea of making a traverse across both the Garden of Eden and the Garden of Allah to the Lord Valley and eventually out to the Wanganui Valley. We would need to ration our food because of the food we had left at Scone Hut and needing more time, but that was a small price to pay for getting the opportunity to explore the area in good weather and a much more exciting route.

We quickly packed up all our gear, got alpine gear sorted and then started to rope ourselves up. Emily and Mathew would take turns leading and as the baby dinosaur I would stay in the middle, which still involved a lot of concentration as I had to be constantly aware of the rope length both in front and behind me. 

It seemed very surreal to be finally walking on the Garden of Eden on a bluebird day. We later found out that basically everywhere else in New Zealand was experiencing bad weather, but because of the easterly air flows everywhere we were in a small segment of good weather only along the west of South Island.

The views were incredible and the plateau was vaster and more pristine than I could have imagined. We could look back and still see The Great Unknown. It felt very remote and wild and almost like no one else had ever stepped foot there. Mathew and Emily had fun climbing up a few pieces of ice as we passed and I enjoyed just stopping to take it all in.

Getting through Adams Col turned out to be easier than expected and we stopped for a lunch break on some rocks after the col.

There was a short climb up to the Garden of Allah as we passed Icefall Outlook with a relatively gentle climbing gradient towards Satan Saddle. There were a few indications of crevasses here and there and a few narrow ones that we could easily step over.

At Satan Saddle we found the crevasses got a little bigger again. As we descended towards Lambert Glacier jumping over crevasses, we found the crevasses started to rapidly increase in size and we soon found ourselves in a crevasse maze.

The crevasses now looked like you could fit a car down them. Mathew was really enjoying the challenge of leading this section, but as the baby dinosaur, I was a bit intimidated and very much aware that we were crossing a number of scary snow bridges.

We quickly realised we couldn’t continue the line we were on because we were outsized by crevasses. Luckily, we didn’t have to retrace all our steps as we could make it to the safety of the boulders at the edge of the crevasse field.

Mathew dropped his pack and went ahead to do some quick scouting, finding a route down to the Lambert Glacier just as the clouds rolled in, reducing our visibility and making our descent much more challenging. It was a relief to finally set up camp for the day on the Lambert Glacier.

I was very lucky that when I got up during the night I saw the Aurora Australis. Emily made me promise to wake her up next time.

One thing people always ask about camping in an alpine environment is about toileting. Camping responsibly on a glacier or snow involves using poo pots and this was something we all had.

The next day we found that getting off the Lambert Glacier wasn’t going to be straight forward either…

To be continued:

Go to Episode 3