Gertrude Saddle
Naama and I sitting and looking at the view from Gertrude Saddle
Gertrude Saddle is a name of a difficult but super beautiful trek located in the Fiordland national park in the South Island of New Zealand on the road to Milford Sound.
The Trek is considered dangerous and should only be attempted on fine, dry days.
The terrain of the trek can be very slippery and should only be attempted by experienced hikers, if you have doubt DON’T DO IT!
The Trek is considered dangerous and should only be attempted on fine, dry days.
The terrain of the trek can be very slippery and should only be attempted by experienced hikers, if you have doubt DON’T DO IT!
Mountain during the Golden hour from Gertrude Saddle
We tried to find a good day to hike up to the saddle for a few weeks, but every time we got to the start of the trek there was fog or light rain. We heard that people have died on this trek before and didn’t want to risk our lives on it because of impatience.
Eventually we managed to find a nice day to climb up.
The start of the trek is a nice walk in a valley with beautiful sights of the mountains from all directions. We were excited and awe-inspired by how powerful the mountains look.
Then we got to the climb up, in one moment the trek starts climbing steeply towards the saddle, it was tough but manageable, we kept going up and every once in a while looked back at the awesome view behind us, we crossed a small stream (in different conditions it can be a gushing river) and started climbing up the rocks, at some point on the way up it stops being big boulders and pebbles and become a steep smooth rock face, here when it’s wet it gets very slippery and if you fall you just go all the way down, we climbed the rock face carefully checking our every step, there were points we had to use a metal cable that is connected to the rock in order to keep climbing up.
We reached black lake, it was crisp and beautiful. I thought of going in but it was too cold.
From here we kept climbing up using the cables over the lake and towards the final ascent to the saddle, this part is also slippery and super dangerous when wet.
After this part you climb up on big boulders on a steep slope, this is the most dangerous part of the hike in my opinion.
Eventually we managed to find a nice day to climb up.
The start of the trek is a nice walk in a valley with beautiful sights of the mountains from all directions. We were excited and awe-inspired by how powerful the mountains look.
Then we got to the climb up, in one moment the trek starts climbing steeply towards the saddle, it was tough but manageable, we kept going up and every once in a while looked back at the awesome view behind us, we crossed a small stream (in different conditions it can be a gushing river) and started climbing up the rocks, at some point on the way up it stops being big boulders and pebbles and become a steep smooth rock face, here when it’s wet it gets very slippery and if you fall you just go all the way down, we climbed the rock face carefully checking our every step, there were points we had to use a metal cable that is connected to the rock in order to keep climbing up.
We reached black lake, it was crisp and beautiful. I thought of going in but it was too cold.
From here we kept climbing up using the cables over the lake and towards the final ascent to the saddle, this part is also slippery and super dangerous when wet.
After this part you climb up on big boulders on a steep slope, this is the most dangerous part of the hike in my opinion.
Stack of photos of a Kea bird playing with a marker pole
When we got to the saddle we found two wind blockers and we pitched our tent behind one of them. We were all alone between the mountains with the view of Milford Sound on one side and the path we walked on on the other.
We sat and had dinner as we heard a call “KEA--KEA”, I knew immediately it was the famous mountain parrot, the Kea. I also know that they are very smart and love stealing things from hikers.
Sure enough it was eying our tent pegs, I went closer and it got away from the tent, for the next hour or so as the sun was setting the Kea was playing games with us, eventually we decided it was time to go to sleep, the wind at this point picked up dramatically and was way stronger then what the forecast predicted, we kept hearing the Kea and the wind around our tent and Bam! The wind cover of the tent started flying, luckily it was still connected with 5 more pegs to the ground, we figured the Kea pulled one of the pegs out of the ground and because the cover went flying it got scared and dropped it, we fixed the cover back to the tent and started a timelapse of the mountain next to us.
We sat and had dinner as we heard a call “KEA--KEA”, I knew immediately it was the famous mountain parrot, the Kea. I also know that they are very smart and love stealing things from hikers.
Sure enough it was eying our tent pegs, I went closer and it got away from the tent, for the next hour or so as the sun was setting the Kea was playing games with us, eventually we decided it was time to go to sleep, the wind at this point picked up dramatically and was way stronger then what the forecast predicted, we kept hearing the Kea and the wind around our tent and Bam! The wind cover of the tent started flying, luckily it was still connected with 5 more pegs to the ground, we figured the Kea pulled one of the pegs out of the ground and because the cover went flying it got scared and dropped it, we fixed the cover back to the tent and started a timelapse of the mountain next to us.
Timelapse of the night's sky during a full moon
We slept here and there but it wasn’t a very good night's sleep, the wind died down in the early morning and only then did we really fall asleep. An hour later we heard two screams next to our heads. We both got up with a fright and I went outside to see what it was.
There I saw on the rock right next to our tent two Keas chatting to each other. I was so excited, I’ve been looking for these birds for a year and a half and then in the course of 12 hours I already saw 3, AMAZING. We took our time in the morning to get ready and take photos of the Keas and the view around us.
When we started seeing people coming up we started going back down, the climb down was much easier than the climb up but it is still dangerous, so we took our time to measure our steps, still we got back to the car pretty quickly.
This was one of my favourite hikes in New Zealand, I loved every single moment of it, even the bad night’s sleep.
Usually people do this hike all in one day, we did it in two and are happy because of it, it gave us a whole different perspective on the hike.
If you do this hike be careful! Don’t be reckless and risk your life for a view.
There I saw on the rock right next to our tent two Keas chatting to each other. I was so excited, I’ve been looking for these birds for a year and a half and then in the course of 12 hours I already saw 3, AMAZING. We took our time in the morning to get ready and take photos of the Keas and the view around us.
When we started seeing people coming up we started going back down, the climb down was much easier than the climb up but it is still dangerous, so we took our time to measure our steps, still we got back to the car pretty quickly.
This was one of my favourite hikes in New Zealand, I loved every single moment of it, even the bad night’s sleep.
Usually people do this hike all in one day, we did it in two and are happy because of it, it gave us a whole different perspective on the hike.
If you do this hike be careful! Don’t be reckless and risk your life for a view.
Two Keas sitting on a rock, talking to each other
Extra - Our video from Gertrude Saddle
