Hiking Roys Peak

For those of you in California, Wanaka is like North Lake Tahoe but with a bit more of a town center and closer mountains. For Coloradans, it’s reminiscent of downtown Dillon (but fewer cars, less commercial space, and smaller feeling). For everyone else, it’s a beautiful ski destination in the winter, and a water- / extreme- / mountain-sports destination in the summer. So Elisse and I are kind of bound to like it, right?

We did! And the hike we decided on for our first full day ended up being a nice contributing factor. Roys Peak is right outside town – we looked up at it from the bedroom window of our AirBnB – so it’s a popular trail, even on weekdays.  We got started at 9ish, and were maybe the 6th car there.  When we got back, that number had swelled to 40 or 50.  Apparently the 1250m vertical ascent wasn’t frightening too many folks.

All in all though, the hike was very New Zealand-y.  And by that I mean 1) we were walking through sheep pasture for the first 2/3 of the way, 2) the last 1/3 was a declared conservation area, 3) the trail was in fairly to very good condition the whole way and was easy to find, 4) everyone we met was really nice, and 5) the views were stunning the whole time.

Lots more info in photograph captions:

Check out http://www.topomap.co.nz/ for more geographic exploration.  It’s excellent, and they have a great app too.