On the third day of the Milford Track you walk up from Mintaro Hut in zig-zags towards Mackinnon Pass with spectacular views of the valleys on both sides of the pass. A long descent and a short detour take you to the Sutherland Falls before you reach the third hut.

After great weather on the day before, things didn’t look too good at the hut in the morning: A layer of clouds covered the sky. Most fellow hikers left very early, probably because they feared that the weather could only get worse – the forecast spoke of rather worsening weather conditions. Since I had seen the pass in the best weather the day before, I was able to start my day in a rather relaxed mood. Just before leaving, the hut warden gave a weather update to the two of us who still hadn’t left the hut: there was only a thin cloud cover above us, which already showed some gaps here and there, and also the weather forecast was corrected so that it should stay dry in this region until the evening.

About 15 minutes from the hut, the ascent up to Mackinnon Pass begins. After another 30 minutes, I left the clouds beneath me and started walking under a blue sky, though it was quite windy.

So it turned out that on this particular day, we had an – as I was told afterwards: rare for this valley – weather situation called inversion. The view back towards the valley we had passed through the day before was thus hidden beneath a white blanket while we were making our way up through those clouds towards blue skies and the pass.

A little further along the pass, there is a shelter which offers more great views of the Clinton Valley. By now, the cloud cover had been dissolved by the sun, but the shredded clouds were blown around us by the strong wind.

Beyond the shelter, the path starts descending into the Arthur Valley, leading to the West Coast’s Milford Sound. We descended some 200 meters, enjoying many great views of the surrounding landscape.

The track then descends quickly towards the next hut which is for guided walkers only. Usually, you would drop your pack here for a short side trip to the Sutherland Falls. However, that path was blocked by a landslide when I was there. So I continued my way towards Dumpling Hut for the last night on the track, only getting a short glimpse onto the waterfall from the distance.

All photographs were made with a Canon EOS 6D and an EF 35mm f/2 IS USM lens at ISO 200. The exposure of the first two was 1/160 second at f/8 and ISO 200. The third photograph was taken at 1/125 second and f/5.6, the fourth at 1/250 second and f/5.6 and the last one at 1/200 second and f/5.6.

You can find all of these photos along with others from this journey across New Zealand’s South Island in my album New Zealand 2013 or on Flickr.