Gertrude Saddle

Hey everyone,

This blog post is about two weeks old and I apologize.

Rowan, Jamie, the two wwoofers from Boston– Alice and Zoe– and I went on the Gertrude Saddle hike. It is one that we recommend when working lodge reception so it was about time we experienced it for ourselves so we can describe it to our guests better. Gertrude Saddle is just over the other side of Homer tunnel and down the hill for a short drive. When we got there, there was a Department of Conservation (D.O.C.) employee waiting in the parking lot. She was stopping people like us who were about to start the hike. She asked us if we were headed all the way to the top. We told her we were and she showed us some pictures of the melting snow that you have to cross over to get to the top. She said that it had been melting for many days (as it was around the time we had almost an entire month of warm, sunny weather) and had been avalanching lately (about a day or two ago). She said if we didn't have any experience traveling on snow that we should consider stopping before we got to it. We said we could consider it, thanked her, and left.

The hike begins with about an hour's trek through a beautiful green valley with bushes, rocks, grass, and mountains on both sides. It is nice because about half the hike is flat and easy (so long as you don't lose the trail a lot). It is amazing that even though many people hike the trail daily, you can still lose it. I think the more people hiking on the trail, the more false trails are made as people make wrong turns.


At the end of the flat part, you reach a couple waterfalls that cascade down into this basin that seems like it was made by the ground opening up into a crumbled mass of rocks and crust.


I liked this picture because it looks like Jamie decided to leave the group and go hiking on his own and everyone is like, "No Jamie, we love you. Please stay and hike with us! :(" But actually, he was just maneuvering himself to get a better picture... er something.


This is the gang hanging out. We spent a while taking pictures here and then Zoe and Alice decided to turn back because the steep part got pretty intimidating here. We later realized that we were well right of the tail and that the trail ascent was pretty well broken and much easier to climb.


This is a picture taken from above that climb looking back at Milford Rd. in the distance.


On our way up, we passed a blond, Dutch couple on their way down. We asked them about how bad the snow situation we were warned about was. They said that they just avoided the snow and climbed on the rocks around it. That is what I ended up doing, but I took a picture of Rowan and Jamie giving the snow travel a try. They eventually gave up and went my way on the rocks.


About 2/3 of the way up, there is this beautiful lake with emerald water. It is poorly named, Black Lake. We went swimming in it, but it was so cold that we could only stay in the water for as long as it took to quickly get out of the water.


In this picture, we are not actually walking. We are just looking like we are walking. Can you tell?


This picture is also staged. Since the there is little in this picture to give you perspective cues, you can make it look steeper than it really is. That one Batman show did that too, remember? BAM!!!


And this is what it looked like when we were walking normally.

These rocks vary in steepness and are very smooth from glaciers sliding over them for thousands of years. At the top, you could see scrape marks from the glaciers.


And here we are at the top. The view was beyond words. This picture probably represents about a 12th of how astoundingly beautiful the view is at the top of Gertrude Saddle. I took a 360-degree movie of the view from up there, but can't put it on this blog because of my megabite restrictions.


If you look in the far distance, you can see Milford Sound. If you look really really hard, you can see Sterling Falls. The sound was so far away that the atmospheric perspective made the water look like unmoving drifts of sand.


Here is a zoomed-in view of Milford Sound. Can you see where the ocean meets the sky? You can see a very large cruise boat sailing out of the sound. It was really cool because we don't get huge cruise liners of this type very often so it was really odd to see it from this far away. Side note: I looked at a map and, as far as I can tell, the sound was 10km from where we were. I was surprised since it seemed so much further away.

Here are some potential Facebook profile pictures:
The cliff was so steep. It would have been a great place to go hang gliding. I was not daring enough to get close enough to judge the height, but I would have guessed it would be around a thousand feet high.



This is the view of Black Lake from the top of the saddle.


Here is an artistic photo Rowan took of us trekkers on our way back down. Our shadows were long at the end of the day and we still had about a two-hour hike to go.


Another great picture Rowan took of our walk back down Gertrude Valley. The sun was low and our day was long and tiring. We were ready to return home for some much needed peanut butter and honey sandwiches.

I think it was about a 5 hour return hike with a leisurely stop on top for photos and lunch, and a stop at Black Lake for a swim and drying out on the warm rocks.