INTO THE UNKNOWN
In his spare time, Kim Logan creates alpine adventure journeys in the Southern Alps. It is all part of his age-enforced retirement from high-stakes alpinism, where he was one of New Zealand’s best and boldest climbers.
Not that these low-altitude trips are for the faint-hearted, because the essential ‘Logan ingredients’ include demanding terrain, complex route finding, high levels of commitment and the potential for very long days and complete exhaustion. In his mind, you have to earn the journey.
EARNING THE JOURNEY
Early on January 9, 2021, on a cloudy day at Milford Sound, we paddled 7km out on to the still waters of the fiord heading north for the Harrison Valley beneath the towering massif of Mt Pembroke. Logan and I were sharing one kayak and Jim Hughes was in the other, along with all the gear. Leaving the kayaks on the shore in Harrison Cove, we entered the dense untracked Fiordland rainforest. Logan is 68, I’m 66 and Hughes is 57 – a mature little team of doughty souls heading into the rough.
The forest floor was thick with ferns, mosses and towering beech trees and progress was slow as we climbed through and around trunks, greasy logs and boulder-strewn side streams and crisscrossed the Harrison River when bluffs rose from the valley to the peaks above. These ancient forests are primeval in character and if a moa, or
