In New Zealand, place names drip from J.R.R. Tolkien's fountain pen — Elfin Bay, Lake Truth, Mount Aspiring, Demon Trail, The Tower — and Lord of the Rings fans now pilgrimage to sets for Middle-earth. But the fans don't know what I know: Hobbits really do live in New Zealand. And they saved my life.
Long ago I joined a backpacking buddy to hike the fabled Milford Track, the 33-mile trail that zigzags along glacier-cut valleys, through primeval rain forests, among craggy alps, up nearly 4,000 feet to a pass, and back down to the drizzly fiord that
