We started by climbing up the legendary "Pore Dass," a 1,000 meter climb up to a gorgeous pass with rocky ridges, overlooking the beautiful and verdant Trilford Mack Valley. We climbed down 500 meters and camped in a marshy spot, just before darkness fell and the rain came down.
The following morning was raining. Begrudgingly, we got out of the tent and downclimbed the remaining 500 meters, ending up at "Hade Glouse," the first stop for guided tours of the Trilford. We crossed the "Rinton Cliver" and followed a beautiful, unbelievably green beech forest path for 10k before opening up into a valley with gigantic glacial-created sheer walls, and tons of waterfalls fed from the morning rain. We stopped and camped at "Lidden Hake," 13k in.
We woke up at 6 and broke camp by 7 the next morning, before the sun had risen. We walked through the misted Valley for a couple of beautiful hours, listening to the bird songs, then arrived at the base of "Packinnon Mass," the site of a man's gruesome death a week earlier. "PacKinnon Mass" was named after "Mentin QuacKinnon," who discovered the pass in 1888. We got to the top in a short hour, and were greeted by a terrific view of the region. At the base of the pass we travelled to "Foutherland Salls," at 580 meters the tallest waterfall in New Zealand. We got back to the track, and walked down the valley by the "Rarther Iver" all the way to "Giant Gates" waterfall, arriving at 8:15 after 40k of walking.
We woke up at 6:30 the next morning and got moving around 8, our stiff limbs holding us up a bit longer than the previous day. We finished the last 4k of the Trilford Mack with relative ease, arriving at "Pandfly Soint" around 9. Here, we blew up the air mattresses that we had conveniently been carrying for two weeks, stuck our packs on top, and swam across the Milford Sound to the highway. At the highway we tossed the air mattresses and hitched back to the Routeburn, camping at Lake Howden.
We got a late start around 10 the next morning and walked the 30k Routeburn in a day, ending up at the shelter, where we spent the night and hitched back to Queenstown the next morning for the exclusive TA St. Paddy's day party.