We spent a rainy day in Queenstown before arriving in Glenorchy the morning before we were to start the Routeburn Track. We didn't have anything planned (the extra day was unexpected due to our schedule rearranging) and thought Mt. Alfred looked like a good hike after scanning through the information book at our campground. The only catch was that the info sheet said it took 3-4 hours to ascend and 2-3 hours to descend, and we only had 4.5 hours total as we were using a shuttle bus with a fixed schedule. We decided to go anyway and make it as far as we could.

We started hiking through a beech forest on a nicely graded, switchbacked trail. After about an hour of non stop hiking, the trail kicked it up a notch and got considerably steeper while the condition deteriorated with increased mud and tree roots. After reaching the bush line we looked upwards at an imposing section of snow grass and loose rock. We picked our way following a faint trail while constanly slipping on the steep slope. When we finally reached the top of the ridge we had partly cloudy 360 views of two river valleys, the Dart and the Rees, and towards Glenorchy sitting on Lake Wakatipu (which streches to Queenstown and beyond). The sheep in the Dart valley looked like specks and we could even hear the cows in the Rees valley mooing.

We did make the shuttle with time to spare and afterwards found out the ascent was over 3750 feet. I think it's good I didn't know that before starting the hike.