Elly Arnst and Katie Wright have just completed the Ruahine Traverse. Video / Supplied
Ninety-two kilometres, more than 39 hours without sleep and a whole heap of blisters later, two Whanganui women achieved what other people have been unable to.
Keen runners and trampers Elly Arnst and Katie Wright completed the Ruahine CL Main Route - a challenging route across the Ruahine ranges -in a single attempt earlier this month.
Starting at 10.33am on Monday, December 14, at Comet Hut on the Napier-Taupō Rd, they traversed the main Ruahine range and finished at Limestone Rd, Āpiti, at 1.43am on Wednesday, December 16.
After taking on an 8000 metre climb and terrain that started on tracks "of sorts", then an unmarked route where they had to scramble over rocks, down scree slopes, and negotiate their way along untracked ridges, the pair are thrilled with their feat.
"It feels amazing we have even done it, full stop," Arnst said.
"And it's amazing it's been done for the first time. It's really neat to be the first.
"The Ruahines are pretty special to me so it was really nice to be able to do something like that and a bit of a bonus to be the first."
Elly Arnst (left) and Katie Wright at the start of their journey at Comet Hut. Photo / Supplied
Arnst said four previous attempts by males to complete the route in a single journey had been unsuccessful, mainly due to changing weather conditions or injury.
"You need one thing to not go quite right and it's game over," Wright said.
"It took a little bit longer than we intended - we'd hoped for about 36 hours. Neither of our feet came off lightly. We had a lot of blisters, particularly me, which slowed us down in the latter stages."
Looking back at Te Atuaoparapara. Photo / Supplied
The challenge was mental as well as physical, with the most technical section coming after 22-23 hours with no sleep.
Wright has done 24 and 48-hour challenges in the past where she had power naps along the way. However, this time there were no naps, with adrenaline from the technical parts getting them through.
"It keeps your mind sharp," Wright said.
"All you can think about is your next step - it's almost meditative."
Arnst said they also broke the journey into smaller segments to achieve and didn't think about what was ahead of that.
It was also essential to constantly check their GPS as it would be easy to go off in the wrong direction.
"We had hoped to be out before dark on the second night so that was a mental thing to get around," Arnst said.
They had to use each other's strengths and capabilities, Wright said.
"I had done more long stuff, Elly has done more technical and off-trail stuff and knew the Ruahines."
Sunset near Aranga on the first evening of the journey. Photo / Supplied
Arnst had been planning the trip since late February but had to put it on hold because of Covid-19 lockdown, then poor weather conditions.
"I've made lots of trips to the Ruahines over the last six years so I knew lots of parts of it. We had spreadsheets of what we would need.
"We had about 11,000 calories worth of food, weighing 3kg, plus 4-5kg of water, emergency clothes, GPS system, so we were carrying 7-8kg each. Luckily there's water available so we didn't have to carry too much.
"We had high calorie, low density food - a lot of it was liquid but we also had chocolate bars, chips, anything easy to get down and lightweight."
Arnst and Wright encountered some hunters at No Man's Hut - where they were scoffing chippies. Photo / Supplied
The pair saw only four other people during their expedition, including some hunters who were stunned to see them scoffing salt and vinegar chips.
Both come from a high fitness base of running and tramping so did no specific training for the journey.
"We did the Tararua SK route as a test to make sure our packs were okay, what food worked," Wright said.
"After that we knew we could get along and trust each other. That's really important.
"We didn't have any arguments but we both had meltdowns at different times - mostly because of lack of sleep and lack of calories."
Katie Wright refilling her water bottle on Broken Ridge. Photo / Supplied
Arnst said everything went "perfectly".
"The blisters didn't start until about 30 hours in. There's nothing we could have done better. You have to manage yourself really well."
Arnst said they were thankful to have great support from family and friends who could track where they were and send messages via satellite communications. Wright's family lives in England so they received messages throughout the night as well as during the day.
"We do it for the love of it," Arnst said.
"It would be awesome to see more women getting out there. You don't have to do 39 hours - just an hour's tramp is great."
They are going tramping for five days over Christmas. Where?
