Tag: Abel

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Rufus 2014 Icy sleepover. Jun

Mt Rufus and my coldest tent night ever. June 2014.

The morning of my climb, Here is Rufus as seen from King William 1 earlier in the day. Should I climb her?

It was the depths of winter, and I was out and about solo.
I decided to camp on Mt Rufus and see what sunset and dawn were like from up there. I like sleeping on summits. I chose the Gingerbread track as my route.
All went well as I made height, until, just short of the summit, I came to a dramatic halt, and the first of many slides backwards. The top was now tantalisingly close, but every attempt to gain more height was met with a backwards skate which even wild clutching at green matter could not avert. There are two small huts on this approach to Rufus, and I had inspected both en passant while climbing. However, there was no way I was staying in either. Among the many objections (dust, gloom) was the main one, viz., that one little bod could never generate enough personal warmth to heat a hut. Much better to sleep in my tent, and to pitch it very quickly. I was rather alarmed at how speedily and suddenly everything was now freezing up. The whole mountain seemed to have instantaneously turned to ice. It was 4.40. Retreat to the bottom was not in question. I had to find something relatively flat and get the tent up, pronto, before my fingers froze to numb incapacity.

Closer shot of Rufus calling from afar.
I worked quickly, trying to feed the pole into its slot, and sighing with relief when I heard the final click that meant the ends were now in their rightful positions. With light now waning, I decided that the next important job was to cook. I didn’t want to use the vestibule and create a condensation problem, so felt very brave and cooked outside. First a cup of soup. While I drank it, enjoying warming my hands around the mug’s circumpherence, I noticed with alarm the way ice crystals were forming on both my gaiters and boots, climbing, as I watched, like a march of white ants up my legs. The tent flaps were also icing over as I drank. Quick. Cook main course too before you need to retreat inside. Dessert (chocolate, nuts and honey) could be had in my bag, later.

Climbing Rufus now

By 6 pm, I was inside, everything arranged for the night. I’d brought in a bottle of water and placed it under my sleeping bag so I’d have flowing drinking water in the morning when all creeks would be frozen. I placed another cup of water just outside, in the vestibule, about 20 cms away from me, so my body warmth would hopefully prevent it from solidifying. (I didn’t have it inside in case I knocked it over). I didn’t want frozen boots, so brought my boots and gaiters inside and placed them under the bottom edge of my sleeping bag (which is too long for me, so protects items like that).

To bed, I wore 2 icebreakers, an O top, a fleece jacket, an Arcteryx thick jacket with hood up, possum gloves, helly long johns, O pants, lined outer pants, and 2 pairs of thick woollen socks, all inside my down bag which is good to minus five degrees. Underneath, I had a thick sleeping mat, and beneath that, a layer of carpet underlay. Then I tucked the end of my sleeping bag into one of my goretex jackets to protect the bag from moisture dropping from above (should the ice somehow melt), and another goretex jacket over my shoulders and upper torso. Over the middle section of my body, I placed my other down jacket. I was, you might say, well rugged up for this night … yet I was still cold.

I thus embarked on a multi-hour exercise programme designed to keep me alive. Whenever I stopped, I could feel the cold creeping into my core, so began again. Mostly, I did bicycles, sometimes “Worms” – a kind of wave or serpentine writhing. Other times I did crunches and sit ups, and at yet others, went through a series of exercises our national coach once taught us, where we isolated each muscle in the body, and practised contracting and then relaxing it. His emphasis was on learning to relax; mine was on movement of every muscle to try to generate warmth and keep my metabolic rate at survival level. I kept all this up without looking at my watch, as a watched watch never progresses.

At 10 pm, however, I indulged in a peek. I was happy. Five hours down, nine to go. Over a third of the way there. Next peep was at midnight. Seven down, seven to go. Hey, I’ve survived half this night, I can do the other half.

At 1 a.m., however, doubt crept in. My toes were getting numb, the backs of my hands were hurting, and I had developed a headache. When I sat up, I had to prise my now frozen hood from the also frozen tent flap, to which it had stuck in an unbroken stalactite. I noticed that the cup of water 20 cms from my body was a solid frozen block: not just iced over, solid. I remembered at this point that the worst was yet to come, that the coldest hour of any night is one hour before dawn, which meant there were five more hours in which it would get even colder. Could I keep up five hours more of this? I wasn’t fatiguing yet, but feared I might at some point in the future. At this juncture, I had a little midnight feast, not because I was hungry, but because eating raises your metabolism. Down went more chocolate and nuts, and some dried mango for variety.

Believe it or not, I never posed the question: “What am I doing here?”, as I knew the answer. However, I did hear other imaginary people asking me, and while I lay there, I answered them. I explained that however much I enjoy contemplation – reflecting the sapiens part of my species’ name – I was also of the genus homo, order primates, member of the animal kingdom, and want to be allowed to be part of nature – and nature, is, by definition wild, not tamed by the pusillanimous and rapacious desires of bureaucrats and politicians.
Like Roger Deakin or Robert Macfarlane, whose books I greatly enjoy, as much as I enjoy culture – fine wine, theatre, restaurants, artwork,  musical concerts – I also want to be part of the Wild, to be truly free. I do not want to be a member of our Brave New World of cosseted, somatised and compliant beings. I want to live, truly live, which means to know extremes. Here I was, experiencing a variety of the fury of nature, being wild and truly free.

I was worried about falling asleep, as I know that to fall asleep under certain conditions of hypothermia is to die, and that one must keep moving. I thought of the Jews who scored outer layers in the vans heading for Auschwitz, who died overnight. Penguins take turns at taking the outside, but not these prisoners, it seems. I thought of the Germans retreating from Russia, many of whom just lay down to die in the snow. I thought of the gutsy Russian survivors of Hitler’s siege of Leningrad, who, despite having almost no food or warmth during Hitler’s long cutting of supplies and energy to their city, nonetheless managed to endure much harsher conditions than I was now experiencing. I thought of how I’ve trained in Sweden when it was minus 15. The key is to keep moving. And I thought of my athlete friend from Austria, Gudrun Pfluger, four times world champion in my sport, who has run with wolves in Canadian forests, tracking and observing them in order to help save them. She must have withstood nights much worse than this. And while I thought, I cycled and continued my regime.

My cup-iceblock after I’d melted out its innards
Somewhere in all that thinking, I did the unthinkable: I dozed off. The next thing I knew it was light, 7.15 in the morning. I had survived. I opened my flap to a bright red north-western sky. High above, I could see cirrostratus clouds, heralding a change – a warm front. Perhaps that front is the reason it didn’t get any colder so that I could fall asleep in safety. My boots under my sleeping bag were frozen solid, and it was very difficult to force my feet into the steel frames they now seemed to be. My gaiters, too, also stored under my bag you’ll remember, were sheets of resistant metal that didn’t want to bend around my legs. I pushed and shoved and grunted and got there. Out I went to inspect the dawn (the beauty of which is depicted in the photos above).
At breakfast, porridge was fine, but I couldn’t have my next course –  coffee, biscuits and honey – as my cup had this frozen block in it that wouldn’t budge. I put the mug in boiling water for a few minutes, but it still didn’t melt the ice. Then I poured boiling water on it, and that managed to dislodge it, melting the middle section, so I could tip it out.

Down near the bottom
As I descended later – in the bush, as the track was just a ribbon of black ice – I waited to drop below the freezing line, but it never happened. 600 metres below my camping spot, the world was still white. My guess is that it could have been colder than minus ten up there.

My car was enveloped in white crystals, but it worked. Off to the Hungry Wombat I went. I was alive, and aware of it in a completely new way. Every cell in my body was tingling with it, and it felt very, very good. I was positively bursting with the joy of the gift of life.
It’s the heart afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance.
It’s the dream afraid of waking
That never takes the chance.
It’s the one who won’t be taken
Who cannot seem to give;
And the soul afraid of dying
That never learns to live. (The Rose)
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King William 1 2014 Jun

Mt King William 1  Jun 2014.
The weather looked as if it would clear, as promised and then rescinded by BoM, so I took a punt on climbing Mt King William 1, another peak not yet summited, but one continually beckoning me. I would also take in Mulligan’s Peak and Mt Pitt if the weather cleared. It didn’t.

The route began along a “road”, but as it was a heavily potholed, trickling-streamed, fungi-growing and boom-gated way, I did not feel threatened by the prospect of traffic. Instead, I enjoyed the feast of white and soft-grey trunked eucalypts set against mustard-coloured button grass and mossy green rocks. My mountain was not yet in sight. Mist was. There was plenty of beauty to entertain.

Up I climbed (almost imperceptibly; this was not a steep path). After 35 mins, I came to a flat, open section, and gained my first view of the elusive object of my quest, dressed for now in a diaphanous negligee that was being slowly cast off. Dolerite columns were visible yet also obscured, floating in the soft lace. It was a pleasing view.

A bit further on, I found and signed the logbook, wondered why you’d stick a book nearly an hour along the track and not at the start, and kept climbing. The top still seemed a long way off – maybe an hour, I thought from there. I was totally shocked when after 23 minutes I took the next step to come almost face to face with moon equipment. There must be some mistake. Was this another false summit like yesterday? No. It was the real thing, and the rocks up there were covered in a sheet of “black ice”, an unofficial skating rink with heavy penalties for misjudgement. Crystals of ice adorned all shrubbery and shone startlingly white against the darker rock or sky. I clutched sharper sections to stabilise myself, but they were too slippery even for hands. I resorted to virtually crawling around up there for safety.

The clouds were rising, thickly this time. Mulligan’s Peak came and went, but in the brief period of visibility, she looked to be a perilous route at this distance. Certainly straight ahead you seemed to be required to nose dive over an ice cliff. I didn’t like the idea of climbing in these conditions, so had a little snack and began a reluctant descent, back to my car. That night I would spend an amazingly cold night on Mt Rufus (see separate post)

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Owen 2014 Jun

Mt Owen June  2014

The glorious Franklin
I did not intend to climb Mt Owen this weekend – that is, I did not leave home with that intention – but I snapped my tooth, and had some of it sticking into the roof of my mouth just before our group set out on the venture I had been intending, so had to quickly form a plan B). (This goes to show you shouldn’t eat home-made cherry muffins with the seeds left in when about to go walking). Rather than get into the middle of nowhere and then discover that I urgently needed dental attention, thus ruining the walk for the others, I opted to forego this trip. Sadly, I waved them farewell.

Franklin River

But what should I do now? I’d driven all this way (2 1/2 hours). I wasn’t just going to turn around and drive home, and my husband had already gone bush with other people, so no one would even be pleased at an early return. Well, I’d never seen Nelson Falls. Let’s start with that and see how the tooth was then.

(This is a later photo. The 2017 Louise hates the 2014 Louise’s photo).
As I drove in that direction, I came to a sign advertising a walk in the rainforest, so I pulled over. Might as well do all the tourist things. It was beside the Franklin River. Great. This river holds a special place in my heart. I was one of the multitudes who voted for Bob Hawke on the strength of the fact that he promised to save this wild river AND he kept his promise. I wanted to walk its banks here, even if only for a short distance, and immerse myself in a little history.

However, there was a sign there warning against entry, and informing us that dangerous trees lurked behind the barricade. I was fascinated. I know of dangerous fungi that poison, and dangerous snakes that bite; of lawyer vines that grab you and won’t let you out of their clutches, but dangerous trees! I must see and photograph them, so I climbed around the warning sign and went seeking. I found a magnificent, beer-coloured river gurgling intently as it urgently rushed downstream, lots of soothing green mosses and lichens, but no dangerous trees lying maliciously in wait for me were to be seen anywhere.

At Nelson Falls, I found a different sign. This one warned me that in nature I might slip. NO. How dare nature be natural ! That’s surely not what I came to see. Anyway, I managed to see the falls without slipping or finding cause to sue someone who has somehow become responsible for my behaviour if something goes wrong. The falls had so much water you could barely see them for the white spume-blur.

Climbing Mt Owen
I haven’t climbed Mt Owen yet, so in Queenstown I decided that would be a good mountain to do when in doubt about your teeth, so off I set for the base of Owen.

Having not planned on day walking, I lacked a day pack, so just set out hoping the rain wouldn’t return, carrying only gps, camera and compass. Halfway up, the sky changed from benign to threatening. On I strode, hoping I wouldn’t get too wet. The anorak I’d chosen was windproof, but no longer useful protection against rain, being about as old as the Franklin Dam issue. In rolled more clouds. As a rule, I loathe being made to stop on my way up a mountain, and one of the enormous blessings of going solo is that there’s no one there to ask me to stop. However, I hit a view that I feared might have vanished by my return the way the weather was changing, so stopped long enough for a couple of quick shots before continuing on, staring at what appeared to be a cross at the top of the summit still visible. Unlike Australia to be religious, I thought. However, the ‘cross’, I discovered when I drew nearer, was indeed something religious, but was nothing about the God of Christianity; rather it was about our sacrifice to technology. I should have known.

Not only was I disabused as to the nature of the object on top, but  also to the site of the summit. My tower, I could see once there, was unfortunately not the summit. There was something bigger and better (and with a trig on) in the distance through the mist … and then it vanished. While it was visible, I took a compass bearing on it, more so that I could get back to where I was now standing than to reach it in the first place, as I was pretty confident I could maintain direction having once spotted it, but turning around is often tricky. It’s easy to get confused.
 
The view from the top was hardly exotic in such mist, but I still had enough sense of its promise from the few tachistoscopic glimpses I did get, to know I want to return – preferably on a long summer’s evening to watch the light gently fade. Right now, the clouds were getting increasingly darker and it was time to head back down, having only just arrived. Considering the mining operations on Mt Lyell facing this mountain, perhaps the mist was a bigger bonus than I knew. It looks as if the entire mountain will be eaten by the machines in the near future. I quitted the scene of mass destruction and headed back to Lake St Clair, and, for the first time in my life, slept at the Derwent Bridge end.
Do I need to tell you I had been officially trespassing the whole time I climbed my mountain? This was a grand day of warnings and disobedience.
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Campbell 2014 May. Tenting on top

Mt Campbell: Tenting on top. May 2014

The day was closing in as we reached the summit of Mt Campbell, mantled in mist, yet still visible – just. The climb had luckily only taken forty minutes to get to the top plateau from the car, but we’d set out far too late from home, and now time was getting away from us. I didn’t want to add the problems of failing light while I tried to pitch our tent in this raging hurricane with the wind snatching at loose flaps and trying to run off with the tent while I did battle to push poles through slots. The wind attacked noisily with every gust so it was impossible to converse. We quickly chose our spot. It seemed fine – no pointed rocks underneath, a bit of protection from a small cluster of pencil pines conveniently located near the summit cairn.

Sunrise next morning
“You get water while I pitch this,”, I said, thinking to maximise jobs done in the light. But then I looked at the thick mist encompassing us. No. Bad idea. Stick together.
“How much light do we have?” I asked, working feverishly at this stage at poking poles in the spaces designed to take them.
“Fifteen mins. Less in this mist.”
“OK. I really need to hurry. I don’t want to get water until this is up. Can you gather the water containers so we’re ready to go as soon as I’m finished.” Off we set together into the void that was not entirely unknown.

The mist had parted briefly to allow a tachistoscopic glance at a sheening that must be water in the direction in which we were now heading. Whoops. We’d gone about three paces when I realised that, although I knew how to get there, I may well not know how to get back if it completely closed in again, or got dark. Out with the compass so I could get a bearing on our current direction and thus have a back bearing for the way home. This was not a night to be out, lost without a tent. We were not heading where I expected to go, but I was sure the glint was not a mirage.

Early light on Cradle
By the time I had filled the bag and two bottles, spilling a little as I poured, putting my hand in the tarn for speed of gathering, my fingers were aching with a terrible pain. I wanted to stop halfway through the job, but I knew I needed to gather enough water so that if this tarn were a block of ice in the morning, we would still get breakfast. We’d keep this water in the tent near our bodies to stop it freezing.

Emmett, Pelion West, Perrins Bluff, and High Dome from our aerie
I boiled our water in the vestibule, and left the mixture to sit for the obligatory ten minutes while we took off our boots. All the outside jobs were now done. We could start relaxing. The wind’s roar was our background music. We like it. Our tent was secure. For now. Hopefully I’d done a sufficiently good job. One hears horror stories of people being blown away in their tent. As we huddled up the far end, getting ourselves into position for later, we had a giggle about what we were doing.
“You know,” I said, “I think a lot of folk might wonder why it is that two people who own a spacious house, a cosy open fire, leather chairs to read in, and 300 trees on five acres of land that overlooks a river would come out in the middle of a raging storm with a flimsy bit of fabric to protect them, munching on rehydrated ex-dehydrated food.” Bruce chuckled with glee.

Dawn light behind Rowland
Dinner had been very early, but I wanted to make sure all important jobs were finished before we fully relaxed. Now it was time for the evening’s entertainment, which, in this case, was provided by my husband, who read to me from a book Henry Reynolds wrote in 1982 about aboriginal-whiteperson relationships, looking at the inclusion of references to white people and their belongings that infiltrated various aboriginal languages right across Australia long before an actual encounter had taken place. This was very interesting, and kept us awake for a while, but then the horrible hour of going out into the storm to make sure our bladders were empty had arrived. Erk. Actually, the wind wasn’t quite as bad as it sounded, and at least it wasn’t raining. Yet.

I awoke at 11.30 as my body indicated it needed to go outside again. I told it it was delusional and rolled over. It became insistent. At 12.30 it won. As with last time, the sound of the fury was much worse than the actuality, although I did not linger out there! Back snug in my bag, I lay listening to the rage. This was precisely what we were here for, wasn’t it? To be a part of nature; to participate in its wild excess (but with safety – a kind of attenuated participation).
On the way up, I had realised that this weekend was the 49th anniversary, of the Scott-Kilvert tragedy which took place right in the area that we were playing in. Having written extensively about this, I am aware of all the details and they added force to the storm that was brewing around us. I decided I wouldn’t tell Bruce about this until we were safely out in case it put him off. As I lay awake, I relived some of the horrific details, and then pictured us in the morning, crawling in thick mist, buffeted by winds that wanted to lift us off the ground. Luckily I fell asleep before my imagination got any worse.

At 6.30, a somewhat enthusiastic voice awoke me.
“It’s lovely out here,” Bruce reported. That it was, and freezing too. We bulked up with multiple coats and four head-covers and more and went out to be part of the dawn. Already the reds and oranges limning Mt Roland were surprisingly vibrant. As the sun rose, we moved around from one vantage point to another – me photographing; he, melding with the dawn as he admired it. The mist had cleared, although the grey sky above suggested the day was going to be a gloomy one. We were experiencing the best it had to offer. From one position, I was excited to see Frenchmans Cap. It seems that every single high peak I climb, I get a view of this amazing mountain with its unmistakable shape. We were also excited to note that we could see the sea for about 20 of our 360 degrees; the sun lit it beautifully as it skipped across its surface.
We didn’t waste any time after sunrise, dismantling our tent, packing and descending once we’d breakfasted. As my key turned in the ignition, the first drops of rain fell. It got heavier as we drove sedately along, nearly crashing twice with speeding tourists who needed to ignore the 40 kph signs so as to hastily reach the lake and tick the box that says “Cradle Mountain experience”. At least there were no dead animals on the road yet.

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Inglis 2014 May

Mt Inglis. 6 May 2014

This is where I feel the start of the route to Mt Inglis begins – at the rocky part of Barn Bluff, where you first leave the track up to the Bluff, and start contouring around its belly instead.
Summit day for Mt Inglis delivered thick mist, but no rain, so off the seven of us set, some with more enthusiasm than others on what promised to be a very demanding day, and one that would be more of an endurance test than a pleasure if it began to rain again. Group momentum prevailed. I think I heard Rupert later report that his gps data indicated that we covered 23 kilometres with 1200 metres total climb – giving us a 35 ‘kilometre equivalent’ day. It was certainly a long one, beginning at 8.10 a.m. and finishing at 5 p.m. (later for some; I rushed the last bit to get out of the icy wind on the Cirque – and because I felt like a stride-out after all that goose-stepping).

The first (and last on the rebound) part of the route is on the track, firstly up to the Cirque and then part way up Barn Bluff until one hits the rocky face, when it’s time to contour, either on the rocks or a bit lower in the scrub. We began on the rocks, and everyone was following me on my route, so I stayed there until the rocks finished, and a scrubby spur led down to another cirque. The others voted for the scrub on the return journey, however. It actually took a fraction (just a couple of minutes) longer, but they preferred it to the slip factor of rock rubble covered in slime that was growing moist again, and were very happy with their choice. In the mist, we could see little, and I hadn’t had a good look at the map. I was silly enough to think that the next thing we climbed was Inglis. Ha ha. There was still a very long way to go and we were not yet half way there. We had been underway (not counting morning tea and waiting breaks) one and a half hours at this stage.

Pelion West dominates this particular view. Achilles lies to the far right.

Ahead of us lay not only our hill, but also a large moor area that looked fine from above, albeit rather expansive in its proportions, but which was a bit tiring in reality, as it required high lifting of the legs. The others were moving well, and when I stopped to fill my husband’s drinking bottle for him and then carry two packs, it took me at least ten minutes to catch them. I was sweating when I at last joined onto the tail end, just as we all began to negotiate the next patch of over-headhigh scrub that offered stirling resistance to our best efforts. Relief came when we happened on a beautiful patch of myrtle forest that was not only delightfully green but also open enough to allow easy passage.

Fury Gorge and the backside of Barn Bluff and Cradle as seen from the summit.

Up until this point in time, Mt Inglis had kept running away from us, and remained a matter of faith based on a belief in map accuracy. At last as we emerged from the myrtles onto an open table top, we could see the summit, although we were now too close to see the overall shape of our beasty. I never did see it as a whole mountain.

The group strides out; no loitering on this day!

Our turn-around time was now a mere 45 minutes away. Not seeing the height of the scrub that lay ahead and thinking the green was nice ankle-high alpine vegetation, I guessed at 20 minutes to the top from there. Another fast walker reckoned 30. Either way, we could do it if we hurried. Off we set as quickly as we could so as not to be timed out of our mountain. Neither of us was quite correct in our guesswork, but four of us were on the top in 24 minutes, and everyone was at the top before we all turned into pumpkins. We even got time to sit up there and photograph, survey the view and appreciate the sense that we had the whole world laid out before us while we took a rather hurried lunch break. The mist even obligingly cleared. It was truly beautiful up there, and, due to the vast stretches of low moorland separating us from the other mountains of our purview, it seemed as if we could see forever.

Looking down on Lake Will from the Fury Cirque on the rebound.

Again on the descent, everyone worked hard and well, and we made the rocky section below Barn Bluff in good time considering the terrain. It was getting dark quickly, so it seemed much later than it was, but the darkness rising was in fact due to the louring mist rather than the lateness of the day. Despite the freezing conditions, I think all of us were sweating from the toil. The wind was really beginning to rip up a frenzy and the temperature was dropping, but we also knew we were on target to be back before night fell. The wind was so strong as we hit the final tracked section that I started to get a headache, so dashed ahead to get myself out of it (with permission). As I cleaned my teeth by the tank after dinner, light sleet was falling: white drifting sago against the blackness of the night.

Icy path on the final day.
The underside of Hygrocybe schistophila

Next morning, the first words I heard were: “Be careful going to the toilet that you don’t slip on the snow.” That got me out of my warm sleeping bag; I wanted to see the sight of Waterfall Valley with a light dusting of icing sugar. Beautiful.

Ice floats on Kathleen’s Pool
I was lucky enough to go up the track first and thus got to follow the pristine line of white ice and snow crystals as I walked and photographed. I was amazed at how many animals make use of the Overland Track boardwalk! The only indentations offsetting the neat white grains were the quaint paw prints of quolls, wombats and wallabies. Fungi and fagus provided colour. What a great trip.