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Barn Bluff 2002, 2007 + Oct 2012

Barn Bluff   2002, 2007 and Oct 2012.

I have summited Barn Bluff three times now: once running with my daughter; once with a friend from Melbourne Uni + my husband, and once in the snow.
Here are some photos from the 2007 and 2012 trips. On the first trip, we didn’t bother with a camera (seeing’s we were running).
 
 2007

 

 

 2007

 

 2012

 

 
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Victoria 2012 Sept

Mt Victoria   30 Sept 2012

The view from the top didn’t grab me, but I adored the ice crystals up the top. It was a fun day. (There is a track to the top, so not much comment is needed).
 

 

 

summit view

 

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Tyndall 2012 Apr

Tyndall Range   28 Apr 2012
(All photos are taken at the end.  It was impossible to photograph up the top)

The day had begun well enough, although mist and light rain attended us, even as we donned our boots, coats and packs. We all set out in good spirits up the mountain shrouded in mist, its soft-grey rocks melding with the moss colour of its greenery. The rain wasn’t too bad, and the wind was a lot less strong than we’d been promised. Down there. Up we climbed. Even by half way up, people’s wraps for morning tea had become sodden balls of pudding that disintegrated in the hand. I was too cold and wet from long periods of waiting to be interested in eating, or in taking off my pack to find my food, even though it was in the outside pocket. Pack on was warmth on.
At the very top, the force of both was something we’d never experienced before. This was WILD, WILD nature, and it was awesome, a privilege to be part of. Water was blowing UP the waterfalls. Rain was horizontal, of course. The whole mountainside had turned into an almighty waterfall, as the mountain spewed its excess water. The track was a flowing river, sometimes over knee height in depth. We sloshed up the waterfalls and newly-made creeks.
 
 As we walked along, slopping through the “track” that was 15-20 cms underwater – as was the surrounding vegetation – I began to wonder where on earth we could pitch our tent. What tent, however brilliant, could stand up to being pitched in the middle of a wading pool? And then, there was the wind factor. Each gust sent me “dashing” several metres sideways as I lost control of my footing in the gale force.
I pictured the pitching process. We would stop and try to undo our packs. This would be a challenge, as not one member of the party had any feeling left in his or her fingers. We would struggle with the clips and presumably eventually undo them, putting our packs down in the pool. Opening them would be the next almost insurmountable challenge, but hopefully with perseverance, we’d accomplish that if given enough time. Our unfeeling fingers and weakened arms would grope ineffectively whilst attempting the Herculean task of pulling the tent and poles away from their wedged-in niche. This achieved, we would then spread them on the ground below the water, saturating them, of course – and meanwhile, the driving rain and gale-force wind would be working at lowering our core temperature whilst we, stationary, tried to do what senseless hands and limbs were ill-equipped to accomplish. The wind would quite possibly lift the tent and blow it off into the distance while we tried to get the poles ready for insertion into the tiny holes allotted them (if we could catch the run-away tent). I then pictured us struggling as we tried to put the poles in, a job that can be challenging even in clement conditions, the wind buffeting both us and the tent as we did what you needed strength to do.
 
 The next interesting job would be taking off the wet gear and putting on a new set of clothes, hopefully dry. We would sit in water that came up to near our hipbones, wrestling with boots and laces and sticky, sodden clothes, pulling, grunting, tugging but achieving little. We would by this time be shaking, if still conscious. And if we did get the waterlogged gear off, and withstood the gelid temperatures long enough to put on something dry, our saturated skin would soon ensure that the once dry clothes were dry no longer (all of which was assuming that the dry clothes in the pack had managed to remain dry). Apparently my husband was also running the same mental video as he walked along, although he had added the detail that the position of the tent in his pack was below his dry clothes, so he pictured himself removing the dry clothes to free the tent, and standing there stranded with them as they became drenched with rain. My reverie had just had us kind of pushing the clothes to the side while we struggled to release the tent. The reality was that any opening of our bags welcomed a mini-flood to the gap created. The top pocket of my pack was already sodden because someone had kindly pulled out my gloves for me, allowing water to enter while the gloves exited. (Pity that’s where my camera was). We all had to get gloves and beanies for each other, as none of us could take off our own packs.
Our leader for the day called us all in to make an announcement. She had decided that we should head back down the mountain. Her decision was met with hearty approval by all. She said we should have lunch before descending. However, the skinnies amongst us were too cold to eat, and had no feeling in our hands to begin to attempt to retrieve food from our packs. We had also lost all appetite. I couldn’t release my main clasp, and I realised that if I did take my pack off and lost the protection it was lending my back, that could be a fatal mistake. Luckily I had muesli bars that could be reached by someone else in a side pocket. The skinnies huddled together while the not-so’s went off and ate elsewhere. G stood there shivering. I got him to get a bar from my side pocket and then told him to eat it. He was grateful. I got him to get B one, too, of course. To S, I gave lollies, as I noticed she wasn’t eating either. L tried to eat, but she said her lunch just mashed in her hands, so she gave up. K said she’d lost all interest in food, but needed the toilet, so disappeared, before she left, instructing me to eat her banana that she’d managed to get out. I had two bites – magic!!!! Just what I needed to keep me going. We waited some more.
K came back from the toilet shaking furiously. She’d been going really well, but pulling her pants down had undone her. She was now possibly the coldest, though the other skinnies were now getting worried about B, whose shakes were quite grand mal. He was too cold to get gloves or a beanie on, but the skinnies combined forces to shove them on him. Meanwhile, G was also finding the task impossible, and, sweetly, B, who couldn’t do his own, joined with another to push and pull G’s hands and gloves to get them back on for him.
Down we went, but the first time I looked back, I could see B was struggling. The wind ripped his coat away from him as he hadn’t done it up properly, and I had no feeling to improve on what he’d done. A few of us stopped to try to help him, but we failed. He just had to put up with it. K’s pack cover blew off and danced back up the mountainside. She gave chase. B’s cover then blew off, but it was clipped to the pack, so made a brilliant spinnaker. My coat was trying to blow open too, so I clutched it with one hand while I walked. B looked so cold I started to really worry about him. I went right to the back to make sure I had him covered. A-M and L were also there. The others went on ahead, all of a sudden the insistence that we all stay together and travel at the same pace no longer being in force.
Now B encountered a new problem – his trousers were so wet that they started falling off. The two with me suggested that we stop and help him change them, but I pictured the impossibility of getting his pack off, of getting his shoes and gaiters off, and a new lot of clothing on, and said it just wouldn’t work. Our best bet was to get him off the mountain as quickly as possible. I thought he should just take the pants off. “No, no”, they cried. He’d freeze. They helped me try to get them back up to around his waist, joking that he was just doing this to have three women playing with his trousers. We were all – then and throughout – very jolly despite the conditions. B and I would at times burst into song and dance (to keep warm, but also to try to help keep everyone happy).
Getting us off the mountain and keeping everyone safe was a real group effort. We all needed each other to survive this one. Anyway, soon enough the trousers just dropped off into the mud; B walked out of them and kept going. I picked them up and popped them into a sort of pouch made by my pack cover, heavy as they now were, so as not to litter the wilderness with rubbish. Once he’d got rid of their impedance, his pace picked up nicely. We’d now dropped low enough for the worst dangers to be over, and I grew in confidence that this adventure would have a good outcome. As it all drew to a close, and we waded through knee-deep slopping mud before joining the road that led back to the car, we could reflect on the mighty power of nature, and the fun of the adventure we’d had.
The road was a mighty flowing river, sometimes so deep and strong that we had to link arms for safety – a symbolic ending to our reliance on each other to complete our epic. It was a very happy group that dived into the Tullah pub, ordered hot drinks and warmed up by the welcome fire. I wasn’t to know then, but the next time we tried to summit Mt Tyndall, we would encounter a blizzard, with snow and ice replacing rain; the wind was similar.
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King William II, Slatters Peak 2012 Mar

Mt King William II and Slatters Peak: my first extended bushwalk without my husband to share the load.


View from Slatters Peak on the first evening
All week I feared this walk, mostly because I was going to carry the heaviest pack I have ever carried, and I was unsure whether I was up to the task (normally my husband and I share the load of tent, food, etc). I was also anxious, as gastro had been going around Tasmania, and I had been in bed vomiting on the Monday and Tuesday, and was still feeling frail as the weekend approached. Was I going to cope? Well, I’d have to grin and bear it. I was determined to see these mountains, and determined not to fail. Nonetheless, just in case, and in anticipation of the worst, I signed my will the day before I left!
same
Day 1. Slatters Peak. The start was not auspicious. I was quite clearly not welcome amongst the male coterie gathered at the bus stop, and I felt uncomfortable. Oh well. Here I was …
and again

We set out. There would be no track to follow them on should I be too slow – we were heading straight into the bush – so it was keep up or die. I kept up, so busy concentrating on that very task that I didn’t even have time to wonder if my pack was too heavy. I was relieved that my friend S and a new girl, M, were both a bit slower than I was. If I got dropped, they would too, so at least I’d have company. I’d heard our coordinator talking about M on the way: “If she can’t keep up, we’ll just dump her at Fisherman’s Camp and pick her up in three days.” That put great fear into me. My shoelace came undone, but I didn’t dare stop to do it up. To stop was to be left in the middle of nowhere and perish.

At Fisherman’s Camp I relaxed a tiny bit. I made sure I was always in the first three (of nine) and, concentrating on that job kept all other pack pains and fears away. I raced through the thick button grass, righting myself with celerity if I fell in a mud hole, fearful of failure.


Soon enough it was time to attack the real ascent. Up and up we climbed. The bush was super thick. You couldn’t see the person three metres in front. I clung desperately to the rear end of the man ahead of me. The trouble was, these were guys with huge, strong legs, and I was trying to keep pace with them as we hauled ourselves up a near vertical rise, using saplings and shrubs to pull ourselves upwards on the mighty slope. My real problems were the fallen trunks and horizontal scrub or piles of debris with branches jutting out to catch you that they could breeze over but that I had to climb with some effort. I could hear myself grunting like Victoria Azarenka with every single haul. The others said M was grunting too. S’s face was twisted with effort. The guys seemed relaxed.
This kept up for two more hours (six in all so far), at the end of which we reached a kind of waterfall-cum-chimney that we needed to ascend. The first bit was even steeper than what we’d done (as near to vertical as you can get in the terrain), and there was one very tricky bit in the middle with few foot (or finger) holds, and with water coming down the rock we were to climb. I grabbed a tiny shrub with the left hand, a patch of grassy stuff with the right. My feet, however, slipped out from under me so I was hanging from the cliff by shrubbery, water rushing past my chest, and a drop below that was considerable. I looked down at one stage and could see M and S’s faces staring up at me – their features were strained with fear, their eyes large. Rod, a nice guy, not from our club, grabbed my wrist and yelled for help, as he couldn’t hold me and he was terrified I’d loosen my grip with fatigue and fall. W (from the club) came back and helped him get my pack off (VERY tricky). Once that weight was gone, I could complete the climb. G got out a rope and did a pack haul for my pack, plus those of S and M. Like me, once they’d lost the weighty packs they were able to complete the climb. We’d just been going for so long and it was all so steep and strenuous that the three of us had lost strength by that stage.
Once we were up, the rest was easy. We danced along to our selected campsite in a wonderful tarn-filled valley at the foot of Slatters Peak. I chose a spot that had the mountain reflected in water visible from my tent ‘window’. Before it got dark, we spent another hour and a half climbing and descending Slatters. The views were stupendous.


Back at the campsite, we cooked dinner in the fading light. I made a tactical error, as I chatted for too long with the wind ripping through from behind (my feet were still sodden from the day’s activities) and all of a sudden I realised that my core temperature had plummeted right under. My feet never warmed up during the night. I shivered the whole time, despite sleeping in icebreaker, Helly Hanson, fiibrepile, beanie, possum gloves, wollen socks, and Helly longs, with my down jacket over my sleeping bag to add an extra layer, and my overpants over my feet. M and S reported that they, too, shivered all night.
Day Two: King William II and IIb. On day 2, marching orders were for 7.30 sharp, so of course we were all in line at the appointed time. Putting on my wet socks and shoes was one of the most unpleasant jobs I have ever done, especially as I was already freezing. M and I walked together. She resented the fact that going to the toilet incurred the risk of being abandoned in the mist. If you wanted a drink, or to go to the toilet, you had to run afterwards to catch up. This day, dropping behind was particularly perilous, as we had about 50 metres visibility due to the thickness of the mist that quickly turned to rain. Re-finding the campsite would have been utterly impossible unaided. M and I stuck together to protect each other. I took photos for her, as my camera was faster, and then we would sprint to catch up afterwards.

There was a certain degree of inconsistency, as sometimes we would have random stops when the leader felt like it, and he would chat in the middle of nowhere, and M and I would freeze while he talked. We both started to get hypothermic. She – and the others, too – decided I was really going under. (They were right). So, who helped me? The experienced people? No. M. She gave me her padded synthetic coat, which was warm when wet, and it made the world of difference, but I was being saved at the expense of the one person in the expedition who could least afford to give me something. With her coat I could keep up and keep the top half of my body warm, even though the bottom half was still frozen solid. My feet were quite numb, which made falling a distinct possibility.


Anyway, thus clad we reached the next mountain safely (we had now climbed Mt King William II and a point that is apparently higher, namely, IIb, which has become the true Abel, as it is the highest point on the range, and not the black dot representing King William II). That afternoon it was still raining, and I did not dare to use my trangia inside the tent, so said ‘goodbye’ at 3 p.m, knowing I would get no dinner. I sat in my tent for the rest of the day wearing my lovely dry down jacket, possum gloves and wollen socks that had been saved for nights. Every now and then the rain eased and I poked my head out the tent. The view remained wonderful!

Day Three: Next day, we got to slide down the mountain. I had an absolute blast. Everyone agreed not to use that dangerous route of the first day, and so what we did was controlled sliding down 800 ms of mountain using gullies filled with large pineapple grass plants – wonderfully slippery when wet. Such fun. The rain stopped and the sun came out. I loved it. Eventually we made it to the car. I could barely believe I was still alive and had finished.
Despite some less than pleasant moments, I am thrilled I did the walk. It was a challenge that I kind of met. I’m delighted to have seen those views, summitted those peaks (all three), made the acquaintance of some new, wonderful people, and survived my first ever walk where I had to carry absolutely everything myself.
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Wylds Craig Feb 2012

Wylds Craig  Feb 2012. My second ever off track mountain.

The day we chose to climb this mountain, it was hot – especially as we set out straight after lunch, but once we’d entered the lush coolness of the rainforest, the canopy and moisture kept us comfortable. I climbed alone with my husband who has Parkinson’s disease, as we were too scared to climb with a group in case he held people up. As it turned out, he climbed brilliantly, and we need not have bothered – but we didn’t know that before he did it. Later, people said we were crazy to climb in that heat, but really, we didn’t notice. It seemed to us that very soon after our departure we were crossing Goodwins Moore, the last section before the summit and our camping site.

We arrived, chose a lovely spot in the pineapple grass with a magnificent view to pitch our trusty tent, and decided for an early ascent. The summit was only five minutes away, so I presumed we’d be climbing it a few times. I wanted photos taken now while the light was good, and then later in the golden rays of sunset when the others would have joined us. It was lovely to have the summit to ourselves, and then later to share it with the others.


The only drawback to the site we’d chosen, and a point of mild concern, was that all the tarns had completely dried out in the late summer conditions of lots of sun, no rain and drying winds. We had absolutely no liquid: the last water we’d crossed was 50 mins ago. This would probably only be 25 or so on the way down, and 35-40 on the way back up as I wouldn’t be carrying my pack, but it would be a lot better if we could find a little tarn that hadn’t dried out. Hoorah. From our eyrie at the top we could see the sparkling glow of a tarn that was possibly only about ten minutes from our tent. Wonderful. I’d visit that when we got back down. It was the only visible water on the whole mountain.


When we got back to the tent, I left B to relax and took as many containers as I could to fill them. The water was cool and clear, and I enjoyed washing myself down with its soothing moisture as well as drinking from its pure freshness. There was plenty of water there for everyone.
For the rest of the hours while we waited for the others, we lay in the soft grass outside our tent and read. How relaxing. Each time I was due to turn a page, I would survey the glory of the scene before me before continuing.

 
Eventually the others arrived. It was now 7 pm, and they were eager to get to the top to watch sunset, so we all set off – they without any dinner. We had eaten ours waiting; I did not envy them the presumed hunger. The view as the light faded and the sky turned roseate was stupendous. We all stayed there until there was almost no light left for the return descent; it was too lovely to leave.


Next morning there was a fiery orange glow to the east with everything else a pitch-black silhouette as I emerged from the tent. We had set alarms to enable us to climb again and watch sunrise from the top before dropping to the tents for breakfast.

I took too long over breakfast, lingering in a relaxed dream over my porridge, coffee and biscuits. Before I knew it, the others were ready, tents down, packs on, but we had neither depitched nor packed. I did the fastest tent dropping job imaginable, threw B’s pack together, sent him off with the others, and began a more careful pack of what remained. I’d give chase as soon as I could. I sighed with relief as I saw from above that he’d caught them from behind, and concentrated on decamping as quickly as I could. I’d caught them before the first break.


We descended and chatted, enjoyed the views and ate the goodies that people had brought to share. It was hot, so once we’d reached the car, the suggestion of a swim in the Florentine River was most welcome. The water was freezing – way too cold for me – but it was fun getting wet anyway, and enjoying the last of the rainforest before it was time to go back via the best pie shop ever at Hamilton.