Tag: camping

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Tyndall 2014 Nov

Climbing
I have a suggestion for you, my reader: If you would like to experience the Tyndall Ranges in fairly desperate conditions, then just give me a ring. My record is unblemished. You’ll be assured of a good adventure and atmospheric photos – and, most important of all, of fairly disastrous weather.

Cresting the top: Tyndall.
The first time I went, the waterfalls were flowing uphill; the gale blew pack covers off and made zipping up coats impossible; the tops were knee deep in water. Dying from hypothermia was on the programme, but omitted this time. The second attempt, I scored a blizzard and summited solo in a snow squall with only my gps to confirm I’d reached the black dot. On the way out, all features were obliterated, not only by the deep fog of the previous day, but also by a blanket of fresh snow hiding all underneath it. The gps said where a track should be. The ground didn’t. Dying of hypothermia was on the programme, but was again postponed. This last time, I made another attempt at this interesting way to terminate my life, but failed yet again. Here I am, the cat who comes back (so far). Let me tell you this third variation on a theme.

Molly on top

We had been scheduled for a while to do a walk this weekend in the south-west, but when I looked at the horrific forecast for Saturday (a great deal of rain), I changed plans: Let’s go to the Tyndalls. We can use the track heading upwards in any weather and save cross-country navigation and any bush bashing that may occur for the sunnier Sunday. Deal.

Salome explores a different section

The car trip there was painfully slow. There are monstrous sections of 40 kph speed limit on the B18 heading south. It took five hours to get there! I parked, eyed the dark veil approaching, obviously laden with rain, and was impatient to get our climb done before it dumped on us. It was already eleven, and I was cross at the delays. Our pace was good – Molly and Salome are nice and fit – and we were at the top, photos taken, tents pitched and eating lunch before the storm broke. We sheltered in our timely-erected havens (on the summit) waiting for it to finish. It wasn’t as bad as I had expected.

I love it up here to bits. It’ s so nice to see the view!!
By 2.30, things seemed to have cleared enough for us to decide to take on Geikie that afternoon rather than waiting for the morrow. We packed the normal emergency equipment and set out, hopeful. We made fabulous time early on, and Tyndall seemed to be a good distance behind us, Geikie getting nice and close, as it began to rain at the far side of a tarn past Lake Tyndall, down in a basin between the two mountains. Mist began to envelop us. Unfazed, we journeyed on, happy with what the watch and our eyes said about progress.

Tenting on top. Geikie in the background.
Somewhat wetter, and definitely in a space defined by the very near environs (maybe about 10 metres visibility at this stage), we decided to have a check on the gps, as we had lost all sense of where our goal might now be, and how near we were to it. I was very disappointed to see the results: having blitzed the first bit, this next section, going up and down over mini-spurs and sometimes diverting to avoid cliff lines or backtracking to get around obstacles, had been slow. We were only maybe two thirds of the way there, and we had used up one and a half hours. I did my maths. It was still possible, however. A second source of disappointment was the realisation that my gps had not tracked a single step of our journey. The screen must have been bumped, turning the tracker off. Now I’d have to navigate my way on the return journey, whereas I’d hoped just to retrace our steps. On we continued, mist thickening up, rain getting heavier.

Another inspection of beauty (after lunch this time) before we set out for Geikie
Bruce and I enthused over the scenery despite the rain: we were in love with the myriad glistening tarns and their backdrop of dove-grey rocks with a pinkish hue. The girls were rather more blasé, telling us that the scenery was like the western coast of Sweden.
Now it was time to climb again: with necks bent low to the driving rain, up the slope we moiled. I gave my compass to Molly, asking her to sing out if our line drifted too much from the direction we wanted (this is often best done from behind. Bruce usually does it if we’re just two). All was well, except for the time. Our stops and checkings and decision makings were slowing us down. Now it was 4.35 and we were at a top, but not at the top of Geikie. Rather, we were on a high point (1140ms) called The Bastion, which is tall enough to be an Abel, but is not one as Geikie is next to it, and there is not a drop of 150ms between them. To get from The Bastion to Geikie, you have to descend about 70 metres to a saddle and climb again (even more). The scrub became thicker. Visibility was zero. It’s quite possible that ten metres from us there was a glorious, scrub-free route, but we didn’t have the luxury of sight.

Bruce and I were now anxious about elapsed time (and actual time). His capacities were waning. Molly in particular was all for pressing on. Her argument was that we couldn’t get any wetter, and we’d be back shortly after dark, even if not before dark. Both of these statements were true, and had it not been raining, I would have been happy to continue, but wet cold is the worst cold, so my reply was that although we couldn’t get wetter, we could get colder, and I had a man with Parkinson’s to think about. Had they not been with us, we would have turned around earlier, in fact, but I was indeed pleased to have climbed something, even if not Geikie.

One of very few photos taken on the Geikie part of the expedition – a long exposure of a tarn

The cliff line that we followed on our return journey was exhilarating with its sense of space out to our right as we made excellent speed along it, using movement as a means of warming ourselves up. Just as it was time to leave it (it swings around from the direction we needed), Bruce decided he needed more tablets to fund his motion, so we all stopped while he felt around in his daypack and did his tablet thing. I used the waiting time to photograph – just three quick snaps of nothing much, but it was the first opportunity in ages where I was stopped doing nothing and it wasn’t raining too badly. The girls were still with us, but when we turned around having packed back camera and tablets, they had disappeared. Oh well, they’d be up ahead, no doubt over that little rise just there. But when we mounted that little rise, they were absolutely nowhere to be seen. The mist closed right back in, and Molly had my compass. (We never saw them again until we reached our tent).

Sunrise from our tent window
Bruce was tired, despite his tablets (it had been a long day!), and I was going more on feel than anything else. Paper maps (which I had) are pretty useless with nil visibility, and I was unwilling to walk with the gps screen on lest I fall and break it, or run out of battery from overuse. I save it for emergencies, so headed us in the direction I felt was right. My feelings were pretty good and we didn’t go off course too much, but we definitely did not choose the fastest route, and Bruce was stumbling a bit. Time went by and it got darker. I could hear him breathing at almost a grunt each breath. I tried to jolly him along. I was ready to finish this adventure.

Same: different observer position
I checked the gps again. Yes, on vague course, but we were lower than I wanted; we had not happened on the track that existed in this area, and we still had more left to climb than desirable given the grunts I was hearing (not Azaranka level: just quiet ones, but there). A few more small falls, but we were gaining good height and at last we reached the cliffs that define the summit. But where was our tent?

Now I’ve gone back to the actual summit, 2 mins from the tent. Losing the pink. My Lee GND filter was in my pack, but I didn’t have time to get it out 🙁

 I stood in the way-marked yellow dot (that indicated its whereabouts) and could not see it. We circled and circled. I began to feel mild panic when at last we saw its shape. We must have been a mere three metres away and yet it had been hidden from us by the thick soup of cloud. It was only six-thirty, but it appeared to be about eight, judging by the light.

The sun is making a valiant attempt at mounting the ridge
Next morning, Bruce had real trouble waking me for sunrise. The wind had flapped the tent all night and I didn’t fall asleep before three a.m.. I missed what he tells me was a beautiful red sky.  He nearly gave up rousing me, but tried a second time and got success. I dashed outside, and luckily did get some before the sky lost all its pink and the mist closed back in for another few hours.
The descent was uneventful.

Last pink from the top. Oh how I love this place.
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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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Ossa 2013 Dec

Mt Ossa 18-19 Dec 2013

Have you ever done a friend a favour, and had the benefits of doing so far outweigh any effort you made? Not for the first time in my life, this was my experience on our Mt Ossa trip this week.
Elin, a visiting orienteering friend from Sweden, wanted to climb Mt Ossa – because it’s famous; because it’s the highest mountain in Tasmania. She had her heart set on it. I have climbed it three times already, so felt no need to do so again, and had never been enamoured of the views from the top (having mostly seen the white-out ones). The forecast was good, and if I had had my way, then the SW would have been my choice of venue. But I said we’d go up Ossa for her sake, with the proviso that we slept the night up there, and that we got up in a single day from home, as we had airport appointments looming. Elin readily agreed.

 

The packs were heavy with three days’ winter gear, just in case it was cold up there. My boots were unfortunately still wet from the Walled Mountain trip (only one day separates these two trips). My socks were wet before the first official step, and stayed wet until the end.

With happy stomachs full of pineapple-and-walnut cake, we launched into the wonderful rainforest of the “Pillinger trail”, eventually arriving at a wonderful open plains section, replete with tarns, a mighty view of Pillinger and a clear stream for our first break after nearly an hour. Already, we needed my homemade muesli bars.

The second stop we had was well before the next hour was up, but we had now joined the Arm River track, and had reached its high point, with a vista opening up that revealed not only Mt Pillinger and the mountains of the Cathedral-Twin Spires collection, but also Falling Mountain, Mt Massif, Mt Ossa and more. It was wonderful, and required gazing at while we drank some more from the tarn before beginning our descent. Lunch was had in the river (yes, in. Elin had decided that leeches were not her favourite Tasmanian thing. We were running away from them by eating on the riverbed pebbles) just before we reached Pelion Hut.

The day was very warm indeed, the packs heavy, and the walk up to Pelion Gap even warmer. However, the wildflowers were so beautiful they filled the journey with joy (almost). The snowflake petals of bauera overlapped the trail, making it a tiny ribbon of root-striated brown through a snowstorm of dotted white, with the buttercup yellow of pultanea daphnoides and the red of occasional waratahs giving colour contrast. And then you re-enter a patch of cool, mossy rainforest for a different experience of pleasure. Unfortunately I had once run this in 34 minutes, and walked it as part of the Overland trail in bygone days in 43 mins, so had never thought of this stretch as anything other than a quick dash. The slow trudge of 2013 seemed to last forever due to these false expectations, and  the 1 hr 11 it took lasted in my mind a lot longer than that. We were hot and bothered.

The gap was beautiful, although I was bitterly disappointed that the scoparia bushes were not quite in bloom. I wanted to come back in a week. The mountain views made up for it. After another food break, and a chance for my husband to gather a bit more energy, we were off.

Miraculously, as we climbed higher, the scoparia gained in colour. Meanwhile, more mountains came into view. I was floating on a cloud of joy. I was also in paparazzi mode by now. I left the other two to go on ahead while I played at photographing. It was nice to drop back and have the mountain to myself.

At one stage I was walking along in a happy dream, looking at the light, the colours and shapes and singing away, and I was awoken from this traumverloren state by three chirpy voices saying hello – three former sudents here in the mountains, descending. How lovely to see so many young people out in the bush. With unis on holidays, there are lots of people with free time, but it is fantastic to see that it is used to get out into the wilderness. Bushwalking is NOT a dying sport, and if you think it is, just get out there in December. The hills are alive with the sounds of students … and young families for that matter. We met a five-year old peak bagger on the way out (already collecting points) who wants the Abels book for Christmas!

I had caught Bruce again before the serious climbing began, which is good, as I wanted to help him through it. Life is tricky if you have Parkinson’s disease and a wife who loves to sleep on mountains. Some of the manoeuvres near the top of the very steep section were challenging for me with a heavy pack, let alone him. We got there. We’d cope with the problems of descent tomorrow. Elin was waiting at the top of the steep part, and we all did the final short climb to where the view opens up together. WOW. A hundred times WOW.
 

I was totally filled with emotion at the sight of the view that greeted us once we emerged on the plateau at the top. I couldn’t believe that it had all come together and that my dream of sleeping on top of Mt Ossa with a view like this was really going to materialise. Tears came to my eyes as I gazed out at infinty – a limitless vastness of space and shapely peaks, all different shades of blue in the late afternoon light. It had taken us 6 hours and 2 mins of walking to get here. (I had had no idea how long we might need, given my husband’s condition, or even if we really would make it. I never envisaged that the elusive view could be so marvellous.)

The remainder of the day was filled with peak staring, photographing, summitting, more peak staring and eating. Sunset and moonrise, it goes without saying, were a joy. We didn’t want to go to bed. We certainly didn’t want to waste such beauty sleeping. Elin resolved to stay up all night, just taking it all in. I settled for a slightly more conservative compromise of going to ‘bed’, but leaving all tent flaps open so that the view was not impeded and so I could lie in bed and gaze at beauty all night. The wind picked up after we’d turned in, so it was rather a noisy night, but who cares!

We all got up at 4.45 to see pre-dawn and sunrise itself, the other two perched on the leeward side of a rock; me right out in the open for the best photo opportunities. More WOW.

We all felt so very complete and happy as we tried to pack up the tents without having them blow off the moutain as we folded them, and reluctantly began our descent. We passed all three packs down at one point so as to climb unhindered by weight. The rest was no problem.

The rest of the journey we floated on a cloud of happy reverie, replaying in our minds the splendour of the time on top.

 I had ostensibly done Elin a favour, but it had bounced back as one of the most marvellous gifts I have ever had.

We also dashed up Pelion East (literally, as it was packless and thus very fast) en route home, but that will be a separate entry in the blog. All up, with two three-day trips in a week, we put in twenty-five and a half hours’ walking to which must be added lunch stops, choky stops, photography and more. My legs didn’t feel too flash trying to run today :-).

 
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Walls of Jerusalem 2012

 Walls of Jerusalem    10-11 November 2012

 This was a grand trip – one of my favourites ever. The weather was absolutely brilliant, which helped, of course. We camped up high, ate with our legs virtually dangling over the western wall, and had a superlative sunset.
The next day we climbed Mt Moriah, Solomon’s Throne and King David’s Peak with crisp air giving clarity to the scenes. The colours of the sky war part of the huge appeal for me, as my photos show.

 

 

 

Photos below are from day 2 (Sunday).