Mountain

Mountaineering

  TYPE OF ACTIVITY-  Mountaineering                   

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With our epic tramp still very fresh in our minds, it’s time to head back into the mountains again on a day trip. Avalanche peak is our challenge, 1833m above sea level, a solid climb through the beautiful beech in Arthurs Pass through the bushline, where you then follow a fine ridge to the summit. We start early and progress is fast up the rocky track. The bush is stunning and the views to match, nav is relatively easy as the Highway is still visible and land marks easy to judge. We soon pop out into the snow, and enjoy our lunch in the crystal blue skies, an awesome change from last week’s wet tramp.

We make solid progress over the snow on the ridge, crampons aren’t needed but ice axes were useful. We look over the huge valley to our north at the grand Mount Rolleston and see multiple point release avalanches. The north western aspects of the mountain are relatively bare as they are stripped of snow from the wind, and this is deposited on the lee slopes creating cornices and huge dumps of snow. Being on the ridge we are relatively safe from avalanches. The summit soon comes into sight and the ridge makes for good travel, we soon arrive to the most amazing 360 degree views, Mount Rolleston in all its glory, the glacier just below it. We witness multiple signs of avalanches, some small some big, we are given a heaps of information about them in relation to aspect, wind, sun, amount of snow. We enjoy our break and start head back down. On the way back down the travel pace is fast everybody is happy and the banter is great. Keiran and I fall into a bit of a hole and we watch as the groups brand new (expensive) sunscreen flies out his pack and starts sliding down the mountain like a Jamaican bobsledder, finally it came to rest about 300m below us off the ridgeline. We have to employ all our knowledge to justify to our tutors to retrieve the sunscreen, to show we can make educated decisions in the mountains and not just become a statistic cavaliering everywhere. We retrieve the sunscreen and meet back up with the group. We head on down the mountain enjoying the day.

We arrive back to the vans, after a full day of information. The biggest lesson I draw from the day is that you can go into the mountains and with clever and wise travelling you can enjoy them with minimising the risk of being caught in a avalanche. 

·      TRIP NAME/LOCATION-  Avalanche Peak                          

·       DURATION- 1 day

·       GRADES OF ACTIVITY- Novice to Intermediate               

·        NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS- 15 

·        ACCOMMODATION-          nil

·        VARIATION IN DAILY CONDITIONS- Variable Winds

·        WEATHER CONDITIONS- clear day       

·        INCIDENTS/ INJURIES- nil

Avalanche Peak

·         TYPE OF ACTIVITY-  Mountaineering                   

·         TRIP NAME/LOCATION-  Temple Basin                           

·         DURATION- 4 days              

·         GRADES OF ACTIVITY- Novice to Intermediate               

·         NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS- 15 

·         ACCOMMODATION-          Lodge and Snow Cave           

·         VARIATION IN DAILY CONDITIONS- Variable Winds

·         WEATHER CONDITIONS- Cold overnight, clear days       

·         INCIDENTS/ INJURIES- nil

Looking up from the Temple Basin car park we looked into clear skies and snow covered peaks, we are mountaineers well novices at the least. With the Polytech trailer as a white board we had our final lesson on the weather systems of the upcoming week. Off we set led by Keith, Zak and Rob as tutors armed with our ice axe and crampons. The snow conditions were quite icy and en-route to base we practiced our basic self arrest techniques, which is like a fire extinguisher you want to know how to use it well but never have to use it. The long slog to our base continued by the time we reached the lodge I was down to one thermal. 

Once we settled into our amazing lodge, we geared back up and went on a cruise, getting use to travelling through the snow and ice effectively. We then moved onto more technical self arresting, forwards, backwards, upside down, backwards upside down, no ice axe etc (heaps of fun sliding around in the snow). The day was drawing to an end and the beautiful hues of a sunset on the snow surrounded us.

Day 2 involved an early rise from my high rise bunk (I was on the third level), and a climb up to Bill’s Basin. The climb had a number of chutes and step sections, and clean foot work and digging steps was necessary in sections. Once on Bill’s Basin under blue skies, we dug deep into the snow pack identifying different parts of the snow pack, this led into digging bucket seats, the technical aspect of the seat to best facilitate safe belaying, huge tug of wars followed to see if we could uproot people from their seats. T-slot anchors were next, these anchors involve burying your snow stake at 90 degrees to your direction of pull at minimum 30-40cm below the surface. Final anchor we learnt was hitting your snow stake into the snow pack perpendicular to the snow minus 10-15 degrees, the lesson finished by combining the anchors plus bucket seat in preparation for multi-pitching. The day ended with some more self arresting this time with much more speed involved. We headed over the ridge and made our way down to our final night in our warm lodge.

Gear plus plus for our overnight trip and ropes for the upcoming summit assault equated to super heavy  packs. With blessed blue skies again we made our way up towards Bill’s basin with a slight detour looking or Chris helmet, and the beginnings of the infamous quote ‘there it isn’t’. We made it to our snow caving site, gratefully we departed with our overnight gear, and re-loaded with our technical climbing gear. Rob give us an in-depth lesson on how to prepare and partake in testing the snow pack for avalanche risk. Multi-pitching was next, paired with Ben we started our assault on the peak, it was awesome combining everything we had learned over the past two days, building our anchors and bucket seats Ben and I took about 5 pitches and we made it to the top. YE HA!!! The views were amazing 360 degree views, the feeling was exhilarating being on top with big drops either side, a true feeling of completion as you can see your route from base to where you stand.

With the going up comes going down, we had a quick lesson on ridge travel from Keith which involved, tying in with Ben about 10m apart, and using natural protection with the rope and also protection from basic physics. Ben and I travelled off the ridge safely, our group then started our descent to our snow caving site. This involved a huge underground mining organisation as we expanded some previous caves to fit our big crew. We dug the roofs out till you could stand inside the cave. The temperature inside the cave was markedly warmer than outside. Dinner arrived, I have never eaten so fast, as the food was going cold-freezing as fast as you could eat it. The true awesomeness of the MSR cookers were seen in these frigid temperatures as the lighter fluids soon turned to jelly while lighting the cookers. Dinner consumed, back to digging, 3 and bit hours later we had our residence for the night. Bivvy and sleeping bag laid out, boots wrapped up so the leather wouldn’t freeze everything tucked away, knackered you’d assume sleep. Well my bladder had different thoughts not once but twice through the night I have to make my dash to the toileting areas just in thermals, putting on frozen boots, I think I could have beaten Mr Bolt himself in the 100m dash over snow (bloody tea and hot raro).

Looking like warming up for a rugby match we hop from side to side, stretch, jump, anything to try and get the warmth back into the extremities in the early morning. We load up yeya and start walking my boots Joe and Piper have this distinct stiffness to them (frozen) but praise their gortex liners my feet are still relatively warm. First clouds in 4 days and we are above them, so we enjoy looking down at the carpet of clouds below us. Step cutting is our final lesson before we descend into the clouds to the lodge to pack up.

above the cloud

in the cloud

Before we return to the vans, we whip out the transceivers and probes and practise our avalanche rescue techniques. We try and out-do each other and bury the transceivers deep in the snow in obscure positions and then find them as fast as possible, probe them and then dig them out. Again these lessons have a very dark life threatening reality where time is critical and solid clear technique is needed to rescue your mate, and good practise is needed.

We head down the long Temple Basin track and reflect on this amazing full on week, I’ve bagged my first snow covered peak. Learnt some great life lessons, but more importantly lessons that could save a life.

a big shout out to Tui Kraal (most of these pics are hers, my panasonic isn't faring to well)