Snow Caving & Ice Climbing

This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.

5.30 on Friday night 11 keen snow-cavers and ice-climbers left Wellington for Ruapehu. à We: headed up the Turoa Road and found it a mass of bomb craters and corrugations into which I'm sure the van disappeared at times: We had only one slide on the way up which was expertly overcorrected and almost put us off the road. The night's exploits over, we laid ourselves to rest in the tractor shed rather then walk to Blyth Hut. atre Saturday mnrning saw the mountain clearing so after Dave Skilton cooked the porridge half of us went up with empty stomachs. and the other half felt ill all morning.. We parked the van at the bottom of the ski field and walked up. A skier joined our ranks who wanted to ski off the saddle and up we went. -Walking past the T-Bar the boys enjoyed returning the "eye". of a number of bonny bunnies on the slopes. K :S ::

About 200 ft. above the T-Bar crampons made travel easier and we reached the saddle by midday. The view of : the Summit Plateau and Te: Heu Heu and surrounding peaks was fantastic as they were all raised above a sea, of cloud surrounding Ruapehu. : Dave Wills checked the slope down to the Crater Lake and we descended to our lunch spot and snow-cave site. It was sunny but a cool breeze meant. no sunbathing. S:Et :.0 : : The afternoon's activities varied from ice-climbing and high point climting to just wandering around the Plateau: andi an early start on the snow-cave. By. 4.30 everyone was back and a: stiff breeze was blowing some cloud over the top. However we were in the lee of a ridge above: the crater. From here it was dig. dig, and more blasted digging, and a cave just big enough: for eleven, provided one slept in the kitchen, émerged. : Everyone crawled inta the pits atig p.m. when the digging was completed. Dinner at 11 p.m. and some people just didn't even eat it! (Too stuffed):! cr

When the candle was blown out I heard the comment that sleeping in a snow-cave is like sleeping in a cow's guts. I'm glad I can't make that comparison. ".. Inevitably Sunday dawned, with high winds. Everyone just lay in their pits attempting to dodge drips and postpone their morning calls to the door which was' half full of spindrift. We couldn't cook breakfast (thank goodness' - - no more porridge!) because all 3 primuses had either stopped or gone up in flames, so we had lunch for breakfast and packed up. When finally ready we headed back to the saddle. The, wind was blowing golf-ball sized pieces of ice around and whenever a gust hit us the boys staggered: sideways and went down on their knees and ice axe. As we neared the saddle there was a trail of blood behind us from cuts on the face from flying ice. On top of the saddle the boys lay on their axes and regrouped. We moved off together with Dave Wills, looking after Rupert who had no crampons. Every time a gust hit everyone dropped and during a lull. we ran: down towards Turoa. Most weren't used to the high wind and found it hard to keep moving. We were under fire from ice pellets all the way but it's amazing what you can get used to. About half way down Rupert lost control of a bum-slide.: His waist strap broke and ice axe came out of his hand as he plummeted down the steep ice at a phenoménal speed for 700-1,000 odd feet and he only managed to stop himself at the top of the T-Bar. When he stopped he didn't move. Everyone took off as fast as possible and Tim and Grant reached him first to find him O.K. - shaken and tangled in his pack. I carried on with 5 others to shelter at the top of the 2nd chairlift while Tim put Rupert on a rope and everyone else came down with them. A brew was had at Turoa skifield and it was found that Rupert had a huge graze the size of a.soft-ball and numerous bruises. Trl: From here: on was çalmer as we walked down a gully to the bottom of the skifield and the van where 11 sunburnt, windburnt, tired guys took off their storm gear. Down to the tractor shed again to change into more comfy gears and on to Ohakune to have Rupert checked at a First Aid post, and untold icecream! We reached Wellington about 8 p.m. after an exciting, eventful, and educational : weekend on Ruapehu. Leader, Dave Wills. Suckers who followed him Dave Noble, Paul Greenwood, Alan Morrison, Dave Skilton, Raymond Wielgolawski, Grant Hillyer, Rupert Parr, Murray Middleton, Tim Breuer, Mike Kennelly.