Snow Caving – Labour Weekend

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

"claire.Silcock Thechardest thing about holiday weekends: is. reaching-a: decision ony how they would be best spent. Several E alternatives usually present themselves-from varying. degrees. of body-bashing and masochistic feats to the more sedate, or as. my."mother would say, ladylike pastimes How the body craves for a respite from energetic activities to just relax. and sloth, catch up on some.sleep, not to mention-sorely neglected everyday chores, --but I convince myself: thati there will be: heaps of time for those., passive. activities in:my fast: approaching old age. The hills.are where it's at or in this case, Tongariro National Park and the. club snowcaving trip led by David Hummr and- Ian Hadfield. : David's enthusiasm was infectious and the time couldn't pass quickly enough as I was caught in the mounting. excitement. The few days before Labout Weekend were spent anxiously watching the skies and pouring over weather maps making.. amateur predictions, However, it was looking good for the weekend and this was confirmed by the weather office. Friday afternoon. finally arrived accompanied by the usual last minute packing and "what have I

forgotten" frown on my facel!

A last minute decision to have my locks trimmed at lunchtime was later regrered miserably as my ears froze solid. Wellington was a good place to be getting away from that night as preperations for the Nissan Mobil 500 made steady progress. The peace and isolation.of the Summit Plateau beckoned. do ESTIU The trip up sped by in a blur of taillights as people escaped from Wellington for the iweekend and I slept, ate and talked my way to the Top of the Bruce. A suitable and almost comfortable bivvy site présented itself outside the club hut but the excitement kept the sleeping urge at bay until exhaustion finally. set in around 1.30am.

We awoke to the cheerful sound of whistling (the human. kind) at 5.30am and on extracting my head from my bivvy bag I discovered nasty. looking low cloud and mist. The scene around the club hut resembled something of a disaster zone,. gear spread everywhere. : a: Breakfast in the pit accompanied bya nig: hot brew from Brian Hunt brought us nearer to the moment we were beginning to dread. Frantically trying to cram all the gear back into my pack which appeared to have shrunk considerably overnight, I was * finally ready for the plod to the plateau. David and Mark provided some lighthearted entertainment in the form of a "Mickey Mouse" song but they soon fell silent from the effort of carrying full packs plus skis, boots and. poles. We continued the trudge in sheep fashion, with the occasional frown skywards, hoping the weather would hold. The last of the lift tows and whooping skiers behindsus, an amazing peace descended upon the area. Only the creaking of pack"straps and footsteps in the snow broke the silence. 1 Ek = : : : : * :f :i 2, The summit"Plateau was reached in good time. Selection.of-a suitable snow cave sitevwas followed by lunch in the sun and then the "big dig". Our resident: engineer and quantity surveyor doubled up.asnarchitect and townplanner fora time while the excavation got underway, and although progress was slow at first the deterioration in the weather was incentive toispeed: it things:up..

vii dt JorT igseie a : Sel : It took a massive.team. effort but finally by 6pm, whent we: were all theroughly exhausted, soaked and ravenous, the cave was declared completed land an motley looking group of people moved inta our "home sweèt home." ur Competition. was fierce to be first to use our Ian Hadfield designediand: builtaloo before settling into our amazing snowcave. The end result of all our hard digging and scraping, blistered hands, cut fingers and-knuckless (not, to: mention: heads) was worth it as our snowcave was really palatial. lanpon - : IS : Severall hotx brews and.dinner saw everyone in their pitsiearly in anticipation.of good weather in 1 the morning. Not to be!i We woke to mist and light rain and the decision to pit-bash was reached unanimously. At least we had lost on hour during the night because of' daylight saving, asw ainl bna : * : A pilgrimmage to the architectural designed loo was my only venture outside during the day although most of the party wanti for a stroll in thein mist and rain at- some time. :" C fi iv n0 mr Ba, Photo sessions helped pass the time although the disadvantages of fully automatic cameras was highlighted on this occasion as batteries had to be retrieved from all sorts of warm places before the image could be captured forever.

The day passéd-quickly despiter the weather and the hardened pit bashèrs even managed' toncatch"up on some sleep. Some of us tried to eat our wày through the afternoon and succeeded." That hight we dined by candlelight. Monday morning dawned in typical Labour Weekend style - fine, calm and cléar noti to mention' very crisp, and we dashed out to watch. a. fraction of the sunrise! - it' was too çold'to stay out there! any : longer,than a few seconds: E LA Dr As we descended the mountain thê weather deteriorated into mist and rain once again but nothing çould dampen the feeling of relaxation and happiness obtained from spending an excellent weekend with a great crowd in' an amazing showcave. Thanks to, fellow trip members and leaders, David and Ian. Those on the trip: David Humm, Ian Hadfield, Colin Rhodes, Mark Taylor, Glen Curtis, Lindsay Fletcher, Christina Rush, Peter Jackson, Alastair Wallace, Bill Drake, Marshall Clark and Claire Silcock. a a SLE nF : 5: