The Great Unknown

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The Great Unknown John Rhodes New Year's Eve 1994. We've been at Scone Creek Hut in Westland's Perth Valley for two days, waiting out bad weather. Before the rain we ventured up the creek in an * attempt to reach the Main Divide at Sealy Pass. However, abridge at a critical crossing, destroyed by an avalanche three years ago, has not yet been replaced, and the creek is an impassable torrent fed by melt from exceptional spring snowfall. So we retreated to the hut and stayed there on halfrations, reading, playing cards, and redesigning our trip. Campsite above Redfield Stream Harry Smith jur plans when we left the road On 1 January we're away at 7am. masterly. "T'm not bad at orienteering," were vague. We set off with the Gingerly we cross thel long, precarious he says modestly. We debate whether Whataroa 1:50 000 map, Bryant and bridges over lower Scone Creek and to camp here. With a forecast for rain Brabyn's "Tramping in the Southern then the Perth itself. A rough trail on and strong north-westerlies we retreat Alps", much advice from others who'd the true right takes US upriver to to a place offt the snow, realising when been in the Whataroa, Perth, and Redfield Stream. The stream bed is a we get there that it will be even more Poeruacountry, and eleven day's food. ribbon of boulders slicing down from exposed than the snow basin. In the Now we realise that all options are the tops far above, through scrub and evening we build a rock wall around limitedl ibyhigh flows. We'llhave to: stay bush to the valley bottom. It's a the tents and start a snowcave, digging away from the rivers, except where they marvellous staircase interrupted only with billies, as arefuge should the wind are bridged. by a few waterfalls, most of which are be too much for our tents. easy to circumvent. One of them, There's one possibility. It's an exciting however, sends US clawing through 2 January. The night was windy, but one: across the Perth bridge and over near-vertical scrub, our packs swinging not too bad, and no rain yet. Grant is The Great Unknown to the Gardens of at crazy angles and making every happy; we've started to burn the 2.6 Eden and Allah. Then, down the movement a herculean effort. litres of fuel he has carried from the Lambert Glacier and around Mt roadend. We finish our snowcave, and Lambert, descending to the Adams- At tongue of snow reaches down to the when the rain comes, retiretot the tents. Lambert-Wanganui confluence where creek bed. We kick steps up it to the This could last a couple of days, So all the rivers are bridged. From there ridge on our left. It's 2pm, thet fine day we're on short rations again. it's an easy walk out to the road. We has become grey, and there's cloud used the Lambert exit five years ago, close above. The Great Unknown is 3J January. In the night the wind and on a crossing from the Rakaia beginning to seem like The Great rain turned to the south. The forecast headwaters. Unfriendly. It lies, as far as we can tell, is for a clearance late today, and we about 2%2 kilometres to the north and hope to move offtomorrow. But what's We have enough food. The other 700 metres above US. this? Blue sky! We can go! The clear essential ingredient is good weather, patches increase in size and duration. for at least four days. The eveningradio We sidle in cloud, over easy snow The sun transforms our grey, gloomy sked promises US a fine New Year's slopes to a basin on the western flank eyrie into a magic home in the clouds. Day, one or two days ofrain, then "fine, of the ridge. In 30-metre visibility, Fairies and angels must live in places fine, fine!" It's worth at try. Harry's navigation to find the basin is like this. Wegor mady with our cameras. TRAMPING & MOUNTAINEERING

It's late morning when we leave, but there are still 10 hours of daylight. If we can get across The Great Unknown, we should be able to reach the Gardens today. We gain ther ridge up as snow P gully and get our first view oft the Gardens, an expanse of snow rimmed with mountains and still hung about with cloud. On the left, our ridge falls away to the Barlow and on the right, to Adverse Creek; both are tributaries of thel Perth. The Barlow, we've been told, is tiger country. To the west, the Whataroa emerges onto the coastal plain and the shimmering Tasman. Garden of Eden from Little Unknown Harry Smith Occasional flurries of snow make US pull our parkal hoods over our To the east, the treeless, glacial upper icefall to steal al little of Eden's ice and, heads, but we're confident. This is the Perth descends from Perth Col on the having melted, send it plunging to an last gasp of the southerly. And Main Divide, and parallel but nearly a unbelievable turquoise lake beside the somewhere ahead, still out of sight, is thousand metres above, the Garden of Perth. our mountain. Eden runs through the mountains like a giant motorway of snow. Towards the end oft the Garden, Adams Ther ridge is of steep: snowi interspersed Col will be our route through to the with rocky knobs. It's my turn in front, Above, a big jet wings over on its way Garden of Allah. Eden, Abel, Adam, and the work needs concentration. to Sydney. Allah: this is Genesis country, named Two or three kicks to make a secure by Pascoe and his fellow-explorers step. Foot, foot, axe; foot, foot, axe. It Harry has used his early arrival to SUSS back in the thirties. There's the Devils gets steeper; foot, axe, foot, axe. With out our descent. It leads off to the Backbone, Angel Col, Eves Rib, a week's food still in the packs, this is north, a steepchute of softs snowwhich Beelzebub Glacier, and Satan Saddle. demanding work, and my calves ache. requires care att first. The slope eases, Something in this country must have Stand aside for the next leader, let the and we have a glorious bumslide. stirred Pascoe's sense ofthep primordial. group go through, take a quick photo, Then we sidle the north slopes of The It's easy to see why. then catch up. Great Unknown, regaining some ofthe height we've lost, and camp at the Walking very carefully on the still frozen Wet traverse: the thirdknob anddescend western end of the Gardens. snow, Harry arrives, stilli in his sneakers. on loose rock intot thel last saddle. Just We photograph each other and head as I step onto the snow, my crampon 4January, 6:45am. Panic! We've: slept back to camp, where Sue and Grant flops loose; the heel band has slipped in! Harryandlwant photographs while are impatient to leave. off That could havel been nasty. Byt the thes sun is still low. Whilelstruggler with timel I've got myself sorted out, Sue and boots and crampons, Harry, even more There must ber nowherein the Southern Grant are well ahead and Harry is out anxious to get away, settles for Alps where travel is as fast and easy of sight, leading a long, snowplod to sneakers. as ont this immense whitel highway. We the summit. aim to cover thirteen kilometres today, From the ridgel behind ourt tents welook and it's an entirely reasonable goal, The Great Unknown has three peaks, down into the Perth, still black with even though we are: setting off at 10am. and we stand on all off them to be sure shadow, and across to The Great Mind in neutral, legs in gear. we've climbed it. Only fluffy clouds Unknown, golden in the early sun. remain. Tot thewest, across thel Barlow, At Adams Col, rock walls and igloos towers the bastion of Mt Adams. You The snow is crisp. I crampon up Little bespeak an often-used campsite. A can climb it in a day from the main Unknown, only a hundred metres partywho flewint thisr morning havel left road, says Grant. North off that liest the higher than our camp. From the top, their geart but arer nowherein sight; they Poerua, then the Wilberg Range, then the pristine Garden of Eden stretches must be off climbing. the Wanganui Valley where we hope eight kilometres to the east. Justb below to finish. A wealth off trips there, if only me, a gapi in the Garden's southern rim From below the Col, we can see right life were long enough! allows the Abel Glacier andi its fantastic upt the Garden of Allahi to Satan Saddle, TRAMPING & MOUNTAINEERING

Abel Lake and Perth River from Little Unknown Harry Smith which is just in cloud. We'll be in the act. Now, all eyes are alert, and they is vertical bluffs into the Lambert Gorge. murk for ten minutes, we predict, are quickly rewarded. A flat place! We move very, very carefully. before coming out of it on our way Wherever this is, it'll do! Gratefully, we down the Lambert Glacier. camp. Above are more bluffs. Our 1990 route led US up through them but where? Unfortunately, clouds seem to have a 5 January, morning. We poke our Nothing seems familiar. We way of expanding when people are heads out of the tents. The cloud has pigeonhole up to a possible spot, and inside them. Our entire descent of the gone! Inafunny sort of way, this place stand precariously on the lip beside a Lambert Glacier is in opaque is familiar Yes, it's the exact spot metre-wide chasm between snowand whiteness. Grant, with a compass, where we camped in 1990, beside the rock. There's a flimsy snow bridge. controls the line from the rear as we Lambert Icefall; but then our tents were Grant crosses it and goes on up with allow ourselves to be funnelled down pitched on rock. Now everything is the rope and no pack. I note his the gentle, invisible U. With no smooth and white, and the old caution, and know that I'll need the indication of where snow ends and campsite is several metresl beneath US. security of a top rope to get up there. cloud begins, the leader is entirely He disappears to check the route without visual stimulation. It's spooky. Beside our camp, the Lambert Icefall ahead. plunges in a dizzying jumble of seracs The first crevasse appears; it's almost to the valley, whichi is- oh dear! rapidly Mercifully, the cloud below US has a relief to have something to look at. filling with cloud. In ten minutes the dissipated and the morning sun is now We rope up. The glacier steepens, and nowfamiliar blanket surrounds US, and warming US. But our spirits are low. more crevasses come into sight. We stays for most of the day. Our route The route so far has been too steep should start sidling left, if we're where along the steep, eastern slope of Mt and exposed. We agree that as soon we think we are. Even Harry, our Lambert requires care and good as Grant gets back we'll retrace our navigator par excellence, hedges his visibility. To go on today is out of the steps and exit to Canterbury via utterances with "ifs" and "maybes". question, so we spend the day playing Lambert Col. Never mind that the car Little wonder, we've been two hours cards. The evening forecast predicts is at the Whataroa. without a view. The terrain isl becoming similar weather for tomorrow; that is, uncomfortably steep. a fine day at some unknown altitude However, Grant returns with a glowing above. commercial for what he has seen. We What's that a line? Yes, we can just are persuaded. He hauls the packs up make out the snow surface curving 6January. Weneedt Itwo hour's visibility and we join him on easy snow. convexly below US. There's something before the dreaded cloud arrives, SO else, a black thing! It's a rock; a big we're packed and away at 5:45am. We camp later that day in cloud again one, and definitely part of Mount The white fluffy tide is already moving to the north of Mt Lambert, below a Lambert. We walk over and pat it, ominously up the valley below. The saddle which will lead US tomorrow to gaining reassurance from this simple snowis steep andi firm, and the runout pleasant snowgrass basins above the TRAMPING & MOUNTAINEERING

Adams-Lambert confluence. The trip is nearly over. 7 January. We crossed our saddle, in cloud, ten minutes ago. It's all downhill now. We're plugging down in soft snow. I have that wonderful relaxed feelingthat comes when difficulties and uncertainties are over. We'll be in Hunters Hut tonight, and out the next day with a great trip under our belts. What? I must have placed my foot badly. l'm sliding! The next quarter of an hour, in retrospect, is obscure. When mymind clears l'm upright, with my arm in a sling, and no pack. The others have all my gear Ididn't see them do that and they're asking anxiously if I can walk. I can, slowly, and in a tottering sort of way. My shoulder feels strange, andl'mnot breathing as well aslmight. They tell mel Iwent a few metres down the slope and hit a rock. In the basin below, the others make camp whilelstandbyl helplessly. Then they put me in my sleeping bag and give me a brew. Grant makes gentle enquiries about myl health. Canlwalk out without a pack? don't think so. In the evening, radio contact is made with Paul Hewson, the SAR radio operator in Hokitika. They'lli tryto get a Mt Stoddart and the Lambert Icefall Harry. Smith chopper in tomorrow. Wehear the machine land somewhere because he has only a thumb and The night is wet and windy. I don't below. Voices call. Harry runs off into forefinger on one hand. sleep much. the clag, makes contact with the helicopter, and guides it to US. A man A little lamely, but truthfully, I tell 8January. Still no visibility. Grant is in in yellow overtrousers is standing on Tweezer that this is the finest bit of hourly contact with Paul. He gives our the skid. He helps me in Sue gets in flying gl've seen. "We like to get people gridreference, close to a stream which the back, our packs are stuffed in, and out if we can," he replies. tumbles a thousand metres to the we're airborne. Adams River. Sue and I wait beside Tweezer's fuel The perspex bubble is almost opaque dump on flats in the Wanganui while Around midday we hear the chopper, with driven water. The pilot has his he goes back, twice, for Harry, Grant, which has followed the stream upand door open, and he's watching out the and John Singer, his spotter. John has is now hovering very close, but side. I want to talk to him, but I can't spent years hunting in Westland, I invisible. Itretreats tol Hunters Hut, then find enough breath to shout above the learn. comes back for another try; but to no roar of the machine. Anyway, he's not avail. listening. His concentration is on the That night I'm being looked after in treetops we're below the bushline Greymouth Hospital, feeling very Int the late afternoon thet fog clears and already - and on his controls. If he grateful to my three friends, and Paul, Grant calls Hokitika excitedly. However, loses sight of those trees only metres andJohn, and Tweezer, and the Police the helicopter is now out at the main below, he'll be flying blind. and ambulance people who got me road and its crew has gone home. By here, and the nurses andradiographer the time they get back, the fog is as A fewt hundred feet above the river, we and doctors who are giving met five-star thick as ever. struggle out of bed it come below cloud base, and the pilot care. takes me ten minutes to get onto my visibly relaxes. His name is Mark Reid, feet in case they find US. he tells me, but they call him Tweezer What a neat trip! TRAMPING & MOUNTAINEERING