You're in the Alps now, Girls!

You’re in the Alps now, Girls!

Maria Cunningham

Right from the start, I felt overwhelmed by it all – displaced, overshadowed by the high, fierce-looking mountains surrounding me. We (our guide, Becky, Sharyn and myself) had shot up to the top of the Tasman glacier in a January weather window for six days of ‘advanced alpine training’. We hauled our packs and gear over the glacier to Kelman hut, contemplating the whiteness all around us.

Roping up for glacier travel tied me in knots. How many coils? How much rope between each person? Is that little Bonaparte or big Bonaparte? Not really a strength for the left-handed and mathematically challenged.

We were the only occupants in the hut and dropped our gear to make the most of the rest of the day and quickly moved out of our comfort zone. Rock climbing in plastic boots on Red Arete just behind the hut challenged us all. Clinging to the rock with one hand trying to disentangle the rope, I knew with complete certainty that the hastily placed protection wasn’t going to save me. At the top at last, I felt a real sense of achievement. Rapping down from Red Arete, my boot caught on a rock and I slammed backwards into the rock face. Bang! I secretly thanked my new yellow helmet when I had sufficiently recovered my senses. The rock climbing was a good introduction to serious mountaineering in the serious Southern Alps. The wind was getting up; ready for the approaching storm, so we headed back in to sample some of our guide’s goodies. We ate very well for the whole six days - The view from Kelman Hut (Sharyn George)

Tramping & Mountaineering 2004 organic whole chicken, gourmet sausages, yoghurt, free range eggs – it’s amazing what you can take up the mountain when you arrive in a chopper.

The next morning, I awoke feeling as if my head was being squeezed in a vice – truly the worst headache I’ve ever had. I staggered bravely down the ladder to the loo, risking being blown off by the gale force winds. My head continued to pound and the pressure was nearly unbearable. I decided what I really needed was a weetbix. One mouthful and I was puking into the full toilet bucket by the door. I guess it’s sensible not to venture outside at night in the Alps but that didn’t make the bucket anymore endearing. I valiantly carted the bucket down to the loo, hugging it close to prevent the wind from emptying it all over my jacket. The headache had moved down to a throb and I slept for the rest of the morning. I’m not sure whether this was my tonsillitis or mild altitude sickness at a mild altitude but I was pleased that I wasn’t wasting a fair weather day.

That afternoon was spent trussing one another up and then ‘escaping the system’. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember past step three in this process and began to have nightmares about having to actually set up a winch system for a fellow climber unfortunate enough to fall on my watch. It was the same with most things on the ice for me over the next couple of days.

I soon experienced the terror of being swallowed by a crevasse for real. We’d roped up to traverse the glacier to Tasman Saddle hut because the preceding day’s storm had loaded the slopes with snow and made it too dangerous to climb. After a reasonably successful crossing on the way to the hut, I dropped through a snow bridge on the way back. Pushing off against the crevasse’s internal wall, I felt it give way and I fell in even deeper. I knew I was safely held on the rope but having glanced below into the blackness enveloping my feet, I wanted out - and fast. After pulling myself out, I lay on the snow getting my breath back – until our guide informed me I was on an equally unstable snow bridge. It was great to look up and see Becky holding me so stoutly on the rope, though, I was pleased to be able to get out by myself. Hardly ‘touching the void’ but as near as I wanted to get to it.

The fourth day was stormy again and a trip to the loo required full expedition gear. We were warned (a bit too late) about not wearing our down jackets in the loo as they absorb the urine odour. Even now, mine still lets off a foetid stink when it warms up. We spent the day eating and being instructed. The avalanche talk left me with a sense of impending doom. My spirit wasn’t buoyed by one the guides’ talk about ‘avalanche surfing’ either. The guides were all extraordinary people – plainspoken, honest, happy, with no interest in looking good or social niceties. It was obvious they all loved life and lived it to the full.

The last two days dawned fine and clear and we successfully climbed two grade one peaks – Hochstetter’s Dome and Aylmer. We pitched all the way up Hochstetter’s Dome, which was great practice. Even I was getting the hang of flaking the rope. I expected to feel exhilarated on summiting but instead simply felt relieved that Tramping & Mountaineering 2004 we were half way done. We trooped back down to the hut and enjoyed a wonderful warm evening mountainspotting from the rocks outside the hut. Staying at the same hut for six days meant the geography of the place burnt itself permanently into your memory.

Our final day dawned clear and we decided to get another day’s climbing in rather than walk out down the glacier. We got to use our virgin ice screws on Aylmer and give out calf muscles a workout through some sustained front pointing. It did feel strange looking from Aylmer straight out to the Tasman sea down the longest sheer rock face in New Zealand. I convinced myself that I’d be able to self-arrest in the 30 metres of snow before the rock face descended to the West Coast. After rapping off a snow bollard over the bergshrund, we legged it across the glacier to meet our helicopter. We got there with four minutes to Rapping off a snow bollard (Sharyn George)

On top of Aylmer (Sharyn George)

spare. As the chopper touched down, it lifted up great dinner plates of snow into the air all around us. A Up the Hooker Valley (Sharyn George)

Tramping & Mountaineering 2004 surreal end to a surreal trip – we were on our way back to comfortable reality.