Going up is Easy(er)

Going up is Easy(er)

An ascent of Mt Alarm, Inland Kaikoura Range 2877m by Emily Shrosbree with Bett, Katy and Mike I signed up to climb Mount Alarm in the Inland Kaikoura Range with an odd mixture of excitement and dread. In theory I had the necessary fitness and alpine skills, but in practice I had no idea whether my brain was capable of sending the right messages to my body to get me up a real mountain.

S etting my eyes on the peak, as we walked across the scree and snow slopes into the basin between Tapuae-o-uenuku and Alarm, I was pretty sure my brain was not going to send the right messages! The face of Alarm looked both vertical and very high – I could not imagine reaching even halfway up, let alone getting to the top. I decided it would be prudent to share my mental state having seen our target. Mike’s response to my ‘that looks terrifying – you’ll never get me up there’ was a relaxed ‘ah, don’t worry, it looks steeper than it is’. Ok, so I wasn’t getting out of this that easily…might as well plod onwards and upwards and see if it starts to look any less steep… Heading up the Hodder

This was Day Two of the three day round trip to Alarm. Day One had been a seven hour slog up (or mostly in) the Hodder River, involving seventy crossings and 1000m of ascent. All the alpine climbing gear required for the ‘looks steeper than it is’ ascent meant we were all weighed down with various ropes, snow stakes, technical axes and carabiners. My pack was a good 20kg, which is more than I would choose to carry 20-odd kilometres up a river. There is the option to carry in dry boots for the climb, but adding to my existing 20kg was not an option for me – I would have toppled over backwards with every third step up the bouldered river. Instead I borrowed a newspaper guide to Kaikoura from the Interislander with the hope that I could sponge out some of the water and avoid frozen toes once we hit the snow. The weather was beautiful for the walk in, but I was nervous about the climb the next day so I was finding it difficult to enjoy it. For a lot of the way, the noise of the river prevented easy conversation so we were a quiet party of four. We passed Shin Hut where Ed Hillary spent the night before his ascent of Tappy, recently re-enacted by Kevin Biggar and Jamie Fitzgerald in ‘First Crossings’. This and the goats climbing vertical cliffs in their hooves provided good encouragement that challenges can be achieved….and so we plodded on up the river!

“My calves were burning with the pressure I was pushing into my toes to keep my crampons safely in the snow.”

Hodder Huts Back to the climb in hand. We donned crampons an hour or so after leaving the hut. It was cold, and there was the odd cloud moving fairly speedily across the sky indicating that it was windy higher up, but nothing that would stop us continuing to climb at this point. Going was steady, and a little pressured. Our target in sight, we needed to get to the bottom of the face as quickly as possible to give us enough time to climb and descend safely. As we neared, it still looked incredibly steep to me. We reassessed our route and decided to head up to the col between Tappy and Alarm, then along the ridge to the summit of Alarm. This would give us the best chance of reaching the summit – if we continued to the face and were too slow (or it got too challenging) we wouldn’t have enough time to retreat to the ridge and make a second attempt that way. I liked this decision, as although the ridgeline still looked pretty steep, it was far less intimidating than the face. On we went up to the col. No time to stop. We made our way up the ridge line slowly but fairly straightforwardly. I was feeling stable with both axes and the snow conditions were good. But already this was more challenging for me than any previous trip. The ridge disappeared fairly steeply on either side, so the exposure was present, but not too bad. Then we got to the steep section just below the summit. There were two options – across, then up steeply, or up a bit less steeply then along the last bit of the ridge to the summit – I opted for the ‘bit less steep’ up. Katy plumped for the ‘across then up’ route. Up we went. I followed Mike using the footholds he left in the snow and hitting in my axes as I went. It felt steep and I felt vulnerable, but I was learning to trust my axes more with each step. The mountain was sucking all my concentration so the expansive views out along the Kaikoura Coast were lost on me... My calves were burning with the pressure I was pushing into my toes to keep my crampons safely in the snow. My shoulders were also feeling the effects of an hour and a half of swinging heavy technical axes for every step of progress. I reached the crux, a metre or so of the steepest terrain so far, with much of the snow Views out over the Kaikoura Coast already chewed up and rocks not looking inviting enough to house my axe. I could see Katy ahead on the summit and Mike just above me. I knew it must be possible to climb through this, and once I was through the remaining short ridge section it would be comparatively easy. One concerted push and up I went, joining the others on the summit with the great feeling…that I was half way there. I had done the easy bit! I scoffed some much needed chocolate and had a little water – I’d not eaten or drunk for the last two hours and I had used pretty much every ounce of energy. Many of those ounces shed in pure concentration and mind-willing effort, let alone the physical effort of hauling myself up a good thousand metres from the huts we had left at 6am that morning. It was now 1pm.

View back down the ridgeline to Tappy A couple of months prior, I was one of four WTMC members to participate in an Alpine Instruction Course (AIC) instructed by Lydia Bradey (first woman to climb Everest without oxygen). Amongst many other things Lydia provided the inspiration for the title of this report - check out her book ‘Going Up is Easy’. This was the first year the club has run an AIC for a while and hiring a guide such as Lydia to provide the instruction proved an excellent strategy. I was learning for every waking minute of the six days of instruction – building snow anchors, abseiling, and crevasse rescue and all sorts of hints and tips that you pick up from learning from someone very skilled in their field. What AIC also taught me is that you can’t learn this stuff from a textbook, and there is always more to learn! The only way to become more competent is to get out there and start using the basics, preferably with some more experienced and trustworthy companions. And so it was that I was now perched gingerly on the summit of Mt Alarm… …resting for a few minutes. I didn’t really enjoy being at the top. Partly I was exhausted, partly it was so steep that concentration was required to remain stable and I couldn’t let my guard down to jump up and down and take in the view. But mostly I knew that somehow I had to get down that short steep section where there was now even less snow to dig myself into. We discussed options for the descent. There was the route Katy had taken up, but she reported that it was quite hard and icy. We could put on the harnesses we stupidly had forgotten to put on at the same time as our crampons and abseil down. Or there was ‘simply’ down-climbing the same section that I’d come up. I didn’t fancy negotiating harness-donning on this steep angle, plus the ease with which Mike’s experimental snow stake anchor had gone in didn’t fill me with confidence. So I took a deep breath and said ‘I will be ok to down climb, it’s just that one section that I’m worried about. If you can talk me past that, I will be fine’. And I was. But I did need talking down that ‘one section’. Slowly but surely I made my way down, grateful for the helpful directions for foot and axe placements from my companions above and below.

Back at the hut a few hours later we shared stories about mountain adventures over dinner and retired to our sleeping bags pretty quickly. It was a chilly hut and we were all tired from the day’s climbing.

Day Three was a reverse of Day One, but much less of a slog given the now lighter packs, our more nonchalant attitude towards wet boots, and my more relaxed demeanour having conquered my fears of the climb the previous day. It was a cold morning, and my boots had frozen despite spending the night inside the hut. The water tanks were also frozen so our morning brew was limited.

We clocked 72 river crossings on the way out. Blessed with a third clear day in a row, it was refreshing to spend time in the river. Within six hours we were back at the van, with time for a celebratory gourmet burger on our way to the ferry. Challenge accomplished!