Couch climbers & aspiring adventurers

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Update 4 : 13-10-02

Hello supporters

- a number of you have sent small messages of support and enthusiasm. Thanks!

While I am strongly committed to this doing this mountaineering course and enthusiastic and am excited myself, I never the less have moments when I wonder if I am really doing the right thing - taking considerable time away from family and job and spending considerable money on something that I wont be able to sell in my old age. Your comments are important for the support they indicate.

- and thanks again to Evolution Sports and Fitness, Snowgum and friends and family for their support

1. The course - 2nd quarter

I provided you with the proposed itinerary for the first section of the course in the previous email. The following notes are for the second section, which describe the course until the time of transition from Canada to New Zealand.

Day 17 - 26: Wilderness First Responder.

This 80-hour professional level certification course is supplied by Wilderness Medical Associates, North America's leading supplier of wilderness first aid training. It includes extensive outdoor simulations, CPR and oxygen therapy. Those passing the exam are certified for three years.

Day 27: Day Off.

Day 28 - 29: Ski Skills at Ski Area/Avalanche Awareness.

Back on to skis! Work on ski skills for powder conditions then spend a little time in the classroom for introduction to and training in crucial avalanche awareness skills.

Day 30 - 35: Six-day Back Country Ski Trip To Rogers Pass.

Before you head off on the next multi-day trip you will spend time preparing trip menus and packing your food and equipment. Whilst this may not seem important, if you are to continue doing trips in the outdoors, especially if leading groups, it is essential that you know all aspects of trip preparation. You will find that trip preparation gets easier each time.

On this segment you will be spending more time at higher elevations where avalanche awareness is a must as is route finding and the other alpine skills; great powder skiing too! Rogers Pass is one of the premier backcountry ski areas in North America, famous for its exciting descents and deep Selkirk powder.

Day 36: Day Off.

Day 37 - 41: Glacier Ski Mountaineering Trip.

Culmination of the ski section, this glacier ski mountaineering trip to the Wapta Icefields is where you begin on the high-altitude mountaineering skills common to both summer and winter. These include glacier travel and crevasse rescue as well as advanced navigation. High summits and long glacier descents in magnificent country, are happy by-products.

Day 42 - 43: Days off, pack for New Zealand.

2. Update on the preparation

• The travel agent has spent a good week looking for flights and has come up with a really good one - it just happens to be the same as the previous unconfirmed one. Maybe someone pulled out and left me seat. Anyway - I'm now leaving on the 25h December at approx. 5.30pm. I'm really pleased because I can now have Christmas with the family before going.
• My biggest juggle at the moment is with money. A couple of generous family and friends have offered to lend me some money and the bank seems quite happy to lend me some too. I've done a budget that looks at what I need to spend now - pay the remainder of the course fees, the airfares and buy the remaining equipment - and what I will need for later - the costs of the house while I'm gone, daughter Jeni's Uni accomodation, loan repayments etc. I hope I've worked it out accurately and not forgotten anything.
• I'm still waiting for a quote on insurance. As you can imagine the ordinary travel insurance doesn't cover the sort of activities I will be undertaking. However, beginning with recommendations from the Australian Mountaineers Information Network I've followed a trail of changing insurance policy providers to reach a British firm. Gouvier and Ault insure people from a small group of countries, Australia being one of them, to go mountaineering anywhere in the world. I've applied for a quote under category A which is: "For mountaineering expeditions where, in normal circumstances, the climbing is of a more difficult grade than Scottish Grade 1 or Alpine Peu Difficile Minus (PD-) or their equivalents and/or where the intention is to climb a peak which is higher than 6,000 metres."
  I don't know what Scottish Grade 1 is or the PD- and I don't think we go over 6,000 metres however that's what I was asked to complete. I now need to find out what the cost is and what it covers.

3. The journey to here - Kosciusko, AMS

After dreaming about the possibility of going to the Antarctic a couple of years ago and realising that my bushwalking experience was not quite the right background for the Alpine environment I decided I needed to get some snow climbing experience. I looked at courses suitable for beginners and found that I could go either to New Zealand or with a company called Australian Mountaineering School (ASM) in the Kosciusko area. I thought I needed to check out whether I was at all suited to the cold temperatures and the physical demands of climbing, travelling and camping in snow so I opted for the shorter, cheaper and more accessible ASM course.

So last August I drove to Jindabyne and met up with a group of 9 other 'would be mountaineers' for a 5 day course. In a blizzardy first day in Jindabyne caravan park we learnt about our equipment and doing some basic rope skills and knots. Tromping about the lawn in crampons is quite good (aerates the soil) but doesn't have the same effect on the concrete (makes lots of holes). True to my fears the rest of the group were males but luckily not all young , fit, macho ones. I found I fitted in quite well on the skill, fitness and age levels. One of the four instructors was female, and while young she proved to be a very good teacher.

Day 2 saw us don snow shoes and shuffle off for a couple of kilometres over the hill past Perisher to a sheltered gully where we built snow platforms for our tents and built a kitchen tent with snow blocks and pyramids for a roof. It was still snowing quite heavily, requiring a number of trips out of the tents on the first night to shovel snow off the tents.

Over the next couple of days we learnt 'self arresting', how to set up snow anchors and how to rescue each other from a crevasse. Self arresting means being able to stop yourself sliding out of control down a slope. Learning how to do it involves throwing yourself down the slope and using an ice axe to stop the slice. Because of the thick new snow we had to work hard to get a slide going because other wise we just stuck there. Feet first, face up, face down and head first all had to be practiced. The crevasse rescue was somewhat hypothetical because there are no crevasses in Australia. We used a cornice and slope and pretended - the technique worked just as well.

Our final day out was a trip to Blue Lake - snow shoe shuffle across to the frozen-over lake in an ampitheatre of cliffs and rocky slopes. There is some ice on the cliff edges and we practiced ice climbing up some rocky, icy bits. That was my favorite part of the course. It was our first sunny day and a beautiful spot. The climbing was great fun and though a bit wobbly with my ice pick technique I could do it.

I discovered that narrow neck water bottles are very hard to use once frozen but that all frozen water bottles could be nursed back to life by taking them to bed with me. In fact I slept with my wet gloves, wet socks, most of my clothes on and anything else I wanted to dry. I didn't have to worry about privacy in the tent I shared with 2 men. Neither they nor I got to see any part of my body - undressing just wasn't an option. Boots thawed out fairly quickly in the morning but putting them on was hard because the laces were frozen stiff.

I really enjoyed it. I coped with the cold, didn't mind the cold nights and was comfortable during the day's activities. Gender and age seemed irrelevant. I came home eager to do more.

4. News from/about others

My sister Annie sent me this response to the last email - relating to a time when she travelled in the part of Canada that I will be going to.

"I couldn't find anything easily in my Lonely Planet relating directly to Rogers Pass (or Wapka Icefields - are they part of the Columbia Icefields?), but this is what I wrote in 1994 when we were there:

"We left Banff and headed for Revelstoke, along the Trans-Canada Hwy through Glacier Natl Park, incorporating the infamous Rogers Pass (notorious for winding roads and avalanches) and the Death Strip (where sudden avalanches can wipe a car right off the road). This road also passed through Yoho Natl Park - where the avalanche had been when we arrived in Vancouver [we had been unable to enter Banff that way]; we still had to stop and wait for queues; it's a noted wildlife road.

I drove Lake Louise to Revelstoke - three hours straight - and I was expecting mountain roads like Australian ones, with tight hairpin bends and steep cliffs. For the most part, all of it, we were hugging the mountain, so steep cliffs were no problems; the road was straight for a mountain road - I never had to below 70k except for queues. The hairiest part was the tunnels, through the mountain, when I was suddenly plunged in darkness. I really enjoyed the road, the driving. I put on Neil Young's Unplugged and it was great fun! We didn't see any wildlife."

... and ...
"During the day [driving from Banff to Revelstoke] the scenery changed quite rapidly. After Rogers Pass and the infamous Death Strip, where there are over 100 glaciers in Glacier Natl Park, where the Mounties bring the avalanches down with artillery before they bring themselves and wipe innocent victims off the road - the scenery becomes the gentle green rolling hills of the fertile, fruit-filled Okanagan Valley.

The Lonely Planet said, whichever direction you're coming from, this valley is a welcome change in scenery. It's right - we were surprised to find ourselves relieved to no longer have continuous assault of some of the most fantastic scenery of all. That's what it's like - assault. Go over a rise and WOW, here's another stunning mountain that we have to contend with, stop, photograph, appreciate, be awe-struck by, before we can go on. Sounds dreadful, doesn't it - being surrounded by such beauty continually? But it was like an assault, all those huge, jagged features.

In contrast, the gentle light green rolling hills [of the Okanagan Valley] allowed us to soak into them, instead of being confronted by them. It's much more relaxing scenery, though not as astounding ..."