Walk on the Wild Side continued...
February 6th 2007 07:47
Hi All
Well I hope you have been enjoying Walk on the Wild Side, it was a great trip although very tiring, so read on for the continuing adventure.
If you look to the top left of the photo, that is where we had to go the next morning.
Getting up twice to answer the call of nature, it turned out to be quite a warm night, with the stars very clear in the night sky.
Up at 5.50am, feeling tired but better after a breakfast of museli, milk and choccy powder with a coffee to follow.
Left the falls hut at 7.30, Warner left to go back to the Carrington hut and we started out for the alpine traverse. I
The weather was once again very hot, with heaps of sun block being applied once we got onto the snow. Really good conditions, snow was just right for crampons and we reached the main divide at midday.
Had lunch at about 1755 metres looking back the way we had come.
There were a few moments that made you wonder if this had been the right thing to do as any crack in the snow filled me with visions of falling into a crevasse but as far as we knew there shouldn’t had been any there and the weather was nice, so you tended not to worry that much.
At lunch time we had looked at the route guide and it said about 7-8 hours to complete the trip, well we had already taken 5 hours so didn’t think the next part would be too bad.
How wrong we were!!
The next part consisted of crossing scree slopes and the guide map stated clearly to stay as high as possible and stay out of the gorge at the bottom.
This was interesting as the slopes were rather steep, with bluffs at the bottom, falling into the gorge, so not the place to take a tumble!
These slopes consisted of 3 kinds of scree, big stuff that would move suddenly under foot, trying to break something, eg an ankle. Medium to small size that was like a moving quicksand under foot and the last kind was like a real fine grit, no traction, grip or anything useful to gain a hold on.
Needless to say I hated it, big time for if you slipped and couldn’t get a grip then you would find yourself at the bottom rather quickly and in this case that wasn’t a place you wanted to be.
It took us 5 hours to cross these slopes, with the last two hours with no water as I had run out due to it being so hot. The last bit was a very hairy 8 metre vertical free climb down a rock face, if you fall you would have almost certainly broke something bad. After hanging from my finger tips, I decided my bag was a problem so managed to undo the straps and let it drop onto the rocks below.
I will be honest and say that I was scared shitless, but the other thing was that we were really knackered and it was 5.30pm. Time was starting to slip away from us as we had planned on the trip taking us 8 hours and it had already taken us 10 hours.
We both sat and had a rest, I was feeling pretty depressed, I think from exhaustion, fear from the last 5 hours and the fact that I didn’t think we would get out that night. Steve was sure that we would, so we both rested, filled up water bottles and tried to eat something.
I had carried a can of V energy drink with all this time and now it came into it’s own, ‘Man did that taste good!’
After half an hour rest we looked at the guide map again, noting that it said ‘After a 2 hour walk through the bush, take a 90 metre scramble down the dry river bed to the valley floor then walk along the river to the rail bridge and the road.
Final part of Walk on the Wild Side tomorrow night.....
What a day today, public holiday in Christchurch, so went for a 65km road ride around the Port Hills then through to Lyttleton and over Evans Pass to Sumner, strong winds today and was pretty tired when I got in, which makes my TransAlpine trip interesting as first day will be 100kms on a heavy and well loaded mtb. Still just a case of grit teeth and get on with it.
I will leave you with the thought for the day 'Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing' -Anon
Hal
Well I hope you have been enjoying Walk on the Wild Side, it was a great trip although very tiring, so read on for the continuing adventure.
The Hut
If you look to the top left of the photo, that is where we had to go the next morning.
Up at 5.50am, feeling tired but better after a breakfast of museli, milk and choccy powder with a coffee to follow.
Left the falls hut at 7.30, Warner left to go back to the Carrington hut and we started out for the alpine traverse. I
7.30 am start
The weather was once again very hot, with heaps of sun block being applied once we got onto the snow. Really good conditions, snow was just right for crampons and we reached the main divide at midday.
Had lunch at about 1755 metres looking back the way we had come.
There were a few moments that made you wonder if this had been the right thing to do as any crack in the snow filled me with visions of falling into a crevasse but as far as we knew there shouldn’t had been any there and the weather was nice, so you tended not to worry that much.
At the main divide
At lunch time we had looked at the route guide and it said about 7-8 hours to complete the trip, well we had already taken 5 hours so didn’t think the next part would be too bad.
How wrong we were!!
The way down
Hard Going
The next part consisted of crossing scree slopes and the guide map stated clearly to stay as high as possible and stay out of the gorge at the bottom.
This was interesting as the slopes were rather steep, with bluffs at the bottom, falling into the gorge, so not the place to take a tumble!
These slopes consisted of 3 kinds of scree, big stuff that would move suddenly under foot, trying to break something, eg an ankle. Medium to small size that was like a moving quicksand under foot and the last kind was like a real fine grit, no traction, grip or anything useful to gain a hold on.
Needless to say I hated it, big time for if you slipped and couldn’t get a grip then you would find yourself at the bottom rather quickly and in this case that wasn’t a place you wanted to be.
It took us 5 hours to cross these slopes, with the last two hours with no water as I had run out due to it being so hot. The last bit was a very hairy 8 metre vertical free climb down a rock face, if you fall you would have almost certainly broke something bad. After hanging from my finger tips, I decided my bag was a problem so managed to undo the straps and let it drop onto the rocks below.
I will be honest and say that I was scared shitless, but the other thing was that we were really knackered and it was 5.30pm. Time was starting to slip away from us as we had planned on the trip taking us 8 hours and it had already taken us 10 hours.
We both sat and had a rest, I was feeling pretty depressed, I think from exhaustion, fear from the last 5 hours and the fact that I didn’t think we would get out that night. Steve was sure that we would, so we both rested, filled up water bottles and tried to eat something.
I had carried a can of V energy drink with all this time and now it came into it’s own, ‘Man did that taste good!’
After half an hour rest we looked at the guide map again, noting that it said ‘After a 2 hour walk through the bush, take a 90 metre scramble down the dry river bed to the valley floor then walk along the river to the rail bridge and the road.
Final part of Walk on the Wild Side tomorrow night.....
What a day today, public holiday in Christchurch, so went for a 65km road ride around the Port Hills then through to Lyttleton and over Evans Pass to Sumner, strong winds today and was pretty tired when I got in, which makes my TransAlpine trip interesting as first day will be 100kms on a heavy and well loaded mtb. Still just a case of grit teeth and get on with it.
I will leave you with the thought for the day 'Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing' -Anon
Hal
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