This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
by Struan Little The trip schedule said Pascent®. Only "ascent". It did not say "ascent, weather permitting" or "ascent, if conditions allow". I cursed wyself again for being so naive. I knew that the weather would be bad, I knew that Eric would insist on climbing Mt Taranaki and I knew that I would hate every second. All these things came to pass. So, the misery may as well start soon. Robbie and Struan decided to spend Friday night without the warmth of their pits, ensuring that Saturday’s horrors were blurred by a lack of sleep. A westerly gale caused our erratic progress up Fantham’s Peak to become even more erratic. Finally, we achieved our objective - a huge block of snow mistakenly named Syme Hut. A flailing shovel showed that something lay below. Yes, in the middle of winter on a disgusting day, the hut was already occupied. After a short session of dairy cow identification, we discovered our new SURpanigns were from that haven of cholesterol, the Waikato. Before hitting the pit for the day, Robbie and Struan were given the task of digging out the hut window, which required a lot of ice-axe effort to cut through several inches of water ice. It also required getting rather cold. We did however, recieve plenty of vocal a encouragement from the inhabitants of the hut, sipping on their mugs of steaming tea. But then ... the Racing Jarndals took control and forced Struan from sloth. Soon, his crampons were firmly strapped to his jandals and a short session of elegant crampon technique took place outside the window. Finally as one toe after another faded from pink to blue to white and black, Struan abandoned his epoch-making idea of undertaking the first winter ascent of Taranaki in jandals and dived into the pit. Serenity is shattered when Christina asks Eric if we are going to crawl the last 2,000 feet to the summit. I have only two feet and I can see I’m not going to make it, jandals or no jandals. I interrupt with a snore. Eric, decisive as always, says "maybe". Christina puts on her boots and heads out the door, Robbie joins her, explaining that he didn’t bring all this flash gear up here for nothing. I tell Eric that a strong leader will call them back. Eric and I relay this message to them when we catch up with them on the summit. I am utterly exhausted. Eric says cheerily that you can see a long way from the top. I point out that while this is technically true all we can see over that long distance is cloud cover. I also point out an approaching front. What a surprise - a rapid descent follows in order to race darkness and the next hurricane. Sunday dawns with a light shaking movement. We realise that the wind is now so strong that the entire mountain is moving. However, it is snug inside our lined. show-cave.
Now the discussion turns to how full a human intestine can get before you are faced with the horror of trying to relieve nature in gale force winds. Soon, however, like Captain Oates, a sorry procession of people depart shelter with shovel in one hand and ice-axe in the other. Allow me to say, from unsavoury experience, that trying to maintain balance in those conditions is a tricky business, with the options of being blown, trousers down, over the edge of a bluff, or worse, backward into the hole you anatomy is in the process of filling. I reflect on Captain Oates words "I may be going for a long time" with sympathy. The departure of our companions back to the milk-sheds spurs us into action. If they can get off the mountain, so can we. Well, we did get down. However, to put the conditions into perspective, Christina admitted that the descent was not enjoyable. This is a little like the Captain of the Titanic armouncing a minor technical problem.
I crawi dejectedly into the back of the truck, reflecting on the party I have missed in Wellington. The only consolation is that I’ve saved some money this weekend. My thoughts are interrupted by Eric "That’s $38 please".
WEE? COMBITTEE MEETING