This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
Ken's Tramping Mistakes 2 Love can do strange things to an individual....Like making you agree to do things that you would normally never consider doing, just to spend a little more time with your sweetheart. ar’. ‘Come tramping' she said- ‘its great, like a little holiday away from life’. As the Treasurer of the Wellington TRAMPING and mountaineering club (note the mountaineering in small font), she kept this up for several months, regaling me with stories about the voit camaraderie of the wonderful people in the tramping club, the : beautiful scenery they experienced, and how much she LOVED tramping. Normally I am pretty immune to zealotism (be it religious or of any other type), but after a while it started to have an impact. Hmm, I thought, tramping sounds like a reasonable way to spend a weekend
First mistake: I agree to go, With childhood memories of tramping trips being long, wet, miserable walks that served no particular purpose pushed firmly back into my subconscious, I went tramping in the Ruahines with Eva and some folks from the tramping club last weekend. We arrived at end of the road at about midnight, having had two very different drivers, The first, Yibai, was cautious, considerate, and essentially stopped to wave hello to rabbits and the other introduced wildlife, and to usher them safely across the road, The second, Jeff, seemed to have made it his personal life mission to reduce the possum population of New Zealand by running them all over - and whether they happened to be on the road, up banks or in drains appeared to make little difference to his modus operandi. I wasn't sure what psychological damage this activity might be doing to Trish, who, when not traipsing around mountains, works as a vet nurse. I was already a little suspicious of Jeff, who seemed way happier than it is right for a person to be, and had apparently dispatched a possum Leon Trotsky style (ice-pick through the ears) on his last tramping trip. Eva told me enthusiastically about haw on a previous trip to the Ruahines she had scoped out a primo sleeping spot at the road end - in the doorway of a scouting hut. She made it seem that compared with the rest of the group, we would get to sleep in the relative luxury of shelter from the elements, with somewhere comfortable to lay our weary bodies. So, I spent the night lying on soft, comfortable concrete on top of a half-inch snow foam. Eva told me that it was important to spend at least the first six months of your tramping life using a snow-foam, so that you could really appreciate the comfort of a 'Thermo-rest' when you became a ‘serious tramper'. A Thermo-rest is a half-inch thick foam with a little bit of air in it, I can hardly wait.... T woke up refreshed - no - hald on, that's wrong, I didn't wake up at all, because I didn't get to sleep. I guess 34 years of sleeping on nice, comfortable beds has softened me to the point where my body can no longer easily adapt to sleeping on F*%k__g CONCRETE!!. Nevertheless, in keeping with my cheerily optimistic disposition, I was looking forward to viewing the vast panoramas that I had been told about. Stunning views of Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe, and even (if we were lucky) Mt Taranaki. These things and more I had been promised. Apparently the Ruahines are unusual for a New Zealand mountain range, because they have no foothills. What this means is that rather than building gradually into the tramp, you start with a near vertical 600-metre climb. It was foggy and misty down at the road end, but I thought we might climb above the clouds to see some of the ‘spectacular vistas’. Ahhh, summer in the Ruahines. I was a little concerned about the weather forecast predicting snow down to 1200 metres, especially since we were due to be climbing to 1700. However, my mind was soon put at rest by Robert, one of the more experienced members of the group, who explained that the forecast I had heard was for the Tongariro National park, and the weather patterns in the Ruahines were ‘very different’.
Second mistake: wearing relatively new boots Thinking that if I was going to get into this tramping caper, I had better do things right, I invested ina pair of 'Scarpas', Scarpas are genuine Italian leather tramping boots. Eva assured me that these were the best boots available, and that most of the ‘serious trampers’ in the club had them. I had worn them once www.wtmc.org.nz PO Box 5068, Wellington before without an issue, so expected there to be no problems, Within two hours my heels were raw, and for some reason the sounds of the Carpenters song 'We've only just begun’ started playing on my mind. Around about then the weather clagged in, and it was (I thought) just a little too cold to be really fun. We climbed up to the tops, and promptly followed Jeff, (who can best be thought of as Jim Carey on methamphetamine) through a 270 degree turn, so that we were walking in completely the wrong direction, Luckily Yibai (the trip leader) had a map, compass and global positioning system, and set us back on the right path after only half an hour of walking the wrong way, I was secretly hoping that Yibai might also have a helicoptor close at hand. Jeff looked at the map closely, and seemed to be memorising the way to Waterfall Hut, where we were planning to stay that night. T had managed to keep up with the group quite nicely, thank you, on the way up the mountain, It was only when the descent started that I realised how insane these people really were. I know rugby players who care more about their knees than these folk do. They were bounding down a mountain with no regard whatsoever for their lives/bodies. Luckily there were some small plants growing on the side of the mountain that I decided to cling to in order to slow my descent, It was only after I tried this a few times that one of the group explained to me that the common name for the plant I was grabbing at is 'spear-grass', I decided that having thorns in my hands was better plummeting to my death, so I persevered with it. It took my mind off the blisters. We got down to the bottom of the mountain by following a stream, which, apart from causing me to become completely sodden from the waist down was uneventful. Robert, who may have been a mountain goat in a previous incarnation, had reached the bottom quite some time before the rest of the group, and so we followed Jeff up the next mountain stream towards the hut. After about an hour Jeff turned to Yibai, Trish, and Eva and said.....'Do you think this is the right stream?’ Luckily I was too tired by this time to attempt to pull my Swiss army knife out of my pack and start attacking him with the bottle opener attachment. We turned around, and eventually found the correct stream. The rain seemed to be getting colder and heavier, and the memories from childhood tramping trips were starting to intrude more insistently on my awareness. I cursed Robert for having left the rest of the group. He was probably at the hut already. I cursed Eva for having dragged me out into this Kafkaesque nightmare. I cursed Trish and Yibai for being able to scoot up riverbeds so effortlessly. I cursed Jeff for being so happy (maybe he fell into a cauldron of serotonin when he was a baby?). I cursed myself for being so miserable. On the way up towards the hut we passed a number of trampers coming back down, who looked at us with varying expressions. In my semi-conscious state I couldn't work out whether the expressions were those of loathing, sympathy, or exhaustion. Something did, however, register deep within my brain....if all these people are coming back from the hut, and the hut only has sleeping room for six, and everyone else in our group is ahead of me, then if there is even one person from another group up at the hut, I will be spending a lovely evening camping out in the wilderness in the rain, After the concrete episode of the previous night, it was not an appealing thought. T arrived at the hut to find two trampers from another party, and was resigning myself to a night under the fly, when they packed up and left. There were only six of us at the hut! I would be staying inside, HOORAY! It turned out that Robert had arrived about 20 minutes before a group of eleven trampers (those we saw coming back down the river) who had planned to stay there overnight. Robert had just got a fire going and mentioned that another five from his party were on their way. The party of eleven would have been quite within their rights to have claimed the remaining five bunks, but after some deliberation they had decided to move to another campsite. From cursing Robert only half an hour previously, I was overwhelmed with gratitude towards him. The rain seemed to be getting heavier and heavier, when it stopped. I am sure everyone knows about how ordinary food suddenly tastes amazing when you are cold, wet and tired, so I wont mention it. The rest of the evening was spent playing 500, eating too much and falling into a dreamless sleep. Waterfall Hut is at about 700 metres above sea level. When I woke up the next morning I found that the reason it had stopped raining was because it was snowing heavily. Robert's comments about the Ruahines having ‘different’ weather patterns to the Tongariro National Park all fell into place. Normal people would have looked at the weather, looked at the map and walked out down the river to a nice, friendly farmer's place, But these are not normal people. They planned to climb up over the mountain and out the other side. I asked Robert how long he thought this might take. His reply was the thing that chilled me most all weekend.
"It will seem like forever" he said. I don't know a whole lot about weather in the mountains, but I kind of assumed that if it was snowing where we were, then in it was likely the weather would be even worse as we got higher. I mentioned this to Robert, and he just grinned (a grin sort of like Jack Nicholson's in ‘The Shining’) and said - oh yeah, it's going to be nasty. I gulped, He was right. Third mistake: Thinking that tramping means just going for a big walk. From being a tramping weekend, things rapidly changed into a mountaineering expedition. The entire mountain had changed from rocks and tussock the day before, to deep snow overnight. I was given a one minute lesson on how to use an ice-axe to ‘self arrest' if I happened to start sliding down the mountain. I thought that if I started sliding down the mountain self-arresting would have to wait in line behind cardiac arresting, Robert (bless his heart} led us expertly up to the tops, and immediately started to lead us off in the wrong direction again. Maybe mountain goats have no sense of direction. I guess if they did, they would walk down the mountain and live on a nice lush field somewhere. I was happy enough to follow Robert, but luckily Eva's sense of direction and Yibai‘s map-reading skills soon had us turned around and heading in the right direction. Around then I remember Robert saying that there were some ‘Gnarly’ bits ahead. I later learned that Grarly is a tramping code word for life endangering. Jumping down with a fully loaded pack from a ledge to a ridge with a thousand foot drop on either side was definitely not what I had in mind when I agreed to go ‘tramping’. Did I mention that it was snowing on the top of the mountain? It wasn't. It was a blizzard. The Australian Crawl song ‘Reckless’ -(‘Like Scott in the Antarctic, base camp too far away') pushed the Carpenters out of the number one spot in my head. I realised things must be getting bad when I heard Jeff stop talking. I decided to take stock, to stay calm and rational. We were high in the mountains, freezing cold, couldn't see anything more than 10 metres away, and had been pretty consistent in heading off in the wrong direction every time we struck out. As I had no mountain experience whatever, my survival was entirely in the hands of those around me... Yibai then used some divining method or other to choose a descent path at what appeared to be random. It happened to be the right one, We eventually got down off the tops, and the weather was less severe, I breathed a sigh of relief. The freezing temperatures had numbed my feet, and my blisters had been complaining in only a low whine. As my feet warmed, my blisters grew, and started to develop personalities of their own. Everytime I put my left foot down the blister on my left heel would hiss ‘Stupid’. When I put my right foot down the other blister would whisper ‘Fool’. Stupid. Fool. Stupid. Fool. Stupid. Fool. I couldn't help but agree with them. At around this time I had an epiphany, Yes, a genuine, humdinger, moment of enlightenment. Tramping is not meant to be enjoyed. Tramping is a Zen exercise designed to examine how much misery you can stand while remaining in a positive state of mind. Once I realised this, all my troubles melted away, and I started to enjoy myself. I started singing Monty Pythons ‘Always look on the bright side of life’. Some of the other members of the group started looking at me like I was the crazy one - go figure! We made it back to the road end only an hour and a half after we were due, Eva also had blisters, which further lifted my mood. At least even experienced trampers sometimes got blisters, And the weirdest thing began to happen. As I traveled home my mind started to reframe the whole trip. The good bits became magnified. The gnarly bits became something exciting to talk about through the work week. The fact that the news reports suggested it was the worst November weather in twenty years just added to the experience. The miserable bits faded into dim, insignificant memories, The food was superb. The camaraderie really was great. The leading and navigation by Yibai was top-notch. Trish was indefatigable. Robert was extremely well-read and has a head full of the most fascinating information. Jeff is a very funny individual. Eva was right. It was like a mini-holiday. All in all, a fantastic experience. I can't wait to get up there ona fine weekend to check out those views. Fourth Mistake: Deciding to put my name down for another trip already, Scribe: Ken Quarrie www.wtme.org.nz PO Box 5068, Wellington