The Tramping Report

Kaituna to Packhorse Hut

There was a hard frost in town and a fine day was promised. I wanted to take a walk up to Packhorse Hut (Lincoln M36 853 228) from Kaituna valley before it closed for lambing on Monday. Honora was due to arrive back from Mongolia later in the day so I only had the morning spare.

Out at Kaituna others had arrived before me and were off up the hill already. I crossed the stile and set off walking through the rich verdancy.

The frost had thawed everywhere touched by the warm sunlight.

A young bull across the fence was enjoying the morning as much as I was and gambolled about playfully in his field. A spurwing plover rattled off its tut-tutting tone of consternation from somewhere.

The air suddenly chilled under the trees in the gully. I tip-toed around some muddly patches and crossed the stream on slippery stones.

A sheep looked on, breathing steam, then stamped its foot at me before running off.

Some vines of bushlawyer hanging over the track caught my eye. They usually just catch my hat. I stopped to photograph them this time with the freshly melted frost still on their leaves.

The track climbed out of the stream back into the sunshine. I bent to the climb, then remembered my Pilates training to avoid the trampers' stoop. So I climbed standing up and was able to enjoy the sight of the dunnocks hopping about me and the wetness sparkling on the grass.

As I crossed the fence below the hut I saw the new development. The new loo has been installed by DoC. Yes!

The dreaded visits to the unsavoury overfilled Packhorse loo are no longer a part of the Canterbury tramper's experience. Thanks DoC.

The Kaituna track to Packhorse is now closed for lambing until the first of October. In Spring it's even better.

Rethink on snow anchors

What impacted me most about the tragedy resulting in four deaths on Mt Tasman in December 2003, was that it involved two of the highest regarded guides in the country. That had to put industry standard alpine safety techniques under suspicion.

The Coroners court had the same view and asked the NZ Mountain Guides Association and the NZ Mountain Safety Council to look into whether current practices with snow anchors in New Zealand were adequate.

Don Bogie carried out this research on behalf of the Mountain Safety Council. For a copy of the report go to:

http://www.mountainsafety.org.nz/assets/images/Snow%20Anchors0705.pdf

The report is extremely detailed in it's recommendations for changes to current practice with snow anchors. It covers snow types, the design of snow stakes and their associated connection systems (wires/tapes), anchor placement and belay position.

Anyone who's involved in travelling in alpine terrain with a rope needs to read it. You're likely to find that beliefs you've trusted your life to have not stood up to examination. And it's likely you've only surivived so far purely by luck. Your anchors have not been subjected to the sort of fall that you've been using them for.

Also make sure you quiz anyone you go into the mountains with whether they're familiar with all the detail of the report. Don't trust your life with someone that thinks they know it all already.

And most important, publicly show up anyone who's leading others or giving instruction before they've taken it all on board.

No way to cross a river

A recent Wilderness magazine had a strange article about a group walking down the Arawhata River. The article was written in the cliquey in-group style more common in tramping club newsletters. It seemed a bit out of place in a commercial magazine as the style purposely leaves the outside reader disconnected. I wondered about editor Colin Moore's reasons for using it.

But anyway that's not what I'm writing about here.

What caught my eye was a photo of this group crossing a river using quite a dodgy version of the 'mutual support' rivercrossing technique.

This method of linking makes for a much weaker team in a river.

I'll explain why.

In the standard 'mutual support' method, as shown below, the object is to provide a rigid line of support to the person breaking the current. With increasing force of current the person at the top end gets pressed against the next, who is locked into the rest of the line.

Even if the person at the top loses their feet they're still solidly held in place by the next person, with the interlocking arms across their backs. Their body is still breaking the current, sheilding the 2nd person and the extra weight pulling down on the 2nd makes their footing more solid.

This does happen reasonably often to parties crossing serious rivers.  Usually the  top person regains their feet fairly quickly and they carry on or back out as appropriate.

In the arrangement pictured above, being held at arms length with no support at body level would mean the person at the top would be knocked over very quickly as the current increased. This is because the high grasp makes their shoulder the pivot point while the river is applying pressure against the lower part of their body. When they go over they would drop fully into the water, pulling the second person's arm down. The current would carry them down and across the front of the party.

The next person would then be exposed to the full current. But they also would be holding the full weight of the first person pulling them forward and down river. Because these are lateral forces and not just extra weight over their feet, they would be pulled over too.

Hence the whole line would almost instantly collapse like a row of dominoes immediately following the first one going down.

In fact the method of linking illustrated above would probably result in people going over sooner than if they all crossed individually.

The method shown below is from the Mountain Saftey Council's Bushcraft manual and is the one recommended and rehearsed in training throughout the country.

Put the two strongest people at the upstream end of the line.

Undo all chest straps and loosen shoulder straps on each pack. Leave the hip belts done up.

Each person puts  their arms between the pack and the back of their neighbour, grasping either the hip belt or shoulder strap (low down) on the far side.

Research and experimentation continues to confirm this method as the most effective for dimishing the risk in serious rivercrossing. I haven't yet heard of any improvement on what I've outlined here.

So, I'm not sure why the group in the Arawhata opted for their way of linking. If they're going to an area like that one would think they had a bit of experience already and would've come across the recommended technique somewhere

Whatever it was, they were lucky the river turned out to be easier than they expected and their idea wasn't tested. And I just hope inexperienced people don't see that photo and think it's the way it's done.

End of the Topomap 260

Land Information NZ (LINZ) has decided to change the way they put our maps together. This means the end of the 260 series topo maps. A new map series NZTopo50 will be introduced during 2008/2009.

For the record it's because they've switched from something they call NZGD49/NZMG to something they call NZGD2000/NZTM. But when they start talking about 'spatial reference systems' my eyes glaze over.

If you're interested here's the link to the LINZ announcement:

http://www.linz.govt.nz/docs/topography/topo_info_strategy_2005_2010.pdf

A year ago LINZ ran a survey to see what should be done about the topo maps. The feedback they received was that a high quality printed topomap was essential.

I've heard GPS fans saying printed maps were finished. Yeah sure. Of course these are the ones who never bothered learning how to read maps to start with. And I still hear of them getting themselves navigationally embarrassed even with their gadgets.

I'm happy anywhere with a topo and my $25.00 compass.

I'll be upgrading early on, but I've got more than 100 topos so I won't be replacing the whole lot on day one.

I guess for most people there'll be a drawn-out changeover. When I joined the CTC in the early 90s I was surprised at how many were still using their old 'Inch to a Mile' maps. And I occasionally see them being used even now.

Honora in Mongolia

Honora is in Mongolia, climbing Khuiten, Mongolia's highest mountain, and others around it. After 10 days she came out to Olgii to restock for another 10 days, and sent me this email:

At last! Really sorry I missed the opportunity to reply when we got to Olgii about 10 days' ago.

We've had a great time and climbed Khuiten. It was a bit easier than Rolly but there was crevasse travel involved. Everyone summitted, so you can imagine the pace was pretty cruisey. We'd acclimatised on Malchin, 4000m, then had a rest day.

The food has been good but a bit repetitive at times and extremely excessive though I don't think I've put any weight on which surprises me as we've been virtually force-fed by the young, beautiful cook! Handmade noodles and ravioli are among her accomplishments.
I have yet to encounter the greasy mutton and horsemeat I was dreading. We've been given little cut up peices of goat and then beef and also mince in the soup (korje).

We also visited a local ger in a Tuvan camp. There are only 300,000 of this particular ethnicity. Their language is more Mongolian than Kazak. I bought a couple of felt mats then onsold one to Barbara as we both thought it was the best.

To get to the ger, we had to cross a swollen glacial river on horseback which was quite thrilling! The horses are amazing but I guess it's survival of the fittest and most nimble at picking their way through boulders below milky water.

The ger was very colorful inside, all pink and red with a subdued overworked wife losing the bloom of youth, I'd say. Not only was she a great cook, the borsak was like choux pastry but she must be a gifted artist judging by the mat I've bought featuring 2 agali rams head on. The husband, Hintzu, is a very accomplished horseman who is kind to his animals. The kids are all over the adults like puppies. It's very affectionate.

As there were about 1000 animals in this settlement, we had a cream spread (kaymak) and dried and fresh cheese and fresh bread for a snack in the ger. The tea is good too, they put a bit of salt in and drink it weak and milky.

We went to climb Nairandach (3,868m) and got about 100m from the top. It was windy and the snow wasn't great. I went on ahead and came to a rocky arete that was very unstable consisting of stacked sedimentary rocks with a zone of hard ice I had to cross. I got scared but not gripped and Lydia caught me up. We turned back as I was happy with the progress I'd made. It would have been a grade 5 peice of terrain where I was.

We had to cross a crevasse which led to a cornice so we crossed on the cornice which is a scary thought! With all the footsteps it might have been like toilet paper tearing off.

The Nairandach basecamp was all wildflowers! We saw snow leopard tracks coming down from the mountains and wolf scats. There's plenty of tucker for the predators in the form of gerbils, ground squirrels and big fat golden marmots.

We befriended a dog who can swim enormous pressure waves. He barks like stuff  but is really cool. He loved us but barked at every local and got a stone for his troubles.

Lydia and I had to hang out with the cook for an extra day as our second vehicle got stuck in a river crossing. We enjoyed ourselves but I didn't like riding a cantering horse with only one foot in a stirrup!

We finally got a ride out in a monster like a unimog that could cross the Potanini river.

On the way to our roadend, which was a four hour walk, a storm came up and everyone except me suffered. I had the bertie bag which a couple of people got to enjoy plus my silver sitting pad. This area creates its own weather, convectional storms.

At the same time of the storm, a local guy and his 3 horses got killed by lightening not far way so the Tuvans were very unhappy with this news. All of the locals and some of us had inadequate clothing for the conditions.

On the summits you could see into Russia, Kazakstan and China. We walked to a Russian border post and found a cairn with a message in a coffee jar from a Russian climber in 2003.

The flowers are unbelievable. I've taken heaps of photos.

Our advanced basecamp was great, stinking hot and Trevor discovered a well where melting snow dripped off a rock so we melted heaps more snow off the rock and didn't need to use our petrol-driven stove. The petrol's improved but I helped Lydia filter it in a storm at basecamp.

Both nights at ABC, I was so warm I didn't need to hop into my bag, just use it as a duvet.

Getting to Nairandach, we had to cross the glacier lower down and it had streams some of which were 1 1/2 meters across. One crossing we rigged up a handrail. If you'd gone in, you would've been history as you'd end up down a hole in the glacier.

My Kazak is coming along. M's become B's, Y's become J's etc. About 50% of the words are the same. They don't have any arabic or persian words but the odd bit of Russian. I'm starting to be able to read the Cyrillic.

Our next adventure is being organised. We're horse trekking more west by the Chinese border. We've organised a driver, Dugaz and he'll jack up horsemen and another driver but we need an interpreter. Today, we're going shopping for the trip. I think there'll be a helluva lot of  mosquitoes so I'll get some industrial grade repellent. Most things seem to be available here.

Last night Lydia and I went to find Dugaz's compound. We got close and saw a flash car. The driver and a pal decided to help us so we got in the car. They looked pretty affluent. Between Lydia's Russian and my Kazak, we got the message across and they took us to Dugaz's place by asking the neighbours.

We were invited into the ger and found ourselves guests at a wedding party for the inlaws. I've never seen such an opulent feast. There was scarcely any room to put our bowls of fermented horse milk, tea and vodka on. Lydia's vodka caught up with her, she was hilarious. I kept holding mine under the table every time Dugaz came round. His daughters were lovely (10 and 6) even the dog was extremely mellow and the first overweight dog we've seen.

Well, not much else to say right now. I don't think I've been in such great company ever. Everyone is resourceful, very interesting etc. and we spend a lot of time laughing at each other's stories. Of course the locals are great too.

Honora

Ageing trampers

Most New Zealand tramping clubs are dominated by the middle aged and older. In many it's becoming a rare event for any new young face to stick around for their second trip.

In some clubs people are starting to see a potential problem in this.

The recent annual conference of the Federated Mountain Clubs, in Christchurch, discussed these concerns in a workshop. Two members of the FMC executive spoke to the media about it afterwards.

Richard Wesley, paid executive officer of the NZ Alpine Club, believed it was not an issue. He was reported as being more impressed that older members had a higher disposable income so it was easier to get money from them.

However I understand in recent years the NZAC has moved to operate more like a business model which has 'clients' and 'subscribers' rather than members, so perhaps the voluntary participation of an 'active membership' isn't so important to them. And besides, as far as I know, the NZAC doesn't represent trampers.

John Wilson, outgoing president of the FMC and long term member of the Waikato Tramping Club, sees it differently. He remembers when most people joining tramping clubs were in their teens or twenties. Today any newcomers who do stick around tend to be nearer their fifties already.

No doubt John recognises the pattern we're seeing everywhere of tramping club membership stagnating and the average age of faces on trips older by the year. This not only results in declining energy and enthusiasm for voluntary efforts, but also affects the types of trips clubs can run

I've heard various suggestions trying to account for the lack of interest in club tramping among the young. However I believe the truth is that clubs have made tramping appear boring, and club cultures are often quite antipathetic toward youthful behaviours.

My evidence? I saw it when I joined a trip to Carkeek Hut in the Tararuas with the Victoria University club, the VUWTC. That trip had more of the elements of excitement and adventure, but combined with mutual support and respect than I thought was possible with club tramping.

The university club in Canterbury, the CUTC, seems to have a similar style of enthusiasm in its tramping, an unmistakeably youthful approach sadly missing from the old-fart TCs.

So I see a tramping style in the overwhelmingly young university clubs that's quite distinct from clubs with an older membership. And it seems much more enjoyable.

Now the cure. If you really want to rejuvenate your tramping club, beg some young people to help out on the committee. Then listen to them, let them make changes and run the show despite your fears. And because young people often tend to defer to their elders, too much for our own good, it might even be worth removing the speaking and voting rights from anyone on the committee who's over 30, just to make sure you get the benefit.  ;-)