We met the guides on our fourth day morning
in New Zealand, at their headquarters in small town Wanaka,
a nice scenic town with a mere population of 19,000 overlooking
Lake Wanaka, the fourth largest lake in south island. The
Mount Aspiring ranges are also in full frontal view from the
lake. We had earlier flown into Christchurch from Singapore,
and had stayed in Christchurch for 2 days before taking a
6 hour plus bus ride to this town.
We had 3 guides with us, namely Paul Aubrey,
Bryan Moore and Steve Moffatt. They warmed us up immediately
upon meeting us, excited at the prospect of coaching people
from a country which never had a snow fall, less for chilling
weather. The ten of us were split into 3 teams, into groups
of 3, 3 and 4 with each of the guides.
Technical
Mountaineering Course day 1 has begun, as most of us were
quite excited at the thought of doing new stuff with our
new found snow equipment. The guides were all pretty organised,
requesting us to spread out all the equipment that we
intended to bring. We spent the whole of the morning cutting
down on weight, taking away excess clothes, removing extra
spare batteries, and Steve actually par our pack load
to quite manageable. After repacking back all our stuff
and a light lunch, we hopped on their vans, and our journey
to the mountains began.
A 3-hour ride took us to the base of Franz
Josef glacier, and we settled in that tiny town for the night.
We flew up the very next morning, in helicopters that took
us straight up to 2500m in a mere 15 minutes a while after
9. We touched down on a flat plateau of snow, took out our
bags from the helicopters and waited for the rest of the team
to come. Looking around us, there was nothing but ranges of
snow and ice stretching for miles and miles. From where we
were, we could actually see the sea looking like a fake blue
blanket just below the horizon to our west. It was a tad overwhelming
for us coming from a place where you see people just about
everywhere.
From there, we were going to train,
live, sleep, laugh, sweat together in a snow, rock and ice environment
for the next 6 days. The normal temperature in the day was a
cooling 3 degrees, while it dips past sub zeros during night-time.
We lived in a hut, a small building primary made of wood and
metal structures. As another group was having a course there
as well, we had to split up on some nights for some to live
in the tents below to free up the space. We had learnt a lot
during this while.
Techniques
that we have learnt include how to walk in snow, using
our ropes in various methods mostly for safety reasons;
self-arresting on a slope, building a snow anchor, ice
anchor, etc. Interesting bits include using an avalanche
transceiver to look for another, building a snow cave
which measured one man's height by 8 men standing area,
the list was endless.
A particular episode that I enjoyed was the self arresting class.
Bryan and Steve had combined their groups together, including
me, the girls along with Shaffique and Keith. We went up to
a gradual slope at first, as we first practiced sliding down
with our axe in our hands. The correct final position to self-arrest
is face down in a lying position, one hand holding onto the
head of the axe plunged into the snow, the other hand gripping
the shaft lower down the axe slightly lifted so as to aid the
axe to plunge in deeper. As we gained more practice, we could
tumble and jump off from whatever positions we could think of
and try to get into the final position. Us guys preferred to
tumble backward and rolled a few times before we tried to self
arrest. While a self arrest was considered a serious affair
in real time situations where a mistake could be fatal, we had
quite a lot of fun pushing each other down the slopes. The only
bad part of the training was that the more we rolled down, the
harder it was to walk back uphill.
During the course, we were also trapped
in the hut when a snowstorm hit us for 2 days. The weather forecast
had earlier predicted storms the next day, and true enough,
for the next 2 days, except for walking 5 metres out to our
toilet, we were confined within the boundaries of the hut. Temperatures
outside dipped to below minus 10 degrees, with winds reaching
up to 100km/hr. One of our girls, in an effort to enjoy a walk
to the loo, was blown by a sudden gust and she fell, breaking
one of the planks on the pathway to the loo. It was fortunate
that she merely escaped with a bruised ego, and that was our
topic for the rest of the day.
On our fifth day on the snow,
we made a long walk to the other hut on a 3 hour journey.
With our packs fully loaded with equipment and food
for 3 days, we lumbered along with rope attached to
one another in our group for safety. The weather was
clear that day, and it's a strange feeling to have the
sun high up burning your face and body while your feet
felt freezing cold by its constant contact with the
snow. I thought we looked pretty cool up the mountains:
all of us were draped in colourful jackets and pants,
harnesses attached round our waists, sunglasses sitting
conspicuously upon our nose bridges, a big pack on our
shoulders, surrounded by knicks and knacks of ice axes
and ice screws. We were a constant good photo opportunity.
Our
experience on the snow ended on the sixth day, when we flew
down to sea level with the same mode of transport that we came
in. We rested in Franz Josef that night, finally bathing for
the first time in 6 days.
The final
2 days of the course was spent on ice climbing and natural
rock climbing, as the guides gave us introductory courses
to ice climbing and familiarity with the natural rock
scene there. We had a hard time getting used to it, as
it was very different compared to walking on a snow or
even rock climbing. We had to rely very much on our crampons,
metal spikes that we attach to our boots for digging into
the hard ice and our ice axes which we used as picks to
lift ourselves up the ice face. In the end, we were dead
tired but enjoyed the experience nevertheless.
We parted with our guides on tenth day
afternoon, after a session of post evaluation and tea. Most
of us had truly enjoyed the experience, rating it as one of
our most exciting experience so far. It's a good start into
the big world of mountaineering, and I'm sure it wouldn't
be the last for most of us.
Chow
E-Fung Team member
Xixabangma "make it real!" 01/02
