PLBs and Perspective Changes - Ball Pass

By


Aoraki Mt Cook Resuce Team (Maddy Whittaker)


 June 2019

Ignorance is bliss huh? Day one was frosty even in the glorious sun. Frozen Hooker Lake, frozen streams, frosty tussock, waterfalls turned into icicles. A wonderfully dynamic land - the awe inspiring Hooker glacier creeping into view, Aoraki rearing up in all its majesty, massive moraine collapses gradually stealing the Ball Pass route away. Prancing joyfully through it all, up to the most incredible campsite up on the Playing Fields. Digging out a pit for our tent beneath the stars, oh so many stars.

We had no idea that in 12 hours time we would be activating a PLB. I’ve tried a few times to try and describe what happened but nothing really seems to convey it properly. In short, we were nearing the top of the zig zag and conditions were super icy - I was getting my new sharp front points and sum tec pick in about a cm - can’t imagine how blunt club crampons and walking axes felt. Not everyone in the group felt comfortable going up in these conditions. Not everyone in the group felt comfortable going down either. We got to somewhere safer, got warm, made tea, had some sugar. Thought things through. Even after some time to breathe, some people in group still shaking, pale, wanting to throw up. Conditions weren't warming up. In fact as weather was going to be coming in later, the temps weren't due to rise. The decision was not taken lightly - if all of us felt we could have walked out safely then we would have done that in a heartbeat. Pulling a PLB isn’t fun. 

First ever helicopter ride. The team giving us breakfast, briefings and chats at the base. The feedback was that we'd made a good decision. It was sobering to hear. "You know why we flew under the cliffs below you first before coming up to where you were? Cause usually this kind of thing is a body recovery. We're stoked you guys are all okay."

“Also you should check your PLB battery - did you guys know your PLB has been activated before? In Milford Sound in 2015? (when Max, Peter and Tiff also got stuck - kind of fitting isn’t it?).

Things like this stick in your mind for a long time. Running over 100,000 scenarios of what could have happened. Over analysing every decision in the lead up - if I’d done that differently would this or that have been different? I learned some people are incredibly helpful following a situation like this (thank you so so much), and some people are not. So perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve taken away from this whole thing is that if you weren’t there, a lot of care should be taken if you are going to make judgements about what happened.


Frozen puddles
Hooker Glacier terminus (Maddy Whittaker)

Aoraki (Maddy Whittaker)
Midday freezing temperatures (Maddy Whittaker)
Looking back down on the lake (Maddy Whittaker)
Hooker Glacier and Aoraki (Maddy Whittaker)


August 2019

I ran into the entire team that picked us up off Ball Pass up at Tasman Saddle Hut. It was awesome to be able to thank them again in person. Absolute legends!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Drawn Upwards

By
Image
Crossing the divide into the Landsborough (Easter 2019) (Maddy Whittaker) Our mountains, how they bend and fold. Glaciers flowing from rock to ice to me. This past year I have been mesmerised by the scale, the shapes, the way light plays upon the ice and the patterns the wind whittles in the snow. I used to think it was a strange force that draws us upwards. But now I understand that this force is not so strange at all.  Some moments seem to burn brighter than others. The first time I saw the Bonar glacier, clambering over the top of the Quarterdeck, the golden moonlight and pink rays of first light washing the snow in a magical glow. The first time I scrambled upon warm granite in the Darrans, impossibly steep rock expanses rising straight up out of the sea. My first New Years in the hills, running through golden tussock, my memories tinged with the overexposure of golden hour. My first trip deep in the bowels of the Landsborough. Water cascading everywhere in a wild...
Read more

The West Coast Névés: A Hard Earned Battle on Foot!

By
Image
The West Coast Névés (Lottie Armstrong) Party: Maddy Whittaker, Imogen van Pierce, Lottie Armstrong, Jamie Gardner, Rebecca Vella King and Conor Vaessen Times are certainly changing. It turns out walking from the Fox Township up the Fox Glacier to Pioneer Hut is not what it used to be! On Waitangi Day, six of us set off from the township and 14 hours later arrived at Chancellor Hut, the first day of our four day trip on the West Coast névés. The crux of the entire trip was getting to the start of the actual Fox Glacier - the point where not all that long ago a road used to go to. Now the road has been claimed by the river which runs hard against a series of bluffs - which involve hundreds of metres of vertical bush bashing to get around including a rock chimney in the forest and some pack hoisting. It is certainly an inspiring country. From the swift opaque waters full of chunks of ice in the rivers to the constant rockfall around the glacier - there is no part of this la...
Read more

North West Ridge of Mount Aspiring

By
Image
18/2/2020 -  19/2/2020 Party: Torea Scott-Fyfe, Tom Hadley I'd just arrived back in the South Island and Torea had just finished 12 days of fieldwork when we met in Wanaka. There was 2 days of workable weather ahead of us and we were both ready to get stuck into some mountains. Tom: “Hmmm well the Raspberry flat road is open again”, Torea: “Oooh yes we could climb some domes”, Tom: “Hmmm how about climbing the big dome...?”, “Yes let’s climb Mt Aspiring!”. The next morning, we set off with light packs and lighter legs from raspberry flat at 8am, jogging and walking along the expanses of the Matukituki valley. The open grasslands soon turned to beech forest, then to scrub as we carried on. We arrived at the waterfall in 4 hours time and began the push up to Bevan col. After negotiating slabs and bluffs, the expanse of the Bonar glacier spread itself out before us. We moved our way through gurgling blue crevasses to arrive at an empty Colin Todd hut, how good! At 5am the nex...
Read more