Well another weekend has been and gone. What did I achieve? Not exactly what I planned to do, but it was still useful.
Following word of snow falling up on Ben Lomond, my previous weekend plans were cancelled. This is pretty normal for winter, when I include a powder clause in everything. Ever heard of a powder clause? It was explained to me by a builder in Wanaka. It was my second ski trip to New Zealand and I was riding up the chairlift over a fresh dump of southern hemisphere powder (not the same as northern hemisphere powder, but equally exciting). As often happens on chairlifts, we got to talking about where we’re from and what we do with our lives. He explained that he could go skiing that weekday rather than going to work because he has a powder clause. This clause is part of his employment contract, stating that he doesn’t have to turn up to work on days when more than a certain depth of snow had fallen on Treblecone overnight.
My powder clause is that whenever fresh snow has fallen and Ben Lomond is running, social engagements for the weekend are cancelled.
I brought two others up to the mountain with me on Friday night, both friends with an interest in skiing. One had skied years ago and the other had always wanted to try. Alas, halfway through the first day, the new introduction to the world of skiing was injured in a vicious fight with one of Tasmania’s native yetis. Here, yetis disguise themselves as rocks and pop out of the snow to lash out at passing skiers without warning.
The injury wasn’t catastrophic, but meant an end to her day’s skiing. Ski Patrol moved in and I saw first hand how they immobilised her leg, kept her warm and dealt with the symptoms of shock from an impact injury in cold conditions. Educational, but I doubt I’ll have any of their equipment on hand come summer. A few bits and pieces that are relevant hopefully won’t be of any help, for the injuries they deal with aren’t the sort you can shrug off and keep walking.
But this sounds like the sort of experience I had last weekend, experience for how to deal with everything going wrong… I needed to do some physical training as well.
Summiting the second highest peak in Tasmania in the middle of winter only sounds impressive if you haven’t been there. Even taking the (extremely) scenic route, it was barely over an hour’s casual snowshoeing to reach the peak of Legges Tor and descend the slopes back to the warmth of the ski lodge.
Some relatively easy skiing and a quick snowshoe made for more exercise than a day at the office, but that wasn’t enough.
Then opportunity presented itself in the form of a contest held in the lodge overnight: A stick, two bottles and a challenge. I’m not overly competitive, unless someone gives me a challenge. I was issued a challenge, or at least a previous lodge record was challenged.
The contest is simple: A long stick is balanced on the tops of two beer bottles, and the competitor has to jump from one side to the other as many times as they can without falling over or knocking the stick off. Sounds simple? Probably because it is. Anyone can hammer out thirty jumps without breaking a sweat. More and you start to feel it. It’s like compressing an hour’s cardio into a couple of minutes. Come morning (actually, come a few mornings later), you’re calves are left burning from the effort. I enjoy it though, for the focus that’s required, for the sheer physical challenge and for the grace. Something people usually do when they start out is to land too hard, jarring their joints and tyring them out. To get past a hundred requires lighter landings, and absorbing those landings gradually using your muscles as shock absorbers. It’s why your claves get such a good workout and forces you to practice not wearing your joints out.
Two hundred and thirty jumps certainly left their mark on my muscles, and yet my joints don’t ache at all. It was an excellent reminder of an exercise I should use more over the coming months, for the equipment it requires is scarcely hard to come by and it really is a good way to push your legs…
Since last week, planning has continued. I’ve taken delivery of a new Garmin etrex 20 and have a sat phone on the way. I was going to hire one, until a price comparison showed that buying a secondhand sat phone and getting a one month contract is significantly cheaper than hiring one for a month… As with the decision to buy a GPS rather than a stack of new maps, the length of the walk makes it worthwhile. This way, I also have a sat phone for any future walks.
Will I really need to use a sat phone much? Probably not, but it's like carrying an EPIRB; if I need it, nothing else will do the job. Status updates for any others planning to join the walk partway wouldn't hurt either.
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