After work on a friday...

I read Grant Hunter's "Coast to Coast: Who Was First" the other night. I know Grant a little, we share similar views on DOC's hostile approach to "commercially" organised events. The ever increasing outdoor fix of the masses. I like his book, it reminds me of a few other light history books that manage to present historical information without the narrator intruding too much in your interpretation.

The subject is "coast to coast", particularly the history concerning the route of the famous race. The theme is keeping an eye on the travellers focus on time and comparing that to todays event culture. Maori pathways are covered in good depth as are the stories of the first pakeha, exploreres, surveyors and sheepmen. The new stuff for me was the story of the recreationalists, starting with Mannering and Dixon (famously the first to use skis in NZ outside the lodge where I am working) through to the stopwatch trampers and early mountain runners. Theres a good account of the Mt Bealey Run (see below for my afterwork reccie), the precursor to the Avalanche Peak race, which was organised annually by locals through the 1970's. The inaugural event was won by Eric Saggers. Apparently with boots compulsory, many of the competitors chose skellerup gumboots because they were lighter! I was talking to a local in the pub tonight too, and she remembers sending her 11 year old son out on one of the races and worrying that he'd never make it back.

Probably my biggest disappointment of the book was its quick treatment of the Coast to Coast phenomenom, brushed by in a few pages, especially given that coast to coast photos are very prominent on the cover. Some good qualitative analysis of the culture of the racers compared to the earlier passers by, would have made interesting reading.

But anyway, inspired somewhat I thought I would go and check out the former Bealey Race circuit after work this evening. I have covered the terrain before but not for a while. The bushline is achievable in 30mins if you go solid, and its great to be up in the mountains in the sun as the village sinks into shade below.

The open tops are lovely. I could imagine the potential shortcuts and contested routes where racers tried to get that little advantage. The ridge narrows in places and there are huge slips off both sides. Down to the left are the Cora Lynn flats of the Waimak while off right mountains poke their heads up. I was in no hurry, enjoying the sun and the Crow glacier face of Rolleston.

While pipits were hanging around during the ascent it was keas that met me at the top, what choice birds they are. As I ran down the top of the scree they can hurtling over my head several times in pairs chasing each other, what an amazing bird they are!

The scree slope is long and intimidating, the top is loose and easy, but from about halfway down you have to pick your way more carefully. its about 15 minutes down to the river going along ok. I remembered rough creek as a pleasantish boulder hop, but the winter was hard on it. Avalanches have choked the creek with trees, slowing progress. With the rivers a bit high there were some commiting jumps to keep my feet dry and I sure wouldn't be sending my 11 year old down here! It was about 2 hours all up, and to be honest I can see why they don't run the race anymore! Not bad for a nice evening after work though.

Apolobamba Expedition

This evening I attended a talk by former Arthurs Pass local James Dempster on a climbing expedition undertaken in the Apolobama area of Bolivia. There was a good turnout from the community to hear about the teams adventures. My favourite image was his description of a local wandering past their basecamp near a high mountain pass pushing a wheelbarrow. He had just popped over to Peru to trade some goods, or possibly even buy a wheelbarrow and was wandering home.

I got home and google searched the expedition finding a nice write up with maps (sort of) and photos from the American member of the expedition Alex Alexiades. Closer to home, Arthurs Pass guide Hamish Reid was the expeditions official webmaster and that site can be found here. Sounds like an area to add to the list. Dr Derek of Troppodoc was threatening to open up in Bolivia if so he might have some workers!

Didymo...Whats Going on?

Just preparing some resources for the Outdoor Centre on Didymo, so thought I would report what I found and express some of my ideas/blind prejudices.

Firstly, and most alarmingly, headlining today on Stuff, Didymo has been found in the Karamea. The Karamea is an amazing and unique river draining the Tasman Wilderness Area, the Mt Arthur Tablelands and Garibaldi Ridge, the heart of Kahurangi National Park. I walked down there 10 years ago near the end of a long tramp. The huts, including the 2 storey Venus Hut, were full of left over goodies from fisherman helicoptered in. This was great for us, but now in light of the the spread of didymo is alarming. If we are going to stop didymo spreading we have to look at stopping chopper access to some of our rivers, or implementing stricter bio-controls. The volume and weight of gear moved by chopper and the speed one can move from catchment to catchment is a major risk for biosecurity.

"Check, Clean poster from Stateside"

Lets not kid ourselves the majority of didymo spread has been by fishermen. And the attitude of their establishment has been appalling. I was planning a race last year in the Tongariro region traversing the Mangatepopo stream just before that false alarm came out. The first press releases were from fishermen blaming kayakers, automatically on the defensive. Luckily it turned out to be faulty sampling technique. A didymo outbreak in this area would be tragic for tourism, fisheries and outdoor education, with the operations of the Outdoor Pursuits Centre likely to be far more restricted.

Checking further around it seems that progress is been made on science and policy. Niwa for example can now create, "didymo predictive maps"...

"Didymo predictive maps, quantifying the potential threat from didymo to any river reach in New Zealand, are now in use, thanks to work by NIWA scientists. Potential percentage didymo cover and mat thickness can be mapped, based on models combining what is known about didymo biology with specific river and climate features. The didymo predictive maps (DPMs) are already proving valuable in practical situations. Scientist Dr Cathy Kilroy cites two recent applications of the DPMs – one where the threat of didymo to an endangered native fish (the Kauru or lowland longjaw galaxias Galaxias cobitinus) in its very localised North Otago habitat needed to be quantified by DOC; another where a South Island local authority wanted an assessment of the potential growth of didymo in all its rivers as it faced the challenge of prioritising freshwater management resources."

Although if you search Niwas website for "didymo" you get around 10 hits for 2007, and only one for 2008. Meanwhile Biosecurity New Zealand has been focusing on getting the prevention message out through their "check, clean, dry" campaign and has developed resources for schools. They are also focussing on measures assoiciated with the interisland ferries, although I'm not quite sure what these are.

Biosecurity New Zealand also has some interesting resources, included a GIS connected database, which shows you just how widespread didymo is in South Island river systems. Sober viewing.

This page also has information on the ecology and potential eradication techniques of didymo. Enough there for me to go with anyway!

What happens to our Sporting Hero's?

Danyon Loader one of our greatest Olympic athletes used to work in a cafe on the strip in Christchurch. Two olympic golds and he had his hands in a sink. Ben Fouhy was on the news the other night, he's now working for a builder after "flopping" at the last games (you have to win to make it pay). Richard Ussher, clearly the best multisporter in the world, and one of the strongest adventure racers has just announced his switch to Ironman in search of a more comfortable (at least financially) lifestyle.

What about our winter Olympians? I think Anna-Lisa Coberger joined the police (to deal with the pissed rather than the piste). Another I was fortunate to bump into last week. Andrew Nicholson was one of those names you always heard every winter Olympics (1992, 1994, 1998). Part of a top squad of speed skaters that also included his brother Chris, an athlete who should be much more famous as one of the only New Zealanders to compete in both summer and winter Olympics (he was also part of the cycling team in 1992). Andrew is now an enthusiastic first year teacher at Karoro school, passing on his knowledge and experience to the next generation. I worked with him last week when his class visited the outdoor educaton centre.

Sportsmen like this have always fascinated. So focussed on the detail of their performance, they seem different from the rest of us. Intense and sometimes a little serious, they have the ability to put their performance first. As the coach of a national sporting team (orienteering), I have to say in my sport we certainly don't have many of these characters, our culture is more laid back, more flexible and dare I say it less high achieving. My moral dilemma is can I really insist on the commitment top sportsmen in other codes display. Is the long term outcome really worth it for the athletes? My answer is no, but we can give them an opportunity to go down the path. We can help remove obstacles that their self motivation is driving themselves against and if we think of their best interests we can advise moderation, or at least keep their options open. I wonder how many of New Zealand's best coaches have done this...Duncan Laing? Lydiard? Richard Tonks?

I looked through the list of our Olympic medalists from this year and wondered how they are going now. Some are looked after sure, but some will fall through the cracks. Considering the happiness we all got from these performances maybe we need to revisit how we look after these people when there careers are finished, by this I don't necessarily just mean money.

Three Cups of Tea

I have to write about "Three Cups of Tea". It has been months since I read it in the wilds of Indonesia and If my thoughts haven't crystallised yet they never will.

"Three Cups of Tea" is the story of American mountaineer turned humanitarian Greg Mortenson. At 34 Mortenson has given his life to mountaineering, it has cornered his goals, shaped his identity and driven his ego. The narrative starts with Mortenson lost among the moraines of the Baltoro glacier during his retreat from an unsuccesful attempt at K2. He is lost both literally and metaphorically. Food is running short, but more important is Mortensons state of mind, he is befuddled and confused. As directionless in the vast awesome space of his head as he is amongst the vast current of ice.

He finds himself briefly, only to take another wrong turn and arrive at the remote village of Korphe. The kindness of the mountain people inspires and enlightens him. He vows to return and build them a school. He does. He also builds them a bridge, and he builds other schools around the area, eventually forming the Central Asia Institute now active in some of the most remote areas of both Pakistan and Afgahnistan as this map shows. One of the rays of hope in adesperate situation.

The narrative follows Mortenson as he has the balls to follow through his promise and endures the initial hard times. He types out 100's of applications and requests for funding, before discovering the efficiencies of email, and only one is successful. He keeps struggling and eventually attracts the attention of a donor. He returns to Pakistan in triumph, only to learn that there will always be problems. He works through these problems and gets things done. He gets the school made in Korphe, and he wins the respect and admiration of these people and their neighbours.

It seems his luck changes, he falls in love and is married, money becomes less of an issue and tribal leaders seek him out to ask for his help. The book concludes with him staring out over Afghanistan realising the enormity of his mission. A mission which judging by the map above he continues to move towards achieving. The book is well written, although its American-ness grates sometimes, but the truthfulness and honesty of Mortenson's story shines through. The tears in my eye were not from gladness at all the children been given the opportunity to learn, although this is an honourable endeavour. They were from watching the story of a lost soul unfold. Watching a man have the courage to find his purpose. A simple message really: don't sit around doubting what you can achieve, just get out there and do something.

Taramakau to Hawdon

It was 5 o'clock on a Friday. Sitting on the couch I was thinking about heading to the Wobbly for a beer. From the couch I could just see the false summit of Mt Cassidy, paste on the pastel blue sky. I was too tired from too many late nights, but geez I didn't want to be one of those outdoor instructors who lost their passion for the outdoors after all of two weeks in the job!

It was 6 o'clock on a Friday, Mum and Dad dropped me off at Aickens, the nothing town where the Otira meets the Taramakau. Its a Bermuda triangle of braided river, gorse and farm history. I only remembered enough about this place to remember it was a pain in the arse. This time though it was kind, the river crossings aligned to the track marker on the far bank. The rough shelter was still there and the forgotten forest grotto where springs emerge from the mountain crystal clear, I remember these places now.

Up the Taramakau towards Harpers Pass, where my ancestors used to cross barefoot in a hurry. Hungry for the food and resources of the Tasman Sea. There have been other interesting journeys here to. Grant Hunter covers most of them in his book. More recently my friends Joe and Tim decided it would be a good idea to haul a Duo (a very heavy plastic whitewater tandem) over here and paddle it down the Hurunui to the sea, and even more recently well-known outdoors personalities Steve Moffet and Steve Gurney did the same, be it in a more Mark Twain fashion. Both these later attempts were honouring an early crossing of the pass by as Tim says, some "hard bastards", the Park Brothers.

It would have been prudent to hurry up the valley, but it felt so great to be back in the mountains. I was finding everything beautiful; the lone hare scampering across the wide riverbed, the young gorse against the rich red lichen. The mountains appeared in turn; Pfeiffer, which Penny and I climbed years ago, and then Franklin as I crossed the heavy blue Otehake. A sprite bottle, washed up, gave me the extra vessel I had regreted not bringing. Pairs of paradise ducks headed downriver on dusk (why?). My mate Aaron is always stoked by Paradise ducks, he thinks their call sounds like “fuck me”, “fuck me”, over and over. I've never heard it myself, but still when I see a lumbering, hoary, honking duck I think of Aaron.

I reached the turn-off to Townsend Hut as darkness fell. The sign was half buried by a regenerating alluvial fan. The track was straight up the creek bed to start with, then up the windfall. Sometimes you just want to push fast forward, but then you settle into your work and start enjoying it. I quickly learnt that my brute strength was lacking, 45 minutes up the hill I was borderline hypoglycemic and the end was nowhere in sight. Glowworms kept me company for a while then the first milestone came when I started noticing dracophyllum leaves on the track (and slipping on them). These weren't the longifolium (or turpentine scrub) variety but one of those Dr Suess like specimens. The next milestone came when the track levelled off and the stars came out. It only remained to track the snow poles to the hut through long tussock.

I had been half hoping for some company and conversation, but the hut was empty. The last party had come through in June. I fed myself with cabin bread and cheese and amused myself by reading the hut books. Townsend hut is one of those huts that only a small group of people come to, if you've been around for a while in the New Zealand bush the names are familiar. There are your friends, your acquaintances and the people you know of. Then there are those tramping "celebrities": Geoff Spearpoint, John Rhodes, Shaun Barnett, Pat Barrett et al. You're doing well to beat them to a hut. At times theres nostalgia also, couples you know that have split, people that have died. Hut books give a quick fix of history.

The next morning the weather was clagging in from the north. I was heading south all day so figured things would only get better. The climb up Mt Koeti was straight forward, sidling gently across tussocky basins and curving up an easy ridge. The view from the top was minimalist. Upended cairns the only evidence of more extravagant times.

Snow slopes favoured me as I headed southish on a compass, sidling beneath dubious outcrops on the ridge. While the golden rule of tops travel is "stick to the ridge", sometimes a calculated sidle may be faster. Further along a lovely fault line saved me more climb as I headed towards Rover Saddle.

I sat down for breakfast and a moulting chamois wandered past below me. I have never seen such a cat in the hat like creature. It bounded, oddly inefficient, in circles through the snow. Staring at me quizically, completly absurd, just like this animation.

After Rover Saddle I thought point 1751 was going to take some time, its jagged ridge looks broken and chossy, but the southern side had just the right amount of snow for a quick steep sidle, and before I knew it I was on the low peak of Scarface looking down at Lake Minchin. Lake Minchin has always held some sort of cryptic appeal to me. I don't know whether it was the unusual name, or a great photo in one of the mountain books we had growing up. Either way I had never seen it before and it was great to look down on it from up high.

The ridge along Scarface is fun. Just a scramble with the odd steeper bit on relatively good rock (relative starting from a very low standard). From here you can see the Poulter sweeping away to the south-east, now a nice mountain bike ride, as DOC look at ways to bring mountain bikes into National Parks. I descended Scarface direct to Worsley Biv, a nice A-Frame shelter named in honour of one of New Zealands greatest navigators, Frank Worsley, best known for his role in Shackletons Antarctic Expeditions. The plan had been to head over Trudge Col, the established route to the Hawdon, but from reading the hut book, this sounded far too slow, and I wanted to have a look at Mt Valiant. Heading up Trudge Stream I headed left, climbing above and then into a side creek that drains a large slip shown on the topo map. The route proved clear and provided easy access to the tops.

I avoided the final broken ridge of Mt Valiant by sidling slow and climbing snow and screes up the north-western side. The view was worth it. All sorts of peaks and ridges from the Nelson Lakes to the Rakaia and the Paparoas.

An easy descent down snow slopes and scree saw me enconsed for a long sleep at the new East Hawdon Biv. Left only with an easy wander out to the Hawdon Road end for an arranged midday pick-up by Mum and Dad. Better than sitting on the couch I reckon.

Who is writing the headlines at Stuff?

Whoever is writing the headlines at Stuff needs to start thinking. Here are two follow-up articles on todays big and incredibly sad stories:

"Daring attacks reveal vulnerability"

"Airbus A320 'reliable'"

The days news that also includes the death of a local Wanaka climber, potential environmental damage in Doubtful Sound from a sunken boat and Clint Rickards admitted to the bar is terrible.

UPDATEI couldn't help myself, I had to use Stuff's feedback function for the first time. I'm quite proud of my restraint:

"I have never commented on Stuff before, but your headline "daring attacks show vulnerability" crosses my threshold. Do you know the meaning of "daring"? Daring is what your CEO was when he was a tough halfback, it should never be associated with cowardly terrorism and the slaughter of innocent people!"