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Published: December 25th 2010
Before I launch into the day's tales, I need to let you all know that my phone is not playing the game any more. I made the mistake of opting for a touch-screen phone and the touch part of the screen is no longer willing to play (don't get me started on the design mind-set that chooses to rely on a single input source when multiple are available). I need someone to carry out an experiment for me. Please send me a text and then send me an email to say you've sent the text. Probably cheapest and easiest if one of the UK-based contingent does that. The experiment may only tell me that nobody has anything to say to me but, more importantly, it'll tell me what capabilities my phone is willing to entertain. If you've sent me a text recently and I haven't responded, I'm not being rude, my phone is 😊
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Christmas day dawned sunny here. Quick coffee and make xmas lunch to take with me to the mountains - don't get excited - it's the same as every other day's mountain food. Today's target is Mt Earnslaw - sadly nothing close to its summit
but merely a march up the Earnslaw Burn track to get a view of the mighty mountain.
Lots of slow day-dreamers on the road this morning which is only annoying because the road to Glenorchy undulates constantly and the current hire car I have has an automatic gearbox which it appears to think means it must automatically select the wrong gear at every opportunity.
Eventually reach the start point and park the car. Slightly surprised to see a wee camper van parked beside the burn - no sign of life anywhere near it - either they're sleeping off last night's excesses or they've wandered up the track. Not sure how I can tell but it looks more like it was parked up for the night (under the trees, off the track?).
Anyway, off I march. Check the burn itself and think it might - but only might - be fordable at some points but only with the aid of wet feet. Anyway, don't need to ford here as the quite obvious track heads up into the woods and up the true right of the burn. March off through the woods at quite an incline with the burn
Scott Creek
and Mt Earnslaw bathed in snow in the distance getting lower and lower alongside. The track swiftly turns into a hint of a path but I allay my slight fears of being able to navigate my way back down by noting I can just keep the burn on my right on the way up, left on the way down. Come to a wee ridge that will involve a choice so I improvise a sign for myself by lifting a hefty fallen branch and balancing it on the stump of a dead tree, showing the way down.
The terrain gets steeper and I begin to wonder where the top of the bushline is. I can see very little at this point (the woods are too dense) but I can see the hillside on the other side of the burn and I'd guess there might be another 500ft or so of woods on that side. The terrain gets steeper. And then the terrain gets steeper. I pause for thought. I get the map out. Hmm - fairly sure this is not the same track any more. However, it would lead me up to the top of the bushline, then from there I could see my way along the ridge and,
apart from a couple of non-trivial undulations, I could be in clear sight of the summit. Still no chance of making the summit today but getting sight of it is good enough. Slightly excited by the thought of creating my own route up this mountain (this is definitely not an existing route now), I move on for a wee while. The terrain gets steeper. I note that what I've been ignoring for the past three days is indeed there again (q.v.).
The terrain gets steeper. I check the map again and convince myself that the bushline may well be a long way above me and there is actually quite a lot of serious mountain after that. I sigh heavily at myself and turn back. I'll ford the burn back down where I was supposed to (long way back now) - this is is not a good route. So back down to my sign - give it a grateful tap as I go past, noting it was a good idea - one bit of wood looks very much like another. I've experienced the same thing as this in different terrain in Scotland countless times. It's the walker's version of walking
around with a hammer and not being surprised when nails appear everywhere. Everything looks like a track when you think you're on a track.
Anyway, once back at the fording point, the fording point does not look good. I do not like the idea of wet feet before an 8hr hike so I change plan. I'm going to up Scott Creek instead. It's only a half hour drive from here and doesn't involve crossing any burns low down. Part way back out from the road to Earnslaw I pause to look back. There are three big, serious, probably not traversable "nicks" in the ridge line I was heading for - there would've been no chance of even attaining the summit ridge on that route.
So I scare some sheep as I begin the steep (but quite well marked) hike up the true right of Scott Creek. Behind me, the Dart valley spreads wider and wider as I rise and the majestic, snow-topped mountains toy with the bank of cloud that lies off to their west. There's hazy high cloud being driven into herring-bones by high winds so the sun is not as hot as it has been, making
for quite pleasant walking weather. But the terrain is steep (it appears to be the theme for the day) and I'm working through chest-high brush which keeps flicking bugs at my face. Despite that, the calves are happy and the ankles are silent.
I rise above the brush and into a wooded track that deserves the name. This is a proper track. Once again, there are many treefalls to negotiate (over, round, over, under - ouch). There are sections that require walking up a stream - if I'd done these in yesterday's downpours, I'd have been fighting my way up a torrent. There are sections where the earth around massive tree roots and the rocks they have claimed for their own has been washed away and the remains require a proper scramble. Great, great fun - this what hiking in the NZ wilderness is all about. The mountain faces are hanging above me but I can't yet get a clear view of them through the dense woodland.
A kit note. I carry a bladder (I don't mean my own, a plastic one) filled with water and it has a drinking tube with a closing "tap" on the end
Scott Basin
Xmas luncheon spot and a bite valve (a bit of rubber you bite on to open, then suck to tease the water out). When I'm using my day-pack (like today), the tube is a bit too long and I worry about it getting snagged on brush and pulling the bite valve off (it's only pushed on, not attached in any way) so I tuck the end of the tube into the side (mesh) pocket of my pack. Half way up the ascent, I'm pausing quite a lot to drink as the work is hard and I'm struggling to squeeze the tube end back into the pocket - it involves a contortion of the shoulder that is not pleasant when you have shoulders like mine (Phil the cardiologist may well have been right - I'm not sure the clavical has actually re-joined properly). So, having cleared the brush now and walking in open woodland I decide it's ok to let the tube hang free - there's very little for it to snag on here.
I find myself blissfully aware of being alive as the track rises and rises through ever changing terrain and then begins to level out. I reach round for my
Bite valve
just waiting patiently... tube to take a drink. Yeah, you're ahead of me, I know - the bite valve is gone. This is not disastrous but it is annoying. As long as I remember to push the "tap" closed after every drink, then I can save the water from piddling all down the back of my leg as I walk.
The track brings me to a glacial basin of much beauty. Burns, falls, rock-faces, ridges, and billowing cloud rise above me. The perfect xmas lunch spot. I spend some time watching the clouds struggle their way over the high ridge above me and repeatedly fail to pull the mass of their brethren over the ridge with them. It's a game that must be played most days of the year here - the weather rolling in off the Tasman onto the west coast then snagging itself on the long beautiful wall created by the southern alps.
Too soon I drag myself away. But if the clouds win now, I reckon I have an hour - at best two - before a couple of the wee creeks I crossed will not be fun to cross back over. I know it's easy to say this but I could've stayed up there. The temptation to scale the pass behind me and march down to Kay Creek was massive. There's even a wee hut down at the bottom of Kay Creek. But I only brought a day bag - no sleeping bag, no stove, no tramping food. And there is no route between here and Kay hut, I'd be making it up. If the weather held, it would be do-able but not in less than another five hours or so. It's four pm as I sit in Scott Basin so everything says it's not advisable. Pooh. Some day, I may become foolish enough to take these opportunities. More likely though, I'll come back some day and do this with a plan in mind and the correct kit to complete the loop that would then bring me out of the Caples valley - the reverse of the first tramp I ever did. I've only just realised this is possible and I'm already excited about it - what a child. What a joy 😊
The adult version of me heads back down Scott Creek, loving every moment of the scrambly, streamy, wet, brushy, annoying track. As I drop into the woods and begin the long steep downhill sections where foot purchase is poor, the bit I've been ignoring (and not telling you lot about) makes its presence known and, sadly, felt. I won't catalogue all the issues I've had with various parts of my legs but one of the worst (and most recurring) is achilles tendonosis. My right achilles is the worst of the two and it's the one that's been letting me know it's not 100% happy over the last three days. I can usually work through it by just being aware of it and make sure it gets a stretch and rub quite regularly.
When it decides it's had enough (and I've never managed to work what it is that pushes it over the brink) it begins to shout. It always feels tight on the ascent but, if it's had enough, it bellows its dissent all the way down the descent. Every step that involves either stretching it or compressing it leads to pain. I challenge you to descend a hill and please let me know how many steps you manage to make that don't either compress or stretch your achilles. In my case, not many. I have a fear memory for this. Fear memories are the ones you fear, the ones you dream about, the ones your mind brings to the forefront when you least want it to. I spent five extremely painful hours descending a steep gully from the summit of the stunning Buachaille Etive Mor when my right achilles had had more than enough of the endeavour. That cemented this fear memory, laid foundations for it that I cannot shift. It was one of those days that made me question whether I should ever go up a mountain again.
I've been up and down dozens, possibly hundreds of mountains since then but every time my achilles complains the fear memory is back. If it hurts that much again, I don't know if I'll come back up here again. The real fear is not about the pain - you put up with that and you get down whatever it takes. The fear is about what having experienced the pain might make you do. It might make you decide not to go up a mountain again. If you're me - which I am - that's a truly horrifying thought.
So I begin to manage the ankle down, try to minimise the number of down-steps I need to take with my right foot. This slows descent quite substantially but it's worth it if the achilles stops screaming. I try to distract my mind by making it look for the bite valve. The valve is blue and there's nothing else blue out here (we humans use an unnatural shade of blue that nature doesn't) and I haven't seen another human being all day (they'll all be at home stuffing themselves with excessive amounts of unhealthy food) so it does seem likely that it might be lying somewhere near the path. My mind doesn't buy the distraction and keeps reminding me of the achilles's presence with every step.
An hour or so later and the achilles is doing ok actually. The management seems to be appeasing the brain and the descent is actually speeding up. I'd almost forgotten I was looking for the bite valve when, on a stretch completely devoid of any brush to wrench it free from the end of the drinking tube, there it is. A very strange sight indeed. In the middle of a wood, on an inclined path, the bite valve is standing proud on one end in the middle of a flat-ish rock in the middle of the path. If there were any other humans here at all, I'd suggest someone had placed it there for me to find. But there's nobody here. It must've fallen off the end of the tube, bounced and somehow landed on its end. Slightly disbelieving, I pick it up, clean it and plug it back on to the end of the drinking tube.
I make it back down in good time. The wind is picking up but it's been a warm day and the snow on the tops is evaporating, creating cute little clouds above every summit around me. This planet is a magical place and this slice of it is blessed with an abundance of whatever dust it is that creates that magic.
Merry Christmas everybody.
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Iwan
non-member comment
phone
merry xmas and all concerning your Phone I'd be happy to text and mail I would however require your number and not sure about mailing you are you not pushing this account ? Regards iwan