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Published: December 14th 2012
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Keas this morning proving to be a complete pain in the cockhole, I can understand now why they call them the clowns of the south. I was trying to get sorted for a day’s trek and I had 3 of them around me being all way to inquistive for my liking. Running off with bottle caps, piercing a hole in my tube of toothpaste, trying to de-lace my trainers, as well as being like the kids from the estate their also a bit like the fat older chav at school who think’s that its hilarious to run off with the littler kids football at lunch break. Well it’s not big, and it’s certainly not clever. Keeping an eye on each of them was tricky enough, a flock of them would have just been devastating.
After fending off the parrots I set off up to Avalanche Peak via Scott’s Track, some 1833 metres. According to non-fictitious legend it was meant to be the hardest day trek on the south island. I was already marginally feeling it in my thighs from my brisk 400 yard walk from the car park to the start of the track, that’s how fit I presently am!
I’ve trudged up higher mountains in my time, just not exactly recently. So I had a feeling that this trek was going to definitely set me through my paces, especially after an alcohol fuelled several months in Christchurch (What else is there to do?).
To a snob I wouldn’t look the part when I go on one of my little tirades up a mountain. A friend once told me when I went on a trek that I looked like a city boy. West Ham shirt, Puma jacket, denim jeans and a pair of Adidas classics, you get the picture. But what can I say? I’m a frugal guy when it comes to the price of comfort. Instead of forking out 100’s on professional hiking clobber I’m more than content to wear the same clothes I’ve worn since 1997, as at the end of the day I’m still going to be doing near enough the same thing, going up a mountain and them coming back down the bastard, regardless of style. Plus Adidas classics are multi-formatted, there’s exactly no reason why one can’t wear them for the majority of occasions, sports, trekking, dates, the pub, the club, escaping gingers, AA
meetings. Just don’t wear them to the beach or the pool that’s all.
But when it comes to the question of style of pace, I’d definitely commit to being a ‘trudger’. Storming up the mountain path my adrenaline was pumping, oxygen again flowing more freely to the brain for the first time in months, I felt back in my element, I had that special glint of freedom that every human being naturally craves from time to time. There’s a distinct inspiration that one can derive through the freedom of trekking in the wilds, it loosens up those creative atoms somewhat, perhaps to the point that one day it may well give me that creative spur to come up with an idea to make me my millions, like mittens for pigs or something…..PIG MITTENS!!!
Erm….anyway, moving on….traversing my way up the studded, rocky beaten path towards Avalanche Peak, surrounded by a spontaneous glow of different variations of greenery I encountered a bit of a strange feat. From one side of the pass I had the sun blazing down upon me keeping things spicy, yet directly above me, like an unexpected blowie from an old friend it began to snow.
It was quite a surreal sensation to muster.
Naturally with all mountains the higher up you get the colder it gets, the vegetation becomes more sparse, the gradient gets more steep, it becomes more rocky and the slips and trips become all that more inevitable. The chill factor in this circumstance was quite instantaneous, it felt no remorse and as I looked up towards a moody snow-capped summit, rocky crags sticking out here and there with no real business in mind apart from just being….well, rocky, the situation made me shudder. I threw on a fleece and another jacket and a pair of woollen gloves and found myself contently snug as a bug and ready to continue further up the mountain.
I did question myself mind. ‘Daniel, aren’t you a little bit out of your element here?’
‘Yes Mam, I mean yes Sir’ I replied.
‘But you’re going to proceed anyway right?’
‘FUCK YEAH!’
And so the trudge continued.
Through the initial shock of exercise my body had now become accustomed to the physical workout it was being committed to. And as the wind became ever-more sinister, the surfaces became steeper and at
times there were sheer drops either side of me, it was all becoming more slippery than a Barrymore rape charge. The closer I got to the summit the more intimidated I felt.
At around noon I stopped for a sarnie and perhaps endured one of my favourite ever…EVER moments. Sat on a craggy nub overlooking Arthurs Pass I was joined by a small group of Kea, a perfectly well behaved group of Kea as well I might add. Maybe they had a mutual level of respect at this altitude, the temptation to mob me and see me plunder to a comedic death just not in their best interests at this height. They, like me, just hanging out and admiring the fantastic view, although a sneaking suspicion tells me that they were also admiring the view of my cheese and tomato sandwich!
Once I’d finished my sandwich one of the Kea showed its true colours by calling me a cunt and flying off. But the rest remained and we all hung out together a bit longer in complete silence as I contemplated my next steps.
The ominous summit loomed and so I proceeded, a faint scream carried on
the wind as I proceeded. A few moments went by and I came across another hiker coming back down from the mountain. I asked him if he had made it to the summit to which he confirmed to me ‘No, too much snow.’ This was as I had feared, but I proceeded anyway just to see for myself, knowing damn well that I wasn’t willing to commit to being bollock deep in snow.
20 or so minutes later I’d made it to the point whereby the snow could and was more than likely to be a very deceptive agent. Just over knee deep in the stuff and about 20 metres from the summit I had to ask myself if I was demented enough to tackle the next hurdle? Anything could be hidden under there, glaciers, crevasses, ice caverns, paedophiles. A pole really would have been handy as a depth gauge here and not the height of my balls. To go any further would have been in seriously bad judgement.
‘Hey Daniel?’
‘What?’
‘You still going to go to the summit?’
‘FUCK NO!’ said aloud.
So I had to concede defeat, which was a shame
considering how close I was to the peak. But the risk element was high and I knew that I’d rather hang around a little longer yet than lay undiscovered in an ice cold trench for the next 130 years. This would gnaw at me for some time but the decision made sense, plus to top things off against my will I had the new Taylor Swift song jammed in my head, thus proving that I was in no stable frame of mind to go balls out to the summit.
In defeat I retreated to fight another day.
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