AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND’S CLIMBING MAGAZINE
ON THIN ICE: MOUNTAINEERING IN A WARMING WORLD PUSHING BOUNDARIES WITH ALLIE PEPPER
WINTER 2023• ED43 • AU/NZ
RELIVING TIM MACARTNEY-SNAPE’S FIRST ALPINE ADVENTURE ICE CLIMBING: FROM BLUE LAKE TO CANADA’S WEEPING WALL
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HONING YOUR ALPINE MENTAL GAME
GAVIN LANG ON LIGHT | NAVIGATING ACCESS IN THE RED CENTRE | TOM O’HALLORAN, MACCIZA MACPHERSON AND BRENDON FLANAGAN ON FATHERHOOD
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WINTER 2023
WINTER 2023 VERTICAL LIFE IS PUBLISHED QUARTERLY
WINTER/SPRING/SUMMER/AUTUMN/ AUSTRALIAN MADE. AUSTRALIAN PRINTED. AUSTRALIAN OWNED. EDITORS
Coz Fleming Wendy Bruere Sule McCraies Joanne Lee team@verticallifemag.com
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Zac Merrion zac@adventureentertainment.com +61 499 661 101
SENIOR CONTRIBUTORS
Dave Barnes, Simon Bischoff, Max Gordon, Araminta McLennan & Mitchell Scanlan-Bloor.
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Dr Kate Baecher, Wendy Bruere, Hetty de Crespigny, Cassie Davis, Brendan Flanagan, Coz Fleming, Gavin Lang, Macciza Macpherson, Sule McCraies, Tom O’Halloran, Dr Heather Purdie, Louise Shepherd, Tim Macartney-Snape, & the British Newspaper Archives.
PHOTOGRAPHY
ON THE COVER
Jared Anderson, Martin Cankov, Simon Carter, Cassie Davies, Lewis Foster, Mason Gardner, Hayden Jones, Gavin Lang, Matt Quinn, Filippo Rosmann, Lakpa Nurbu Sherpa, Dawa Tenzing Sherpa, Caitlin Schokker, Tim Willesdorf, William Skea, Conor Vaessen, Jaz Morris, Ben Wallbank, Aidan Williams.
Karl Schimanski climbs at sunset on the West Face of The Remarkables, Queenstown, New Zealand, captured by Gavin Lang.
CREDITS IMAGE
Portrait of Gavin by Ben Wallbank.
Cassie Davies climbing where it all started for her and many other Australian mountaineers, Australia’s iconic Blue Lake, Kosciuszko National Park (Ngarigo Country), Australia. Image by Martin Cankov.
CONTENTS IMAGE
Lewis Foster snapping an unknown climber at Blue Lake, Amphitheater Crag Kosciuszko National Park (Ngarigo Country), Australia.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT IMAGE
Snake tracks on Pintubi-Luritja country. Image by Tim Willersdorf.
PUBLISHER
Toby Ryston-Pratt Founder & CEO Adventure Entertainment. ABN: 79 612 294 569
SUBSCRIPTIONS
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COPYRIGHT
The content in this magazine is the intellectual property of Adventure Entertainment Pty Ltd. It must not be copied or reproduced without the permission of the publisher.
DISCLAIMER
Rock climbing and other activities described in this magazine can carry significant risk of injury or death. Undertake outdoor activity only with proper instruction, supervision, equipment and training. The publisher and its servants and agents have taken all reasonable care to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this publication and the expertise of its writers. Any reader attempting any of the activities described in this publication does so at their own risk. The publisher nor its servants or agents will be held liable for any loss, injury or damage resulting from any attempt to perform any of the activities described in this publication. All descriptive and visual directions are a general guide only and not to be used as a sole source of information. Climb safe
Verticallifemag.com.au
VerticalLifeMag
VerticalLifeMag
WINTER 2023 9
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY Vertical Life acknowledges that we live, work, recreate and climb on stolen land, and that sovereignty was never ceded. We acknowledge Traditional Custodians across Australia and Aotearoa, and pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. We recognise the continuing connection of all First Nations peoples to Country and Culture across all lands and waterways since time immemorial, and we reaffirm our commitment to reflection, reconciliation and solidarity. Issue #43 of Vertical Life was printed on Wangal Country.
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CONTENTS WINTER 2023 . ED43. AU/NZ
12. EDITOR’S NOTE COZ 14. READ WATCH LISTEN ARAMINTA MCLENNAN 16. TAKING THE KIDS OUT TOM O’HALLORAN, BRENDON FLANAGAN AND MACCIZA MACPHERSON 20. HOW I GOT THE SHOT GAVIN LANG 26. LOCAL LORE HETTY DE CRESPIGNY 32. GETTING TO KNOW MADDY WHITTAKER 36. TO SCALE A MOUNTAIN TIM MACARTNEY-SNAPE 42. ON THIN ICE - MOUNTAINEERING IN A WARMING WORLD DR HEATHER PURDIE 48. PUSHING BOUNDARIES WITH ALLIE PEPPER WENDY BRUERE 54. JOURNEY TO WEEPING WALL CASSIE DAVIS 58. GALLERY 68. FROM THE ARCHIVES BRITISH NEWSPAPER ARCHIVES 70. MINDSET RESET DR KATE BAECHER 72. TALE OF WOAH LOUISE SHEPHERD 76. GEAR 80. BETA & BREW 82. CRAG COOKING
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EDITOR’S NOTE A shot of the aurora borealis in Talkeetna, Alaska (Dghelay Teht’ana ancestral lands) that Mitchell Scanlan-Bloor fought pretty hard to get, and one of my most vivid memories of shared awe. Honestly, the story behind it is wild, you should ask me to re-tell it over a beer sometime, I promise it’s dramatic!
THE POWER OF
Awe
As climbers, we have the privilege of being part of a global community of people who often get to access remote environments regularly, and because of that, climbers as a collective know a thing or two about being awestruck. A central feature that defines the experience of awe and the most applicable to us as climbers, is the concept of perceived vastness (Dacher, Keltner & Haidt, 2003), meaning the sheer magnitude of external stimuli in both physical and metaphysical terms. Put simply, when we’re faced with expansive environments, awe has the power to leave us feeling more connected to others and the world around us. For climbers, no environment has played more of an active role in the catalyst of these experiences, than the mountains. So potent is feeling awestruck, that the experience can be likened to “an altered state of consciousness akin to the flow state” (Allen, 2018)--which is something all of us climbers know all too well.
What makes a climber's relationship with awe distinctive from other outdoor communities though, is that we’ve built our collective history on a foundation of sharing it with others. The environments we climb in, and the experiences of climbers within them, have influenced generations of collective sporting achievement, undeniably brilliant written work, iconic imagery and dramatic visual storytelling through film–all with the purpose of building shared connections. It’s through these self-transcendent experiences in our climbing environments, that we learn to embrace the complexity of our individual and collective fragility, in a way that’s totally unique 12 WINTER 2023
to us. Having built a cumulative history on the foundation of experiencing awe in the places we climb and sharing that with others, we’ve collectively stitched together the fabric of an unspoken but undeniably powerful bond that all climbers should be proud to share. From hiking under a seemingly endless canopy of giant trees en route to the crag, witnessing the dappled rosy hues of alpenglow settle on a mountain peak for the first time, standing under the deep inky-black of the night sky while the aurora borealis explodes overhead, or simply experiencing an alpine environment so expansive and boundless that it leaves you lost for words– it’s these experiences of perceived vastness (Keltner, Haidit, 2003) that transform us as individual climbers and stitch us together as a climbing community. Inspired by the climbing community’s deep history of mountain storytelling and our own climbing-driven awe experiences, issue #43 of VL builds on that collective history, with 84 pages that speak to inspiration, challenge, fear and hope amongst a backdrop that influences us all–the mountains. We get a reflective look at how the enormousness of New Zealand’s Southern Alps sewed the seed for a life of equally enormous climbing achievements for Australian Mountaineering icon, Tim Macartney-Snape; while VL’s Assistant Editor Wendy Bruere explores the motivation behind Allie Pepper’s attempt to become the fastest person to reach the true summit of all 14 of the 8000m+ peaks, without supplemental oxygen.
Dr Heather Purdie shows us that the enduring power of the mountains can lead to a different type of career. As both a mountaineer and an Associate Professor at the University of Canterbury / Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha, Heather draws upon both her climbing and her research to explore how mountains are changing as the planet warms–giving us plenty to think about. Our cover photographer, Gavin Lang, speaks to his value of the mountains in his “How I Got The Shot” column, and reassures us that “every mountain adventure begins with uncertainty. Uncertainty creates the thrill of the unknown, which is necessary for personal growth”. The role mountains play in our personal growth is at the heart of Cassie Davies Journey to Weeping Wall, as she tells us how she transformed her life to chase ice in Canada. We get to know NZ Mountaineer Maddy Whittaker and her world-class attitude, through her incredible teenage introduction to the mountains. She reminds us that “when you are doing it, you are in awe of what’s around you”, getting us psyched for all winter climbing has to offer. On history and what we can learn, we have another brilliantly reflective piece on the risks of mountaineering in Louise
Shepherd’s column “Tale of Woah”. “From The Archives” features a piece called “Mountaineering For The Preservation of Youth and Beauty” written by Constance A. Barnicoat and originally published in 1910, speaking to a different kind of motivation to head for the hills. In “Mindset Reset” Dr Kate Beacher hones our mental game with an introduction to some of the considerations and attractions of moving from rock to the mountains. Closer to home, we take a look at a different experience of vastness inspiring awe, as we head to Mparntwe/Alice Springs with local climber Hetty de Crespigny, to better understand access on these ancient lands. Just as transformative and inspiring as the environments we climb in, are the people we share these moments with–so hearing from local climbing legends Tom O’Halloran, Brendan Flanagan and Macciza Macpherson on climbing and fatherhood, is a real treat. I hope you find awe wherever you’re climbing this winter, and that when you do, you continue our shared tradition as climbers by sharing it with others.
Coz Fleming (they/them) VL Managing Editor
READ WATCH LISTEN With Araminta McLennan
Read
LIFE LIVED WILD: ADVENTURES AT THE EDGE OF THE MAP BY RICK RIDGEWAY, PATAGONIA BOOKS
Summits, an aspiration for many an adventurer) to the ill-fated kayak trip in Patagonia with Doug Tompkins, and the making of cult adventure-meetsconservation film 180 Degrees South, he was there for all of them.
If you know Rick Ridgeway mostly due to some of his more notable ascents, you’d be in the same position I was before I cracked the spine on his memoir. I settled into the book expecting a bunch of daring tales told by adventurous lads driven by adrenaline and a sense of accomplishment. There definitely is some of that, but I’ve never been so happy to be fundamentally wrong. Instead I found: a love story; a thank-you letter to important people, transformative places and pivotal moments; and a chronicle of growth. As you make your way through the anthology you see Rick evolve from a dirtbag adventure addict to a considered and thoughtful environmentalist. At around 400 pages (edited down from almost twice that) the hefty tome contains 25 separate stories and is a testament to the sheer volume of adventure Ridgeway has experienced in his life. From the multi-peak quest of Dick Bass and Frank Wells (which launched the concept of the Seven
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The focus of each story is less on Ridgeway as the protagonist and his achievements, but more on the experiences, places and people that impacted him along the way. He writes about the Chang Tang traverse to track the migration of endangered chiru to further the research of George Schaller, and about supporting rising-star photographer Joe Riis on his project to protect the migration corridor of the endangered pronghorn. Like some sort of explorer vigilante, he discovers, he learns, and then quietly moves on. His respect for the people that made each adventure and for the places he was privileged to experience comes through
in his writing. In the chapter “The Two Burials of Jonathan Wright” he recounts both witnessing the death of his friend Jonathan after an avalanche struck them in Nepal, and 20 years later taking Jonathan’s daughter Asia on a journey to find where her father was buried. We see Rick’s deep respect for Asia, her father, and the mountain that took his life. As a multi-talented creative, Rick’s book is full of evocative photos. The images go beyond showcasing naturally beautiful places, though. Ridgeway also shares personal letters, messages and moments of tenderness that allow you to connect with him on a personal level. Ridgeway balances his desire to explore with considered reflection on the impact we have on the places we explore. I came away from reading feeling inspired—and educated.
ISSUE 43 | VERTICALLIFEMAG.COM
Listen
WINTER IN PAKISTAN: FOR THE LOVE OF CLIMBING
Ian Overton is (I think) the only American to attempt to climb Pakistan’s “Killer Mountain” Nanga Parbat in winter. When discussing it later he commented, “I can’t say they sent the best or the brightest, but they sent somebody.” One from the archives, this episode of For the Love of Climbing gives refreshing space to the reality of alpinism and winter climbing: not every attempt leads to a summit; it’s important to know your limits; and, of course, it’s always best to go with a strong support crew.
Content warning: This podcast discusses PTSD, physical and mental trauma.
Over 45 minutes, Ian Overton shares his journey as a climber, and the seemingly random and fortuitous connections and events that led to him attempting this notoriously challenging adventure. With disarming honesty, he details a borderline slapstick series of unfortunate events that go from bad to worse. Starting with a bad
omen in the form of a dead goat before they’ve even reached the mountain, Ian endures an avalanche-driven descent, and finally avoids jail by pretending to be a doctor (not entirely baseless, given his EMT training). The end sees not a summit, but a need to abandon the attempt altogether. Speaking about the impact of the journey on his physical and mental health, Ian details navigating PTSD upon his return to “real life”. There is a humbling openness to his story, validating that even if you’re doing something you love, it can be hard and it can be traumatic. And it can challenge and change you both during and long after your experience. Available online at Fortheloveofclimbing.com
Watch THE NUTCRACKER: MATT CORNELL & CONRAD ANKER The visually stunning Winter Dance Wall in Montana’s Hyalite Canyon is one that would tempt any eager ice-climber. In this film, its ethereal expanse sets the stage for a spectacular ascent. The Nutcracker follows Matt Cornell as he attempts the first solo climb up the titular route, established by co-star Conrad Anker. The film highlights how Cornell takes the time to connect with the area, immersing himself in the ecosystem and learning to work alongside the mountain and its inhabitants. The goat cameos offer delightful comic relief. More than a highlight reel to the attempt, the film explores the history of the area, in terms of both climbing and the natural world. There is homage to Anker’s late friend Alex Lowe whose first ascents
sparked a legendary legacy. Anker doesn’t shy away from sharing the emotional weight that being in the area and supporting this climb has for him.
next thing to test his limits. The gravity of the attempt isn’t lost on him, with constant references to his own mortality and mental state.
We often wonder what exactly it is that drives climbers to attempt extraordinary exploits like this one, and this is something a number of characters consider throughout the film. For Cornell, it’s the process of finding the
Spoiler alert: you never actually see Cornell send it. We’re just told the date it happened. He kept it to himself when he did it, and I think that’s kinda nice. Available on YouTube.
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CRAG DADS
TAKING THE KIDS OUT: DADS TALK CLIMBING Words by Tom O’Halloran, Brendon Flanagan and Macciza Macpherson
The camaraderie of the crag is a highlight of many a climbing day out, connecting with our chums as we cheer each other on. But it’s not just our buddies we bond with; it’s family too. In honour of the upcoming Hallmark holiday of Fathers’ Day, we reached out to some of our favourite crag dads to hear why they love climbing with their little ones.
BRENDON FLANAGAN, MANAGER AT THE AUSTRALIAN SCHOOL OF MOUNTAINEERING, AND HIS DAUGHTER ALEXANDRA (8)
Alexandra was six months old when we started going to the climbing gym as an alternative to the park. A stimulating environment with upbeat music, padded mats, ropes, colourful holds and, of course, people climbing. Okay, yes, we were there for me as well. With climbing temporarily placed on the back burner when she was born, our visits allowed me to return and see my climbing buddies whilst introducing Alexandra to a very special place. Alexandra would crawl and bum shuffle to her heart’s content, bright lights shining on the wall highlighting a world of wonder. I’d follow her around, completely captivated by her own captivation. I wanted her to fall in love with climbing, but I had to be mindful not to force it on her. It had to happen naturally, like it did with me. I continuously reminded myself that I was nurturing the most important climbing partner I would ever have. The time arrived, and I took Alexandra to buy her first harness. I think she may have been just as excited as I was. Eventually, she got shoes and a helmet before I introduced her to my favourite crag, Mt Alexandra. Before you say anything, we named her Alexandra because it’s my wife’s middle name! My most memorable climb was at this crag as Alexandra and I top-roped on adjacent routes. We both stopped halfway up where I traversed over and gave her a kiss. Someone captured this moment, and I often find myself looking at this photo. As I’d hoped, Alexandra fell in love with climbing, and we regularly daydream about our first multi-pitch. I have, however, become increasingly aware of a particular challenge she could face. A number of female climbers I know have shared personal experiences about a lack of equality within our community—instances of subtle, and notso-subtle, sexism. Being a doting father, I find myself in a fortunate position to contribute to change by creating future role models. As the Sydney manager for the Australian School of Mountaineering, I reach out to female climbers, offering opportunities to become rock climbing instructors. It’s exciting to see more women now wearing the yellow shirt of an ASM instructor, but it’s even more exciting to see my daughter climb with them.
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ISSUE 43 | VERTICALLIFEMAG.COM
TOM O’HALLORAN, PROFESSIONAL
CLIMBER AND AUSTRALIAN OLYMPIAN, AND HIS DAUGHTER AUDREY (9)
Audrey doesn’t really care about climbing. Nor does she care what I, or her mum, have done in climbing. All she’s interested in is getting to swing from the anchors. “Dad, have you got to the top yet? I want to swing out over those trees.” It’s equally great and annoying hearing this. “Buddy, I’m just resting on this hold for a moment, I’ll try my best to get there.” Then we play a game of, Come Here, Go Away, from the TV show Bluey. This involves pushing her out for a big swing, and as she’s coming back in, you pretend you have something really important you need to tell her. As she comes right back next to you, you start saying the important thing. However, she’s reached the apex of her swing and is whizzing back away from you, so you say, “Hey, come back, I have something really important to tell you. Come here, come back!” But she’s sailing off into the distance. It’s a classic and leads to lots of giggles. About every third time we head out, she’s keen to pull on and give climbing a crack. We had a little stint in late 2021 where she was super keen, and we were getting out as a family a few times a week. We tried to keep the momentum, but the rain kicked in and life kicked off. We haven’t managed to get back there.
I’ve reflected on that time and realised, I think, she enjoyed it because they were her days, as much as ours. No one likes being a third wheel, especially if the wheel needs to be at a cold, windy, dusty cave and has run out of chocolate milk. I’d like to try and recapture that time and energy again and see if the climbing thing bites for her. Far out, it’s a fun way to spend your time. There are just so many cool things we could all do together. But that’s just me. It's also pretty fun to make Lego constructions and draw with her and go along to her music and dance concerts. Chat to adults who don’t have knackered skin from falling off small edges and see a world outside our bubble. It’s a cliché, but there’s as much to learn from your kid as you have to teach them. At a certain point, we’ll be playing Come Here, Go Away for real. She’ll be a teenager wanting space, hanging with friends and moving out of home. I’m not ready for that. “Come back.” I want every moment until then to count. However it comes. WINTER 2023 17
CRAG DADS TAKING THE KIDS OUT
“It’s okay for you,” Taryn, then 8, commented to Zac. “You’re not the one about to go over the edge of the cliff...and die!” Or maybe it was some other equally melodramatic child-type comment from my youngest daughter that I recall hearing. Zac had been helping with the logistics of getting my three daughters, Raien,12, Shana, 11, and Taryn, out for their first major abseil. They already had the basics down, this was just bigger. And, after overseeing her two elder sisters' descent, it was now Taryn’s turn. As we dropped over the edge her tenseness dropped away. “Wow, are those people down there? They look like ants—they’re tiny! Oh, and there’s sissies [Three Sisters]…They look so small.” We were of course abseiling down my favourite cliff, the mighty 100m Dogface, to spend the night at my camp. I’m sure they still remember the experience. I certainly do. Then there were the times when we would go outdoors climbing, even without a car, catching the train to Blackheath and walking down the bush track to Shipley. “Look at the cute snake!” Shana once said as she stepped over a small whip snake on the track down. Rocking up at the crag with three pre-teen girls in tow would often lead to offers of belay assistance, from people asking if I wanted to climb.
MACCIZA MACPHERSON,
BEARDED TRAD GRANDDAD, AND HIS NOW-ADULT DAUGHTERS
RAIEN, SHANA + TARYN A “Climbing with Kids” story in just 400 words? Haha, that’s right, you VL editors don’t have kids. Kids are worth a thousand words…or something like that. “Oh, daddy! You got me rocks! I love them,” my then 5-year-old daughter Raien proudly squealed. Not quite, the climbing holds were actually for me. Well, to make a small wall the kids could climb on too, but it was near her birthday or Christmas, or something. Aaah, a heartmeltingly proud dad moment… 18 WINTER 2023
“Nah, all good, just gonna set up some topropes for my kids. My eldest can belay me, it’s not like I’m going to fall, cheers,” I’d say, often getting some interesting responses. Perhaps the best comments were when people remarked on how good my daughters’ footwork was. Of course it was. They had been climbing from toddlerhood and learnt to climb as they learnt to walk, after all. So yeah, climbing with kids is great, you should try it sometime. Borrow some if you don’t have any of your own lying about… If you like it, with a bit of practice, you could get some of your own. But beware, girls will be girls, and quicker then you can say “Ewbank Rocks” they may combine their love of climbing and dance, and take up “Cheerleading”, like mine did. It’s a far more dangerous sport than climbing, and for my daughters it led to many injuries. Though should a climbing accident befall you, one positive of having climbing kids is that they will understand and visit you every day in hospital. Mine did.
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HOW I GOT THE SHOT WORDS AND IMAGES BY GAVIN LANG
On a four-day traverse of the NZ Alps, mountain guide and photographer Gavin Lang took these two incredible shots—one a sunset shot from a crevasse where he and his partner made camp, and one the next morning as they continued on at sunrise. Read the full story—and many more—in his recent book, Seeking the Light, as he ice climbs, rock climbs and skis his way to photographing NZ’s 24 highest summits. 06:53, January 15, 2020 Lukas setting off from Middle Peak Hotel after an open bivouac. The morning light is tinged with yellow-orange haze from recent Australian bushfires.
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ISSUE 43 | VERTICALLIFEMAG.COM
WINTER 2023 21
HOW I GOT THE SHOT GAVIN LANG
19:02, January 14, 2020 The view from Middle Peak Hotel, a large accommodating crevasse just below Middle Peak of Aoraki/Mt Cook, where Gavin and Lucas spent the night.
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ISSUE 43 | VERTICALLIFEMAG.COM
The highly sought after grand traverse, or “High Mile”, on Aoraki/ Mt Cook involves ascending High, Middle and Low peaks. It’s up to the climber to choose the direction, route and descent on what is guaranteed to be a memorable undertaking. The first recorded traverse across the 1.5 kilometres of ridge line was in 1913. It was hailed as a historic achievement, especially so because the group included a woman, Freda du Faur—the first female climber known to be active in New Zealand. For those not content with the original version, a remixed and remastered Long Player—including Mt Dampier, Mt Vancouver and Malaspina—packs an exhilarating range of climbing styles, conditions and challenges. If you like to sleep in a warm, cosy bed at night rather than throwing yourself into the anxiety of keeping your shit together during multiple uncomfortable days and nights, this is not for you. But if you pick your weather window and travel light, you have a chance to enjoy the sunsets and sunrises from the most incredible vantage points in New Zealand, well away from the madness of crowds, and experience some exhilarating terrain that is as unrelenting as it is rewarding. Joining me was Lukas Kirchner, an enthusiastic, do-it-all adventurer. We chose to gain the Low Peak via White Dream on the South Face of Aoraki, the first pitch of which would prove to be the hardest of the entire climb. This meant, however, that if we or the route were not in condition, we could figure this out early on and retreat. Beyond here, if conditions are ripe, a long stint at altitude awaits you beyond the technical crux. Every mountain adventure begins with uncertainty. Uncertainty creates the thrill of the unknown, which is necessary for personal growth. It keeps us on our toes, spurs resourcefulness and makes us more resilient. And resilience plays a vital role in survival. Despite a mountaineer’s need to manage risk and stay in control, a paradox of mountaineering emerges: without risk, there is no reward. We reached the top of Pudding Rock mid-afternoon and set up our lightweight bivouac. At 2am the following morning, stars sparkled over our tentless bivvy, and below us the head torches of two friends skimmed across the glacial moraine, fluttering rapidly back and forth. Alastair McDowell and Rose Pearson were applying the fast and light style of ‘trailpinism’ in an attempt at a sub-24-hour grand traverse of Aoraki. We, on the other hand, took a slovenly two hours to pack up our down quilt, roll mats, eat our breakfast and get moving. —--Light emerged early on, poking through the darkness, and good conditions on the Noeline Shelf helped get us to the start of the route quickly. The sun clipped the top of La Perouse and a light show began across the valley, but we knew the South Face wouldn’t get sun until early afternoon. As we neared White WINTER 2023 23
HOW I GOT THE SHOT GAVIN LANG
Four pitches of steep, challenging ice, including two long simul-climbing pitches, brought us level with the hanging serac to our right. It felt comforting to know that a colossal collapse of the icefall couldn’t harm us anymore. I cannot imagine what even a fist-sized piece of fast-moving ice could do to a climber moving through a difficult ice section.
—---We woke that morning at one, but after three nights of bivouac, we were feeling weary. Insulating against the elements is a difficult task. When it’s done well, the extra weight and bulk required to carry the gear makes climbing technical ice or rock limiting. Our compromise was to use wafer-thin roll mats and share an ultra-thin duvet. It gave us just enough shelter to not freeze, but comfortable and salubrious it was not. Almost in unison we proclaimed how happy we were that it was time to get moving: “Thank fuck that’s over.”
Our destination, Middle Peak Hotel, was visible across the upper Empress Shelf and with just the Low Peak to tag en route, we took our time over lunch before setting off.
We prized Lukas’ disintegrating foam mat from the frozen snow, grateful it had survived the few nights. We began our morning with an easy downhill march across the Linda Shelf.
Once installed in the highest penthouse suite in New Zealand, we finished dinner and got organised for an early night. We marvelled at the sunset, yet although the sun is incredibly warming, once it goes below the horizon it’s best to be tucked away in bed. We were nearly 2000 metres higher than Pudding Rock; it was a lot colder.
The air was still and the stars were bursting all around. Well below us, the flashing lights of another climbing party on the Linda Glacier strobed around on the ice at Teichelmann’s corner. The first signs of daylight had not yet appeared but the towering presence of the North Ridge of Aoraki could be seen where there was an absence of stars.
The views south towards Low Peak and Mount Cook Village, the lights and the cellphone coverage all created a strangely ‘connected’ feeling, when the reality of isolation was obvious. It seemed implausible to be so remote but be able to call home.
We reached the summit of Dampier shortly after 7am, followed by Mt Vancouver before 10am, and finally Malaspina.
Dream, I still had doubts about its condition. It was mid-summer, and the freezing level was very high, but it would reach its peak over the next few days, so it was now or never.
At dawn the sun pushed through the high cloud, splashing the glaciers and peaks around us with dazzling light. The dust in the air from the recent Australian bushfires amplified the rays in a rare way for this part of the world, far from big cities and pollution. The sky in the Southern Alps is usually clear but the valley haze and the yellow-tinged fair-weather cumulus made it feel like climbing in the French Alps. It was refreshing from a photography perspective to have this dusty yellow sky, but also disturbing to see the effects of raging forest fires thousands of kilometres away. As we set off we had the luxury of moderately hard snow, a texture we call polystyrene. This firm, squeaky snow aids easy cramponing. The sharp ridgelines were flattened off and only a small cornice existed. These details helped make movement fast and we moved from camp to the summit in a little over an hour. The High Mile was in the best condition I’ve ever experienced, and despite our dawdle and my indulging in photographs and film, we made good progress. We stopped for a while and contemplated bivvying near the summit to catch the sunset, but with so many hours of daylight left, our priority was finding respite from the radiation. Moving quickly down the straightforward rock and ice steps on the summit rocks, we reached the schrund at the top of the Linda Shelf. We began to create shade by rigging the bothy bag over our heads with poles and axes.
24 WINTER 2023
At the summit block of Malaspina, I darted about snapping photos as Lukas climbed the compact red rock. The soft wet snow acted as a kind of safety net. I couldn’t belay until he had placed some gear, then just a few metres shy of the summit, he found the first piece of protection and I scurried over through the calf-deep wet snow to offer a belay. I scrambled up to join him at the summit, content to sit and enjoy this rare piece of warm dry rock while the sun’s rays moved off the eastern snow slopes. After some time reflecting on our ultra grand traverse, we cantered down the Linda Glacier towards Plateau Hut. Grab a copy of Seeking the Light online via the Adventure Entertainment shop.
Photo: Ken Etzel © 2023 Patagonia, Inc.
Modern climbers are more accomplished than ever, and we don’t just mean on the wall. We’ve always valued boldness, whether that means having the vision to push highpoints into the unknown or having the audacity to demand more for our home planet. To be a strong climber means full commitment to the sport and to our communities. It means not just working towards futuristic first ascents, but working towards a better future. And we aren’t going to get there alone.
Bolder Together
Mariana Mendoza and Miguel Casar supporting each other on the unceded lands of the Mescalero Apache, Tampachoa, and Ndé Kónitsąąíí Gokíyaa (also known as Hueco Tanks). Climbing is a movement; so is the work to dismantle systems of oppression. Together, Mariana and Miguel work on prison abolition, youth justice and educational rights to build a world where everyone can assert their right to land, joy and life.
LOCAL LORE Hetty on Sickle (16) at Ormiston Bluff. By Tim Willersdorf.
CLIMBING AND CONSULTATIONS IN THE RED CENTRE WORDS BY HETTY DE CRESPIGNY
WHEN HETTY MOVED TO MPARNTWE, SHE WANTED TO KEEP CLIMBING, BUT WITHOUT CLEAR PERMISSION FROM TRADITIONAL OWNERS, OR RECORDS OF PAST CONVERSATIONS, SHE WAS UNSURE HOW TO PROCEED. SO SHE ESTABLISHED THE FIRST FORMAL GROUP TO BEGIN A GENUINE CONSULTATION PROCESS.
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ISSUE 43 | VERTICALLIFEMAG.COM
When you arrive by plane in Mparntwe/Alice Springs, the first sign you read at the airport is in Central Arrernte: Werte (welcome). From the moment you set foot in this town, it’s very clear that this is a place where language, culture and connection to Country run deep. Central Australia suffered fewer blows from settler Australia than areas on the east coast. Walking through Todd Mall you’ll hear in excess of seven different Aboriginal languages spoken by people who hold unbroken ties to their ancestral lands, much of which they hold either native title or freehold title over, recognised under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. Climbing here, you are keenly aware that you are climbing on someone else’s land, where people hold an unceded, continual connection to the rocks, sand, earth and waterways for the past 50,000 years. Dreaming tracks and sacred sites permeate the landscape with ancient names that are held and recorded, indisputable proof that this always was and always will be, Aboriginal land. Crimson ruby cracks, dusty orange ledges and salmon pink sunsets; I never knew there were so many different shades of red until I climbed in Central Australia. Over the last few years I’ve been fortunate to call Mparntwe home. I have experienced the joys of climbing in 40 degree heat, only minutes from home amongst ghost gums, red sand and quartzite seams overlooking vast desert plains. Access to climbing anywhere is laden with complexity, but here I felt a stronger urge to clarify what places had been properly discussed with traditional owners, before racking up and putting rubber on the crag. I met several climbers in town within my first few months, some of whom had climbed prolifically around the area, and others, who despite being passionate climbers, refused to get on the rock for fear that they would be offending the rights of traditional owners. Many of the climbers I met in Central Australia work closely with Aboriginal people in the region, so respect and strong relationships were common amongst climbers and traditional owners. Despite this, it became apparent to me after reaching out to climbing folk, that there was no access group, no clear record of adequate consultations and resulting permission to climb at any of the places listed on thecrag.com. And people were certainly still climbing at these places, often relying on third-hand information. I’d hear that “[so and so] spoke to a traditional owner who they worked with about climbing at [insert location] and they said they were fine with it.” But the details were always hard to confirm. Something didn’t feel right. I couldn’t help but think that climbing in potentially sacred areas as a non-Aboriginal person was an act of neo-colonialism. In the Northern Territory, there are large bodies like the Central Land Council (CLC) whose primary remit is to consult traditional owners on land use, in line with their traditional decision-making structures. The Northern Territory is the only jurisdiction in Australia where there is legislative provision for the return of inalienable freehold title to Aboriginal owners. The more I learnt about land tenure around Mparntwe, the more I feared that we were climbing without proper permission. The CLC
Filippo Rosmann at Emily Hills on Cerebral Vortex (17). By Irvin Bubar.
had clear processes for facilitating consultations for other land users on both Aboriginal Land and land with a Native Title determination. It was in stark contrast to taking a third-hand reassurance as permission to climb. The idea to really do something about it came from my friend Grace after an early morning climb at a crag located on a nearby cattle station, named Flintstones (the only place we felt vaguely okay climbing at). “Het, why don’t you just set up a meeting with all the climbers in town and start an access club? Open the conversation formally.” It seemed like a huge task to take on, but the decision was obvious. In August 2021, the first meeting took place in the backyard of my sharehouse, and Rockclimbers of Central Australia (RoCA) was born. I was filled with excitement and energy after 18 climbers around the table all agreed that it was time we clarified access to climbing sites in Central Australia. We all knew that there was a real chance that consulting properly with traditional owners over the half-dozen good climbing spots could result in a resounding “no” to further climbing. The most heartening takeaway from the meeting was the unanimous understanding that proper consultation meant being committed to accepting and respecting whatever decision we were given. Over the next two years, with the support of locals who had climbed in the area for years, RoCA began consulting with the NT Parks and WINTER 2023 27
LOCAL LORE CLIMBING AND CONSULTATIONS IN THE RED CENTRE
Ewerre (Rainbow Valley), Imarnte country. By Hetty de Crespigny.
Wildlife Service, who are the managers of most of the land where climbing occurs in Central Australia. Most of the parks around Mparntwe are jointly managed by NT Parks and traditional owners, and major decisions are made through a joint management committee, made up of representatives from traditional owner families for the land in question. We provided GPS locations of the major sites and requested that these be discussed at joint management meetings with traditional owners. One site we focused on was Boggy Hole, located in the Finke Gorge National Park (see Pete Wyllie’s VL article in Issue 36 for detail). RoCA arranged for videos and photos of trad climbing techniques to be shown to traditional owners at the Finke Gorge joint management meeting. This would help ensure that if consent was obtained, people properly understood the activity that was proposed—no bolting, no trace, trad climbing only. The traditional owners at the meeting were interested in the activity and wanted to support people to enjoy their hobbies in the national park, sharing their love of a beautiful place. They requested that they have more time to make their decision; there were Elders who would need to be part of the decision that were not present at the meeting. Proper consultation takes time, but the foundations on which RoCA was formed were clear: we would ask the question and follow the proper process. Other sites of focus included the Ormiston Bluff crag in Tjoritja National Park and the crags to the west of Emily Gap in Yeperenye Nature Park. After consulting with Parks, we confirmed that traditional owners had previously indicated they were supportive of people climbing here. A phone call to the ranger was recommended, and we were reminded that no new bolting was permitted. A very happy trip followed with several members of the club enjoying a delightful climb mid-May at Ormiston Bluff in 2022. This time of year the weather is truly a climber’s dream, with mornings cold enough that your hands don’t sweat but aren’t numb, the sun warming the rock by the middle of the day just in time for a lazy picnic in the middle of a dry sandy river bed. There are lots of good intro-level trad routes, with a classic 20m crack climb, Wham Bam Thankyou Jam (18), for the bold. Not a cloud in the sky, climbing in t-shirts in the early arvo sun, it felt like progress. 28 WINTER 2023
Josh Tram on Join the Q (16) Ormiston Bluff. By Tim Willesdorf.
This truly is a special place to live and work on, and to have the blessing of people whose connections run deep through the land left us with a feeling of gratitude as we sat by the campfire that night reflecting on the day’s adventures.
For updates on access in central Australia check out rockclimbersofcentralaustralia.org
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GETTING TO KNOW
Maddy WHITTAKER (SHE/HER) DUNEDIN, OTAGO
Maddy climbing on the North Face of Barrier, Darran Mountains, Fiordland. By Conor Vaessen
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ISSUE 43 | VERTICALLIFEMAG.COM
Maddy Whittaker discovered the mountains at 17 and launched herself into alpinism with inspirational—and slightly intimidating— passion. Just five years later, she’s undertaking a mentorship with the NZ Alpine Team and has first ascents, a two-month transalpine traverse and an award-winning film to her name. At VL, we had to know more! We caught up with Maddy to hear about how she got to where she is… and what she’s planning next. First up, tell us about the trans-alpine traverse and what inspired it One pivotal moment was a trip up Mount French, which is near Mount Aspiring on the Bonar Glacier, right after I had learnt snow craft. When we saw the sunrise over the glacier, I didn’t know I had the capacity to feel so much awe and joy. Coming back and leaving the mountains had always been my least favourite part of the trips I did; this time I thought, “Well, what if I didn’t have to leave?” Another pivotal moment was when I did my first new route—Mount Joffre, a 450m WI4 ice-route. I was new to ice climbing and I’d only done a few routes on top rope before I jumped on this massive thing. It was a 25-hour day and changed how I saw the mountains. All these faces I’d just brushed over in the past now looked climbable. Ice-climbing takes an amazing blend of creativity, problem-solving and trusting that you and your partner have all the skills to find your way safely up the mountain. It was addictive and was the start of me wanting to push into more technical climbing. I also wanted to spend a decent amount of time out in the hills and get to know the NZ Southern Alps really well. If you only go out in good weather, that’s only half of it. Going out for months in all weather, you see the mountains on their terms. So my partner Conor Vaessen, our friends Tom Hadley and Tōrea Scott Fyfe, and I picked a line that traversed the spine of the Southern Alps. We only really deviated from that when bad weather forced us to. And how was it? It was incredible to thread our way through these places. When you It was incredible to thread our way through these places. When you are doing it, you are in awe of what’s around you, but I don’t think I realised how hard some of the stuff was until I got back and looked at the footage. It was such a privilege to journey for so long with such amazing people. It really made me want to protect those places as well. But it didn’t end the way I wanted it to. I’d started my outdoor journey with the perspective that “the harder something is, the more personal growth I’ll get out of it, so if it’s hard I’ve got to just keep going”. Then on this traverse, I reached a point where I realised that to keep going was no longer the right thing. I had gotten really sick in 2020, six months before the traverse. I was throwing up multiple times a day and sleeping 17 hours a day. The doctors couldn’t figure it out, but I wanted to do the traverse anyway, so I went with a run-down body. Not absorbing food properly and throwing up constantly takes a physical and mental toll. Instead of a three-month trip, it became a two-month trip for me. It was hard to put a dream I’d worked towards for such a long time on
hold. In the outdoors your performance can be really tied up in your identity too. The Maddy I usually was would thrive in that place, and I didn’t, so I felt a real loss of self. So instead, you made an award-winning film about the experience? (Maddy’s film about the experience, Traversing the Night, won the best film in the NZ Mountain Film Festival in 2022.) I had initially thought I would make a film about the four of us doing this cool journey, but when I ended up leaving, it was quite emotional. I came back from the traverse and a lot of people just asked why I finished early instead of saying, “Wow, what an amazing two months!” After I worked through the emotional side, I decided to make the film. Most of the media out there is all about pushing through when it’s too hard, and I wanted to put an alternative out there. If I had seen something like that or had a role model who had done something like that, I think it would have given me permission to look after myself sooner. I lost a friend to suicide last year because she didn’t feel she could be open about her struggles, so it ties into that as well. It’s a 40-minute film, and maybe 30 minutes is about the traverse, and 10 minutes is about my mental journey. Changing my mindset away from objectives and learning to be more gentle with myself has been a challenge. I’ve changed over the last few years to focus more on the person I am in tough situations. Any climb where I have been able to remain positive, determined and kind is something I am proud of. I’ve worked hard to make sure I’m in the mountains because I love it, rather than because I am trying to prove something. You’re also a member of the NZ Alpine Team mentorship program— what is that exactly? Every three years the NZ Alpine Team does an intake of three to six people. Its aim is basically to develop the next generation of NZ alpinists and put NZ on the global stage for alpinism. The mentors are hugely experienced and have done expeditions all around the world. We just spent four weeks climbing in Canada as part of the program. In 2024, we’ll go to Yosemite to up-skill on rock and big walls. Then, in the third year of the mentorship, we will organise our own expedition. My intake is keen to go to Pakistan to bring big walling and alpine skills together. You have a pretty remarkable day job, too, helping preserve NZ’s stunning natural environment. I don’t know if you’ve heard of kākāpō? They’re green flightless parrots, and there are just 250 of them left. They’re critically endangered and
“If you only go out in good weather, that’s only half of it. Going out for months in all weather, you see the mountains on their terms.” WINTER 2023 33
GETTING TO KNOW MADDY WHITTAKER
Any climb where I have been able to remain positive, determined and kind is something I am proud of. only live on a couple of islands in New Zealand. My job is to look after them, particularly during breeding seasons, to make sure the chicks survive. So I basically tramp and bush bash for a living on these remote islands. I work four weeks on at a time, then I have two weeks off and go into the alpine world to pursue my objectives there. I’ve had to refine my training—I use a hangboard on the island. On the islands, I would usually walk 20km a day with a pack and 1000m elevation, so that takes care of cardio. I get a lot of joy out of being able to notice the small things at work and in the mountains, whether it’s the forest sparkling, the penguins near my hut or the colour of the ice. I get as excited about the shapes the wind has made in the snow, or the squiggles in the rock, as I do about the actual climb! There’s so much magic to be seen everywhere! How did mountaineering begin for you? I had never tramped or done anything outdoorsy before I was 17. Then at the beginning of 2018, I went on Outward Bound. It was a threeweek course, and I suddenly realised, “Here’s this entire world that I didn’t know was there!” Those courses are designed to push you, and the more I was challenged, the more I liked the person I became in that space. I can be a bit of an all-or-nothing person, so it wasn’t like, “I’ll do a couple of trips”. It was, “This will be my life now”. At university I joined the Otago Uni Tramping Club (OUTC) and immediately started going on trips with them. I absorbed decisionmaking and technical skills that would take years to accumulate if I was only going on courses. Now I’m teaching other people, and the cycle continues. I’ve been mountaineering almost as long as I’ve been tramping. I did two Great Walks, then I did snow craft and went straight into grade 1 and 2 mountains. I received a Federated Mountain Clubs Youth Expedition Scholarship in my first year of university to walk the South Island section of the Te Araroa (a trail that stretches the length of NZ, north to south). I wanted to see all these places, but I was 17 and didn’t have my driver’s license, so I thought, “I’ll walk between them all”. I was out for two months, some of it was with people, and some of it was solo. I turned 18 along the way. Not a lot of it was difficult, but I learned about planning, getting comfortable with my routine in the mountains, knowing what gear I liked, and learning how to work with the weather. From TOp to bottom: Maddy after a day of ice-climbing. By Jaz Morris; A mixed route at Haffner Creek in the Canadian Rockies. By Mason Gardner; New Years Day 2023 on an alpine rock route in Fiordland. By Jaz Morris.
34 WINTER 2023
That was when I first started to consider something like a trans-alpine traverse. I kept seeing the main divide of NZ in the distance and thinking, “Wow, imagine walking along that”.
Khanh Huynh, Mushi Brain (V11) Crumbly
GEAR FOR HERE Maddy looking back at the West Face of Nazomi. By Steven Fortune.
Mountaineering hero? Bronwyn Hodgins, a Canadian climber who does lots of Arctic stuff. She climbed on Baffin Island, then pack-rafted out. Longest day out? This was a 30-hour day on our traverse—not really a day any more. It was very warm so we were running into lots of issues. We reached a high-consequence avalanche slope, and to manage that risk we kept going and went over it through the night. What food do you miss in the mountains? Fresh stuff! I get back to town and have watermelon! First adventure you and your now-husband Conor did together? We led an OUTC tramp in Fiordland. It was our first trip in the mountains together, and it was when I first thought, “Oh, maybe I like this guy…” No #1 spot in NZ for a beginner alpinist? Aspiring National Park—Mt Liverpool, Mt Barff, Mt French, and Aspiring NW Ridge are all amazing, accessible grade 1 to 2 climbs with beautiful scenery.
Who are you inspired by? I’m inspired by anyone who throws themselves into what they do with joy. I’m as inspired by someone who’s just got into it and has done their first overnight trip as I am by someone who’s climbed the hardest route in the world. I think if that ever changes, then I’ll be doing something wrong. It’s just about getting out there and having a wonderful frolic in this beautiful world, and the end result of that is kind of irrelevant to a degree. I love seeing that excitement and empowerment in people's eyes when they do something they didn't think they could do! That's why I enjoy teaching ice-climbing and snowcraft courses. I see myself and those life-changing moments happening for others, and that brings me a lot of joy. I also want to give back and help make climbing accessible to people without a lot of money for expensive courses.
Scan me & good things will happen
Follow Maddy on Instagram @_m_whittaker or check out her website: maddywhittaker.smugmug.com
Photo Simon Alsop
FEATURE
Portrait by Jared Anderson. All other images supplied by Tim Macartney-Snape
36 WINTER 2023
“Awareness that more than a fair share of Australians had stepped into this realm never to return alive, tempered my usual enthusiasm.”
ISSUE 43 | VERTICALLIFEMAG.COM
TO SCALE A MOUNTAIN
BY TIM MACARTNEY-SNAPE
Tim Macartney-Snape may be Australia’s best known mountaineer. In 1984, he and Greg Mortimer were the first Australians to summit Everest—which they did via a new route, without supplementary oxygen and in ski boots (after their mountaineering boots were lost in an avalanche). Tim is also the only person to have ever climbed Everest from sea to summit. Beginning with a dip in the Bay of Bengal, three months of hiking and climbing later he stood atop Everest for the second time. While the Everest ascents secured his fame, Tim has countless more notable climbs to his name. But we all need to start somewhere. And Tim started in New Zealand, more than 45 years ago. This is his story of meeting the mountains. WINTER 2023 37
TO SCALE A MOUNTAIN BY TIM MACARTNEY-SNAPE
Relativity of size when it comes to steep bits of the planet is starkly thrust home to Aussie climbers when we travel overseas. If you start off living in a flat land, you get so used to a flat landscape that any hill on the horizon seems like a mountain. Then when you visit a land that actually is hilly, your idea of a big hill gets readjusted. But when you progress from there to actual mountains that are so high that they are permanently cloaked by snow and ice—where the vertical distance from bottom to top is many, many times anything you’ve encountered before—the scale becomes impossible to put in perspective until you, well, scale it. My first encounter with real mountains was in the Southern Alps of New Zealand around Aoraki/Mt Cook. Looking up from the valley floor for the first time was a wild sensation. The valley sides soared up so high that the sky seemed to have added depth. The cool mountain air, saturated with the sound of roaring water, sporadically punctuated by the distant clatter of falling debris or the muffled roar of a collapsing serac, carried in it some added element hinting that I was entering a new realm of excitement and danger. Awareness that more than a fair share of Australians had stepped into this realm never to return alive, tempered my usual enthusiasm. I felt like a deer stepping out into the open from the sheltering shadows of the forest. So, prudently, my skiing and bushwalking friends and I had signed up to a mountaineering course. Our guides were like mountain gods, competence oozed from them as they nonchalantly negotiated
It was a magical evening, turning out to be one of those golden moments in time, still highlighted in full colour among the jumble of sepia tinted memories cluttering the brain. the frightening looseness created by glaciers in retreat. In appearance, I shared one thing in common with them: shoulder length hair kept in check with a headband. But similarities ended there. My army surplus wool clothing, clunky ex-hire leather ski boots and roughly sewn home-made pack contrasted starkly with their neatly tailored chevron weave britches, deeply scuffed French mountain guide boots and well worn, overloaded Joe Brown packs. The weather dictated that we were unable to put into practice all the theory we were learning. This fact amplified the realisation that there was much to learn and a mountain of demystification to overcome if I was ever to safely climb anything respectable. Luckily, I found a partner in Lincoln Hall who had had some mentoring by other climbers to overcome this shortfall in experience and in an op shop I found a pair of chevron weave britches, sadly there wasn’t an easily found or affordable footwear replacement. After a couple of initial, straightforward climbs, we decided that a proper initiation required a multi-day alpine excursion. The south ridge of Aoraki/Mount Cook via a rocky ridge (MacInnes Ridge) on the sub peak of Nazomi was a logical choice. All of it can be seen from down in the valley, with clean-looking rock starting almost at glacier level. By then had enough experience to appreciate that most alpine climbs involve long, grinding approaches, so the merit of a short approach hadn’t escaped us. Evening found us around halfway up the MacInnes Ridge sitting in our sleeping bags on a spacious, though tilted, ledge feeling very pleased with ourselves; we’d managed to climb reasonably well weighed down by bivvy gear and three days’ worth of food and fuel. The reassuring purr of my old brass primus stove, a design that hadn’t fundamentally changed since it was invented at the end of the nineteenth century, was suddenly and shockingly interrupted by the violent roar of an avalanche of ice and rock thundering down the gully right next to us. The sheer brutality of it was rather unnerving, even though we knew that despite having knocked a couple of rocks onto ourselves during the afternoon’s climbing, a ridge was less subject to this kind of catastrophe. After a night punctuated by lesser avalanches, we continued upwards under a sky that became increasingly dulled by cloud. By midday, just as horizontal rain began pummelling us, we found a rib of snow that offered a likely site for a snow cave. Hitherto digging a snow cave in temperatures above freezing would have guaranteed a thoroughly wet digger, but we had what turned out to be an amazing new technology. Our shell jackets and trousers, made from a new waterproof but breathable fabric called GoreTex, turned out to be something of a secret weapon. Queensland climber and gear manufacturer Rick White had imported a few
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ISSUE 43 | VERTICALLIFEMAG.COM
“Learning the hard way isn’t really the smart way, but I tell you, it does drive the lesson home strongly.” rolls of the fabric and was keen to have it tested and we were the lucky guinea pigs. After a couple of hours grovelling in cold wetness, we had a cave sufficiently spacious to spend the night in. Unbelievably the new-fangled fabric seemed to work, and our scratchy woollen undergarments stayed completely dry! The nor-west storm was short and sharp, conveniently clearing later the next day, allowing us to sit on the terrace in front of the cave and dry our damp sleeping bags, while gazing out over the west coast. A clear night gave us a hard frost which was just as well because we decided to take a short-cut. Missing out on the summit of Nazomi, we instead made the most of the good ice conditions by climbing up the icy couloir that led to the col between Nazomi and Cook. Once established on the South Ridge, I remember the route-finding became unexpectedly tricky, overhanging teetering blocks of friable rock, crusty snow in the shadows, alarming exposure and purely psychological anchors all made for slow, tentative progress. Just typical alpine climbing, I was later to realise. Given the clear and windless weather, and the fact that neither of us possessed a decent headlamp (it’s hard to imagine but functional ones were hard to get hold of back then), we decided to stop early and bivvy near the summit of Middle Peak. It was a magical evening, turning out to be one of those golden moments in time, still highlighted in full colour among the jumble of sepia tinted memories cluttering the brain. Settling into our comfortable snow ledge, we were buzzed by a light plane which we later heard had been diverted to check on whether the Aussie novices had survived the storm—fair enough I suppose, given this was our fourth night out.
After an obligatory traverse to the summit, we began our descent— and possibly the start of our biggest alpine lesson yet. Since early in the day it was obvious that the weather was again taking a turn for the worse. It was an observation that didn’t overly worry us, after all we were just going down, how hard could it be? However, once our impatience had caused us to make the error of opting for a more direct line towards our destination—the old Gardiner hut, where we’d left a stash of food that our now empty stomachs were craving—cloud enveloped us and we found ourselves rappelling down unknown terrain in thick fog. Fortunately we didn’t come across any huge overhangs, only sections of scarily loose rocks that threatened to sever our ropes and inconveniently and repeatedly snagged the ropes as we tried retrieving them. Eventually I found myself inside what appeared to be a massive bergschrund. Despite it being an indication that we were back down to some sort of glacier, it meant that I’d have to climb out with some difficulty as what snow there was, was rotten and the rock was slick with water. And it was starting to get dark. We then had a maze of crevasses to find a path around, into and out of. Dinner was still a long way off. Learning the hard way isn’t really the smart way, but I tell you, it does drive the lesson home strongly. Ever since that long afternoon and evening, I’ve always tried to descend via a familiar route and, when not possible, I’ve made doubly sure I have a good topo, description and understanding of the topography. Predictably, once safely in the hut we made the mistake of yielding to temptation by overloading our empty stomachs. Of course this ended in great discomfort, giving us a restless night far less comfortable than any we’d had on the climb. Another hard-learned lesson. Back down in the valley, eating a tub of ice cream and gazing up at the retreating clouds, I was struck by how the “hills” around me suddenly seemed so small compared to the icy giants that we’d immersed ourselves in over the past few days. Relativity. WINTER 2023 39
FEATURE
On Thin Ice
MOUNTAINEERING IN A WARMING WORLD BY DR HEATHER PURDIE
New Zealand mountaineer and glaciologist Dr Heather Purdie has been researching and teaching students about snow, ice, glaciers, and climate change for more than 15 years. An Associate Professor at the University of Canterbury / Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha, Heather draws upon both her climbing and her research to explore how mountains are changing as the planet warms in this edited extract of her story “Revisiting the Nun’s Veil”. The full story appears in the anthology Adventures in Climate Science: Scientists’ Tales From the Frontiers of Climate Change, 2023, Woodslane Press. 42 WINTER 2023
ISSUE 43 | VERTICALLIFEMAG.COM
There is a distinct satisfaction in listening to the rhythmic sound of your ice axe and crampons biting into a frozen snow and ice surface. Jason and I could not see much that morning. We had begun in the dark, the colder predawn temperature reducing the risk of rockfall. As the sun rose, the thick fog was almost a whiteout, and it engulfed the Nuns Veil in cloud as we systematically worked our way up the glacier towards the summit. We were moving un-roped as it is not a difficult climb—a Grade 1+ for those who mountaineer—and one I had done six years earlier in 2007. The route follows the Nuns Veil Glacier up the southern flank of the mountain, rising in a series of gentle steps. Occasionally gaps would form in the swirling mist, revealing a glimpse of the summit. My passion for mountains and glaciers was instilled at an early age. On one of our few family holidays we went to Aoraki Mount Cook National Park when I was seven years old. I remember long walks with my family and crossing the Hooker swing bridge. We also went to view the Haupapa/Tasman Glacier. There was no lake in front of the Tasman Glacier then, and it was blanketed in rock, though you could still see bits of ice poking out. I could hear the rocks and ice creaking and cracking as the glacier slowly flowed down from the distant mountains. On that trip, I learnt that during the ice ages these amazing things called glaciers used to be much bigger, and that concept fascinated me. I imagined how it would have looked when the ice where I stood was so thick that only the tops of the mountains poked through. Who knew then that 30 years later I would be standing on the same moraine explaining to a group of university students why the area I had once walked on, and where my sister and I had sat as children, was now a lake more than six kilometres long. These days, it’s getting difficult for the students to even see the glacier's terminus in the distance at the far end of the lake. It’s not just the Tasman Glacier that is shrinking, of course. Glaciers gain and lose mass naturally as the climate varies, which is why they are such excellent indicators of climate change. They exist on the surface of the Earth in a very delicate balance; if temperatures increase, more snow and ice will melt, and if the climate gets colder, more rain will fall as snow. The Fox Glacier, for example, is now 3.5 kilometres shorter than it was in the 1800s when Europeans first started exploring there—shorter than any other time in recorded history. People in these environments, for work or recreation, must be aware that the rate the ice is changing is so fast that you must be dynamic and learn to adjust based on year-to-year changes. Exposed rock on Aoraki, New Years Day, 2023. William Skea.
As Jason and I continued up the Nuns Veil, we reached the bergshrund. It can sometimes be wide WINTER 2023 43
ON THIN ICE: MOUNTAINEERING IN A WARMING WORLD
Fieldwork on the Tasman Saddle. Supplied by Heather Purdie.
open and tricky to cross, but on this trip it presented no problem as it was still full of snow from the winter. We crossed and started up the final slope towards the summit. I had hoped the mist might clear as we got higher, but not that day. I was just starting to ponder whether or not the top portion of the slope seemed a little steeper than last time—I didn’t remember the climb being this hard—when ‘twang!’ my ice axe punched through the ice and bounced on the rock below. I had a definitive answer to my question now—the ice cloaking the mountain was definitely thinner this time around, and the route was indeed becoming steeper. Thinning ice can make a climb more difficult over time. While I was experienced enough to navigate the climb, it was a reminder that the mountains are becoming less predictable. These days, my research into glaciers and the changing alpine environment focuses largely on glacier mass balance, including the feedbacks or flow-on effects of climate change on glacier health. And the ability of my ice axe to penetrate right through to the underlying rock was a clear sign that the glacier was losing mass. My research comes very much at the intersection of work and play. For me, the mountains are not just about work; they are where I grew up. Climbing brings a sense of connectedness to the environment; you become very tuned in to the weather and the snow conditions, you feel the crispness of the air, and the screech of the kea. When I started to hear talk in the mountaineering community about climbing routes becoming ‘cut-off’ as glaciers ‘break up earlier’ or become ‘more convoluted’ as glaciers respond to climate warming, I wanted to investigate. Such anecdotes, coupled with my own experiences and observations, inspired myself and a friend and colleague, Tim, to explore what changes could be detected on the main climbing route on Aoraki (Mount Cook), the Linda Glacier route. Tim and I had both climbed the route on separate occasions in the past, and both enjoyed delving into photographs and archives of early mountaineering history. 44 WINTER 2023
WHO KNEW THEN THAT 30 YEARS LATER I WOULD BE STANDING ON THE SAME MORAINE EXPLAINING TO A GROUP OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS WHY THE AREA I HAD ONCE WALKED ON, AND WHERE MY SISTER AND I HAD SAT AS CHILDREN, WAS NOW A LAKE MORE THAN SIX KILOMETRES LONG. We combined measured physical data with conversations with guides and recreational climbers. We found that at lower elevations, glacier retreat was clearly evident and impacting people’s access to the climb. The thinning or ‘downwasting’ of the Tasman Glacier has resulted in very large moraine walls—steep unstable slopes that can be difficult to descend, making foot access to the route more time-consuming and challenging. High up the mountain, climate change was not so obvious and measurable. However, climbers talked about their experiences with crevasse exposure, slope steepening and rock exposure. Some people noted that rock was exposed in places that ‘didn’t exist on early summits’. The large year-to-year variability in snowfall received in the New Zealand Southern Alps makes it hard to quantify changes in snow frequency and volume over time. But after completing the Aoraki climbing project, the conversations I had with climbers still lingered; there was much left unanswered.
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I WAS JUST STARTING TO PONDER WHETHER OR NOT THE TOP PORTION OF THE SLOPE SEEMED A LITTLE STEEPER THAN LAST TIME—I DIDN’T REMEMBER THE CLIMB BEING THIS HARD—WHEN ‘TWANG!’ MY ICE AXE PUNCHED THROUGH THE ICE AND BOUNCED ON THE ROCK BELOW. These unanswered questions formed the foundation of my latest research programme. When the crevasses are exposed at the surface they increase surface roughness, and trap solar radiation; my research hypothesis is that the models we currently use to estimate melt rates on glaciers will be underestimating snow melt in the accumulation area. So, for the last two summers, I have been leading a team at the top of the Tasman Glacier, where we install temperature sensors inside crevasses and use drones to map the surface of the glacier with thermal imaging. Crevasses are formed as the ice moves. In the winter they are usually covered with snow, then as the summer progresses the snow melts and they are exposed at the surface. There is still a lot to do, but our preliminary results show that at times crevasses can be surprisingly warm. Previous work on air temperature in crevasses was only done in polar environments, so there is limited information on air temperatures in crevasses in maritime environments, like New Zealand. What we have found so far is that at times the air in a crevasse is even warmer than the air on the surface of the glacier, meaning melt could occur even faster than previously thought. One thing that strikes me in my work on climate change is that people are more likely to care about climate change if they can feel and experience a real connection to the environment—it makes it more real. It is this sense of connection to the environment that I try to instil in my students. After all, they are the ones inheriting Earth, so we need them to care, to learn how it works and try to find some solutions to the mess humans are making. But getting people to care about change can be challenging, especially when the glacier they have come to visit is no longer accessible by foot, and nor is it the majestic glistening feature they expected. Rather it has transformed into a small, dirty mass of ice, viewable only from a distance or from a helicopter. On the Tasman Glacier it can be challenging for visitors these days to actually see the thickness of the ice, and because it’s so far away and covered in debris, visitors can be a bit underwhelmed. As highlighted on our climb of the Nuns Veil, when glaciers are receding they are not only getting shorter, but they are also getting thinner. This thinning of the ice mass contributes to several flow-on effects beyond the glacier just getting shorter. In particular, as the surface of the ice thins, it exposes rock at the valley sides. This rock is often loose and crumbly and cascades down the slope onto the ice surface below. Rockfall is clearly a hazard for those walking on the glacier. Anywhere where the ice mass is thinning and disappearing, it will be exposing rock underneath, creating new hazards for anyone
From top to bottom: Climbing the Nuns Veil; Taking measurements on Rolleston Glacier; Misty conditions on the Nuns Veil. supplied by Heather Purdie
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ON THIN ICE: MOUNTAINEERING IN A WARMING WORLD
WHEN I STARTED TO HEAR TALK IN THE MOUNTAINEERING COMMUNITY ABOUT CLIMBING ROUTES BECOMING ‘CUTOFF’ AS GLACIERS ‘BREAK UP EARLIER’ OR BECOME ‘MORE CONVOLUTED’ AS GLACIERS RESPOND TO CLIMATE WARMING, I WANTED TO INVESTIGATE.
top of a catchment store the rain that falls as snow during winter, and then release it at the hottest time of year when water is most needed. This is not such a big deal in New Zealand as we have a lot of water. But in other parts of the world like South America and the Himalayas, communities and crops are entirely dependent on glaciers to supply water during the summers. Earth is not just the home of people, it is also the home for millions of plants and animals, and is composed of an incredible array of landscape features. If we want the snow and ice to remain on the mountains, feeding the rivers that sustain us, Earth has to come first. When our crevasse-team returned from the field work on Tasman Glacier in early 2020 the world had changed. Countries including New Zealand were heading into lockdowns in response to the global pandemic. As people adjusted how they went about daily life, global green-house gas emissions plummeted; so it can be done, we can live more lightly on Earth. As I stood on the summit of the Nuns Veil the second time around, maybe it was a good thing Jason and I were engulfed in cloud and not able to see the ever increasing evidence of climate change in the surrounding landscape; the lakes, the newly exposed rock faces, and the diminishing snow and ice. What will it all look like if I return to the Nuns Veil again in future? Will I be climbing on snow and ice, or will I be scrambling over loose, broken rock?
in these environments. This is exacerbated by the fact that freezing and thawing of ice breaks apart the rocks, so they are already very fractured. And so, monitoring the rate at which ice masses are thinning is also important for understanding how such hazards evolve over time. As well as this, as the ice melts, fragments of rock, eroded and transported down the valley by the glacier, are left behind on the ice surface, adding to the volume of rock that also accumulates from the valley sides. A very thin layer of debris on the ice surface can speed up the rate at which the ice melts, as the darker coloured debris absorbs more heat from the sun, and transfers that heat into the ice. However, once that accumulation of rock starts to exceed two to three centimetres in thickness, the rock begins acting as a protecting cover, slowing down the rate at which the ice melts. It’s hard to say how effectively and how long this could preserve a glacier; we’re talking about decades not centuries though.
Adventures in Climate Science: Scientists’ Tales From the Frontiers of Climate Change, 2023, edited by Wendy Bruere, published by Woodslane Press with support from Paddy Pallin.
From a global water perspective, melting all of New Zealand’s glaciers would not change sea level very much, because despite having more than 2,900 glaciers in New Zealand, the total volume of ice is small compared to locations like Antarctica or Alaska. However, glaciers in the Southern Alps are great natural laboratories because due to New Zealand’s maritime location the glaciers here are very sensitive to climate change. They exist in a marginal environment, very close to freezing point, which means that even a small shift in temperature can have a big impact on glacier mass balance.
Bringing together science and adventure, the anthology features 15 stories by scientists from around the world. With tales of falling into crevasses, facing sharks, surviving cyclones, chasing pirates on the high seas, and more, the contributors explore the science behind exactly what is happening as the world warms.
Globally though, glaciers are important not just for the volume of water they store, but the way they deliver that water into rivers. Glaciers at the
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Available from Paddy Pallin, Australian and NZ bookstores and online at Woodslane Press or via the Adventure Entertainment shop.
FEATURE
PUSHING
Boundaries WITH ALLIE PEPPER
Australian mountaineer Allie Pepper is attempting to become the fastest person to reach the true summit of all 14 of the 8000m+ peaks without supplemental oxygen. Speed record aside, the feat has only ever been achieved by a minuscule number of climbers. Allie is aiming to complete it in just under three years. The week before she left Australia, she chatted to Vertical Life’s assistant editor Wendy Bruere about what draws her to such heights.
Allie fell into climbing after misreading a Blue Mountains TAFE brochure. In her early 20s, looking for direction in life, she saw a course in Outdoor Recreation. She loved the outdoors and wanted to re-create herself, so it seemed perfect. Sighting the brochure—and immediately enrolling in the course— came at a time of soul-searching. After high school, Allie had set out to travel. There was a stint of hippie van-life in Australia, partying hard with her punk boyfriend in London, then ditching him in Kathmandu while she set out on a spiritual journey across India and Nepal. Eventually, she landed back in Australia. “After all that searching outside myself, I didn’t find what I was looking for,” Allie said. “I decided I needed a career path as I had low selfesteem.” Luckily outdoor recreation did, in fact, lead to some personal re-creation, ultimately launching Allie’s lifelong obsession with the mountains. She began with rock-climbing and discovered she was quite good at it. 48 WINTER 2023
“I’d grown up in the Blue Mountains but never climbed,” she said. Six months later, Allie was working with the Australian School of Mountaineering, and before too long a work trip to New Zealand for a technical mountaineering course fine-tuned her direction. “It changed my life. I found my passion,” stated Allie. “Straight after the course, I went with another student and we climbed Mount Aspiring together. It was our first peak without someone watching over us to check that we wouldn’t die. I loved it, and I was addicted.” And so began her career as a mountain guide, leading expeditions in Argentina and running Allie Pepper Adventures in Australia’s Blue Mountains and Snowy Mountains. Now in her late 40s, Allie is attempting the hardest challenge of her life: to set a record for the world’s fastest time to reach the true summit of all 14 of the 8000m+ peaks without supplemental oxygen. Project Above the Clouds, a.k.a. 14 Peaks No O2.
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“IT’S MOUNTAINEERING, SO ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN. I HAVE THE GOAL: I KNOW THE ‘WHAT’, I DON’T NECESSARILY KNOW THE ‘HOW’.”
Allie heading to High Camp on Annapurna. By Dawa Tenzing Sherpa. WINTER 2023 49
PUSHING BOUNDARIES WITH ALLIE PEPPER
Defining a record She has plenty of experience behind her. In between her guiding and work, Allie has ticked off an impressive list of summits in the Andes and the Himalayas, including Cho Oyu (8188m) in 2007, without supplemental oxygen. In 2011 she climbed Everest (Sagarmāthā in Nepali; Chomolungma in Tibetan). Last year she became the third Australian to summit the infamously risky Annapurna 1 (8091m). She’s noticeably shy about sharing a detailed plan for the world record attempt, brushing off my attempts to pin down her strategy. “It’s mountaineering, so anything could happen. I have the goal: I know the ‘what’, I don’t necessarily know the ‘how’.” However, she adds that the aim is to finish by June 2026. Some key words in Allie’s plans are “true summit” and “without supplemental oxygen”. This defines her exact attempt and separates it from other famous records.
was up to my vajayjay in snow, making the trail for everyone when no one wanted to go in front.” On Everest, she reached an area on the ridge called The Balcony before an unexpected snowstorm followed by high wind halted the attempt. Although short of the summit, Allie attained the highest altitude of any Australian woman not using supplemental oxygen. “[We] made the decision to turn around when my core started to freeze. At that height the body uses a third of its energy to regulate its temperature. You are 10 times more likely to get hypothermia if you don’t use oxygen,” said Allie. “One man who did not use oxygen that day remains on the mountain close to the summit, Szilárd Suhajda.” She refused to be disheartened by her outcome. “Firstly, I know my body can handle that height without supplemental oxygen. Secondly, I have shown I can make the right decisions up there, when my brain is starved of oxygen, to return alive.”
In the 14 Peaks documentary, we saw Nirmal “Nims” Purja knocking off all the 8000ers in just over six months. However, according to the online mountain bible 8000ers.com, Nims stopped short of the “true summits” of Manaslu and Dhaulagiri in his 2019 speed record. An aweinspiring feat regardless, and worth noting that the “true summit” of both has only been confirmed in recent years. In 2021, Nims returned to reach the true summit of each anyway.
Facing danger
Nims also used supplemental oxygen—standard practice for mountaineers at these heights. Above 8000m is considered “the death zone”. The air is so thin at such heights that the human body cannot survive for an extended period. For context, at sea level the air is nearly 21 percent oxygen, but at the summit of Everest it drops to less than seven percent.
“The hardest part of everything for me is just to maintain my current mindset, to go with the flow, not try to control everything so much, and just accept it’s going to be what it’s going to be in any situation,” Allie said thoughtfully. “And to maintain that focus even when unexpected stuff comes up. The key is to remain in the moment, to do the best I can, and make the best decisions I can.”
Another speed record (with supplemental oxygen) was set in May this year by Kristin Harila when she reached the true summits of the 14 highest peaks in one year and five days. She’s still climbing though, repeating mountains she conquered in 2022, as her goal is to set a record of under six months.
Before she left, I asked Allie if she had any concerns about particular summits. “So, there’s no mountain you’re looking at thinking, ‘Ooh, that’ll be a toughie’?”
Allie is, however, looking to achieve something a little different to the other mountain gurus. “In the past, before we had GPS technology, it was difficult to know exactly where the true summit was on some peaks. However, now that we do know, we cannot claim the summit without going to the highest point on the mountain,” she said simply. And regarding the matter of oxygen? “Because I can.” Allie is currently just one of a handful of women worldwide who take on 8000ers with nothing to bolster the thin air they breathe. “I discovered my gift on Cho Oyu in 2007 when I climbed above 8000m without oxygen,” she said. “It's a challenge where I discover what I am capable of in a world where the body cannot survive for long.” Before she left Australia, Allie said she planned to begin with Dhaulagiri (8167m), the furthest west of the peaks in the Himalaya. As VL goes to press, she’s turned around on Dhaulagiri, headed to Everest instead and made it to 8450m. Allie emailed from Kathmandu, describing Dhaulagiri as “an epic lesson in patience”, where poor weather and heavy snow left her stuck at Base Camp for a week. “We went up for a summit push when we had a good weather window,” she wrote. “But we didn't make it due to an unexpected snowstorm. I
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High-altitude mountaineering comes with high risks: unpredictable and extreme weather, long sections of technical climbing at altitude, avalanche-prone slopes, and other perils. Daunting as it sounds, Allie isn’t focused on the danger.
“There’s no point thinking about all the things that could happen,” Allie laughed. “I’ve lived through so much adversity on the mountains; there are so many things I could focus on in terms of challenges. But instead, I want to focus on the now and what I can control in each moment. It doesn’t help to think of everything that could happen.” Sound advice for life, really. To be clear, though, what Allie is attempting is extraordinarily hard. Andrew Lock, an Australian mountaineer who has climbed 13 of the 14 peaks without supplemental oxygen, offered some insight. “Climbing without oxygen means that it takes longer to recover after each little burst of activity,” Andrew explained. “It feels like you can’t get enough air into your lungs, and the air that is getting in isn’t doing the job—and of course it isn’t.” According to Andrew, up to 7000m the effects of altitude are “quite manageable”, but anything over 8000m starts to hurt and “every step is an effort”. (Note: Andrew’s definition of “manageable” is probably not the same as mine.) Andrew mentioned that on the plus side, Allie will have acclimatisation in her favour. Hitting all the peaks so close together will help maintain altitude fitness. “Allie’s very determined and fit and strong, so she’ll have every chance,” he said. “The hardest thing will be just maintaining that motivation—at altitude you’re never warm no matter how big your down suit is because your body is not burning oxygen to generate heat to trap,” he said.
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Allie crossing the Khumbu Icefall on her recent Everest attempt. By Lakpa Nurbu Sherpa.
"IT'S A CHALLENGE WHERE I DISCOVER WHAT I AM CAPABLE OF IN A WORLD WHERE THE BODY CANNOT SURVIVE FOR LONG."
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PUSHING BOUNDARIES WITH ALLIE PEPPER I asked Allie what advice she wishes she could have given herself those 15 years ago. She replied slowly and thoughtfully, deciding to answer in terms of what advice she would now give to others: “The best thing you can do if you don’t believe in yourself is to work on your self-growth and mindset. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how strong you are or how many mountains you’ve climbed; if you don’t believe in yourself, you can’t achieve what you want to achieve.” Allie continued, “I’ve had people who believed in me, but I didn’t focus enough on them. Now I notice that everyone else believes in me… If you can accept that everyone else believes in you and question why you don’t also believe in yourself, that’s when you dive deeper into what’s holding you back.” It’s hard to believe that a mountaineer like Allie, who inspired a generation of Australian adventure wannabes like myself, ever doubted herself. But her self-belief took another major hit a few years back when she endured menopause. Suffering from intense symptoms and in a haze of depression, aching joints and anxiety, she thought that was it for her climbing career. She came out the other side (as I’m starting to suspect she always does) with renewed vigour—and a sideline in advocacy; she was recently part of a round table at Parliament House discussing issues related to menopause. She urges other women going through menopause to educate themselves and take charge of their lives and treatment.
Summit day on Annapurna. By Dawa Tenzing Sherpa.
“Mental health professionals, even psychiatrists, don’t realise they need to treat the symptoms of menopause. As soon as I got the right medication, everything changed and it was like, ‘I’m back!’ I’ve been on my hormones for a year and feel fucking amazing!” Allie said. “I have a catcphrase, ‘Going from menoPause to menoPeak’.”
Andrew detailed other effects of low oxygen: You don’t sleep well, you have constant headaches, you’re nauseous, you need to eat, but you lose your appetite. “There’s always a voice at the back of your head saying, ‘If you go down, you can get warm, and you can get fed, and the pain will be over’,” he said. The long journey Allie’s project has been many years in the making. “I wanted to do it 15 years ago after I climbed Cho Oyu in Tibet without oxygen, but back then I had no idea how to raise the amount of money I’d need,” Allie said. Cho Oyu was the game-changer for Allie. It was her first peak over 8,000m, done without supplemental oxygen, and she climbed the last section alone after her climbing partner suffered frostnip and had to remain at base camp. It took Allie eight relentless, bitterly cold days to reach the top and return. On the summit day, she was the only person to make the peak. She has described it as being the hardest thing she had ever done at the time. But while the idea for her current record attempt began to germinate after Cho Oyu, there was work to do to develop her skills, connections and ideas of how to raise the funds. High-altitude mountaineering is expensive, and 14 peaks in three years astronomically so. With so far limited financial support from sponsors, Allie has used up all her savings, sold her car, and is in the process of refinancing her home. She says she will do “anything and everything” to chase her dream. Beyond all this, fostering the right mindset also took time. “I had to believe in myself enough and believe that I am worthy to be a professional athlete,” she said.
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Part of her advocacy is helping other women embrace the second act and live life to the fullest, in mind and body. “When menopause hits—and it hit me like a freight train—it’s an opportunity to go, ‘Well, I have all of this experience and have done all of these things and learnt all this stuff, so who am I now and who do I want to be next?’” said Allie. “Many people reach middle-age and think they’ve done everything, but we’re just halfway there. I could live to 100–that’s a lot of time! How can we live to the fullest in our bodies, in our minds, and make sure the next half of life is amazing?” Allie may be the very embodiment of menoPeaking right now. Even just the preparation for her project sounds alarmingly intense. For months she worked with professional coaches, training six days per week, building both strength and endurance. Training included weights at home, running up to 30 kilometres (with 1600m of ascent) at a time, and using a hypoxic machine—essentially a device that removes oxygen from the air to simulate altitude—while she did indoor workouts on her bike. Attitude at altitude Allie’s passion for the mountains is balanced with a sense of purpose. She brings a determination to inspire and educate others, shaped by her early experiences guiding in South America, where being a woman made her an outsider. “I started guiding in South America in 2000, leading an expedition up Aconcagua, and I didn’t see any other female guides at all. The men there didn’t understand—couldn’t even comprehend—that I was guiding,” Allie said. “I spent a lot of time proving myself, having to be stronger, smarter, faster and whatever else in the mountains.”
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Even though perspectives are changing, and more women are visible in the mountains and on 8000ers these days, Allie noted that there is still a lot of prejudice that people, particularly minorities, must navigate. “I guided a group of gay women in the Himalaya. They were couples, sharing tents, and we couldn’t even tell the sherpa who was working with us,” said Allie. “It’s always been one of the more challenging things, dealing with other people’s attitude towards whoever they perceive as being different,” she said.
Stay tuned (and subscribed) to VL for Allie’s dispatches from the field, follow her on Instagram @alliepepperadventures and check out her live tracker (link in her Insta bio) to see her progress in real time.
Accessing the mountains can be hard enough. As well as the fitness and strength needed, it’s an expensive hobby. An ascent of Everest can be upwards of $100,000; at the opposite end of the scale, a week-long mountaineering course in NZ will still set you back over $5,000. Not to mention gear, travel and insurance. Allie has some straightforward advice for welcoming people who have made it into the hills, though. She urges everyone to put aside any beliefs and judgements of what they think a mountaineer should be. “We’re all there to experience the same thing, and we’ve all got fears and challenges. Reach out, ask people about themselves—being interested in other people and open to having a conversation is all it takes,” Allie said. “No matter your background, how much experience you have, or gender, sexual preference, beliefs, whatever, everyone has the right to experience the mountain without prejudice, without shitty comments, without people saying, ‘why are they here, they’re not going to make the summit’.” As Allie reaches for a place in mountaineering history, her message is clear: The mountains are for everyone.
SOUL PURPOSE Allie has a soul purpose, not a sole purpose. In her own words: This might sound a bit corporate, but my purpose—my soul purpose—is in my name. Align: to align my mind, body and spirit Love: to live my life through love Live: to live my life to my full potential Inspire: to inspire others to do the same Educate: to educate others on how to do the same My passion is mountaineering, and when I combine my passion and my purpose, that gives me my motivation and my drive to do my best everyday. That’s my power behind everything, the reason I wake up and get out of bed.
backcountrycuisine.co.nz
CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF KEEPING YOU FED IN THE OUTDOORS
TRAVEL
JOURNE Y TO WEEPING WALL WORDS BY CASSIE DAVIES WANTING TO BROADEN HER CLIMBING HORIZONS, CASSIE WANGLED A JOB SECONDMENT TO THE US IN 2020, THEN MOVED TO CANADA—AND THERE SHE HAS STAYED. FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS ICE-CLIMBING NSW’S CHERISHED BLUE LAKE (WORLD-CLASS IT IS NOT, BUT WE LOVE IT!), SHE’S NOW TAKING ON THE BIG WALLS.
Pitch one Elaine and I are at the peak of our Canadian ice-climbing season. We’ve been regular climbing partners for the past three years and have done countless pitches together on gneiss, conglomerate, quartz, desert mudrock and sandstone. Recently we’ve been dialling in on ice all over the Canadian Rockies. Every weekend, it’s up the icefields parkway and onto a new multipitch, the next challenge in our progression on ice. We swing leads and know each other’s food patterns, risk preferences, knowledge and ability inside out. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner to be sharing a rope on the mega Weeping Wall. Ice climbing started for me at a small, very melty crag of ice called Blue Lake. In the backcountry behind Perisher in Australia’s Snowy Mountains, it became my training ground on ice. The best regular ice weekends a Sydneysider could hope for. The first time I touched an ice axe was on a mountaineering course at Blue Lake. I just wanted some skills for a trekking peak in Nepal, but instead I was handed an axe in front of vertical ice and, at the same time, handed a world of opportunity in a new form of climbing. As my hand wrapped onto the handle, my brain wrapped around new dreams. I had always had a fascination with mountains, and these were the tools to unlock them. Elaine’s axe stuck fast in the ice and refused to come out. This frustrating experience had characterised a few of our multipitches this season. Ice climbers sharpen their own gear with a wood file, and it’s easy to misalign a sharpening angle. It takes many grinds of the file to unwind a catching notch. 54 WINTER 2023
I groaned slightly inside. We had a huge day ahead, and this was going to waste extra energy. But I kept silent as Elaine swore at it and yanked it out. Next swing. Next screw placement. I felt relief as the sticking axe seemed to start to play ball. Next to us, I could see my Aussie friends Tom and Matt making good progress up their first pitch within eyesight of our climb. This was the dream, climbing big wall ice next to friends, but in your own world of focus.
Pitch two I’m up. This is the WI4. Or was it a 4+? Ice climbing is a sport where grades are made up and the points don’t matter. Every season, every day, pitches will vary in condition, quality and difficulty. It’s drilled into new climbers: get experience in different conditions, different aspects, different weather. Today, the ice felt good, my sticks were sticking. This season, I had been dialling in my focus to just be on the next move, the next metre. Sometimes thinking about the whole pitch could make me feel rushed or want to get it over with, but I had to maintain focus on securing every swing and every kick. I started to learn this method of focus in NZ. My first ice climbing experience outside Australia was the Remarkables Ice and Mixed Festival. I learnt how to torque my tools and feel the point that the tip would slip. I met some Americans who came and bossed some challenging mixed routes. What did they do over there to get that good? The New Zealand Alpine Team gushed about ice climbing in the Canadian Rockies.
ISSUE 43 | VERTICALLIFEMAG.COM
LEFT PAGE: Weeping Wall, Canadian Rockies. By Cassie Davies. This page: Cassie at the top of the crux pitch of Weeping Wall, Canadian Rockies. By Matt Quinn. WINTER 2023 55
JOURNEY TO A WEEPING WALL
I reached the belay and felt great. It was one of the top five hardest pitches I’d ever led on ice, but it had unexpectedly been a breeze. I felt the adrenaline kicking in but calmly built a good anchor. I was in the full sun, so I built an especially good ice screw anchor and shoved snow on top of the screws to keep them cool for as long as possible.
Pitch three We decided to break this one up. The first part Elaine was comfortable with, but the second half of the pitch was just as hard as the last pitch, so that one was mine. My legs started to seize up a bit. I shifted and tried to keep the blood flowing in various awkward stances. By the time I was following again, my adrenaline had left and my legs felt stiff. Stabs of hunger started to hit me. Pitches of ice are slower than rock, and breakfast felt like a long time ago. Even though the next belay spot was tight, Elaine and I wolfed down our hot pasta. By 2020, I had moved to the US, looking for adventures. Soon, remote working meant I could live closer to mountains, expanding my horizons for adventure even further. I based myself near Ouray in Colorado. Ouray is a mecca for ice climbers. It is one of the few artificial ice parks in the world. With over 200 carefully maintained ice routes with bolted anchors at the top, it is an excellent place to learn to climb and train.
Elaine Mau topping out on Charmin Tube, Ouray, Colorado. By Cassie Davies.
Ouray days are usually cragging days, and that’s where I learnt a lot about keeping warm whilst on belay. Hot thermoses of hearty food became a must to keep my warmth and spirits up for long days deep in the canyon. I met Elaine living out there and we ventured together from the ice park to the backcountry. We grew our experience as ice climbers together, stoked on each other’s improvements and gains. I took over on the second half of pitch three. This was complicated ice. I needed to chop off chandlering formations when placing screws to find the more solid ice underneath. The ice seemed to lean slightly backward. How was this still WI4? I reminded myself to focus on the next move and stay relaxed. I pulled the lip of the bulge and stepped on a wide bench to build an anchor to bring Elaine up. I felt flooded with adrenaline, my emotions soaring from the thought of what I had just pulled off. In the realm of ice climbing, I’m under no impression of greatness; but for me, this achievement was huge.
Pitch four I was convinced we didn’t have enough time to finish the wall. The good thing about ice is that you can bail from anywhere with V threads (using ice screws you can drill a “V” into the ice to thread your rope though).
Elaine on lead with Paul Shaw belaying at King Creek, Kananaskis, Canadian Rockies. By Cassie Davies.
56 WINTER 2023
But seeing Matt and Tom rappelling off their route and hearing their yells of encouragement, my spirits lifted. Elaine’s stoke was high and she was happy to finish the last pitch. I could relax and just follow. Long cold days at Hyalite in Montana prior to moving to Canada
ISSUE 43 | VERTICALLIFEMAG.COM
Cassie on lead in the Icefields Parkway.
had taught me some good lessons about perseverance when cold and still needing to get down off the route. I dug deep. The sun went down behind the mountains and the night chill set in. I topped out after following Elaine’s impressive lead and started to weep. We had climbed it! We had achieved an audacious goal. I was at the top of a wall I hadn’t even considered myself good enough to contemplate at the beginning of the season. Good communities build good climbers. I ended the day deeply grateful for the community, friendships and experiences which got me to the top of Weeping Wall. Lunch selfie partway up Weeping Wall.
Follow Cassie’s adventures on Insta @cassie_davies
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Gabriel Camolesi pushing the limits of human movement on a 115m highline in The Blue Mountains (Darug and Gundungurra Country) for his upcoming film ‘Steady.’ Captured by Hayden Jones.
58 WINTER 2023
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60 WINTER 2023
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62 WINTER 2023
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64 WINTER 2023
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FROM THE ARCHIVES We’ve taken a step further back in history with a piece from 1910. And oh my word! How things change and how they stay the same. I’ve never heard a modern mountaineer extol the power of the hills to maintain one’s youth and beauty, though I have heard many a “lady climber” lament the difficulties of finding appropriate clothing (pockets please!). We also find reference to the gender pay gap, and some thoughts on the emotionally calming qualities of mountains. The author, Constance A. Barnicoat (1872-1922), was a mountaineer and journalist from New Zealand. In 1907, she became a member of what may have been the first mountaineering club for women. Club founder, Aubrey Le Bond, was frustrated by the “sheer conservatism” of men who refused to allow women to join the existing alpine club—so she established her own. The following piece was published in the Midland Counties Tribute, December 13, 1910. It is reproduced here thanks to the British Newspaper Archive. The column alongside it is from Los Angeles Herald, 1 September, 1907.
Mountaineering for the Preservation of Youth and Beauty A woman alpinist makes a good wife and a good chum. She’s never gossipy, hysterical or mean.
By Constance A. Barnicoat, Member of the French Alpine Club.
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ISSUE 43 | VERTICALLIFEMAG.COM
"Women in climbing have two serious handicaps which men have not. One is the difficulty of getting clothes which shall be thoroughly suitable, and not hideous." Mountaineering for ladies is no new development of Alpinism, although it was not until late years that it became very popular. As long as 30 years ago, an aunt of the Rev. W. A. B. Collidge, one of the greatest living authorities on the Alps, made with her nephew both in summer and, what is much more remarkable, in winter, ascents of some of the most difficult peaks in the Alps.
women are notoriously more prone than men to “talk shop”, and not leave their office worries at the office.
Since then, it has been proved by many ladies that the “weaker sex” is capable of the prolonged endurance required for serious Alpinism.
Women climbers are not always particularly strong-looking, any more than men climbers are. However, really to succeed as a climber, a woman must be of more than average strength, and for her, as well as for a man, it is a great advantage to begin young.
Provided a woman be physically strong enough to begin with, there is no recreation more generally beneficial to her, both in mind and body, than the ascent of high peaks. In the opinion of lady climbers generally, climbing is the best cure for nervousness. Moreover, a woman climber usually keeps slim and youthful looking at an age when other women are apt to have lost both figure and features. Good for nerves and beauty. Moderate mountaineering not only brings health and happiness, but preserves youth, and tends to develop self reliance. A well known Alpinist has said that he never met a woman climber who is either gossipy, hysterical or mean. He also added that a lady Alpinist always makes a good wife and a good chum. The saying came from Mr Julian Grande, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, who, however, may not be the best of judges, since he is a bachelor. But a well-known lady doctor, who herself has done some climbing, agrees with him. She says there is no recreation, which, in all its aspects, brings about quicker rejuvenation of worn-out nerves, tired brains, and flabby muscles than mountain climbing. A woman climber knows nothing of ennui. Probably one of the chief reasons why mountain climbing is so beneficial is it requires so much concentration of mind and purpose as to take the climber absolutely out of herself. For this reason climbing is more beneficial to women, even than to men, since
One of the best known lady climbers originally began climbing for the sake of health, she having had a tendency to consumption. Youth and strength.
Women in climbing have two serious handicaps which men have not. One is the difficulty of getting clothes which shall be thoroughly suitable, and not hideous. The other is the fact that women, as a rule, have less money than men to spend on their holidays, and climbing is unquestionably an expensive sport, one of the most expensive, in fact. An ideal climbing suit. The other day, I saw a young girl who was in her first climbing season, setting out with her father to traverse a mountain known as the “Ladies” Mountain—the Wetterhorn. She had somehow or other managed to procure herself an ideal climbing suit. It consisted of closely fitting knickers, kept up with braces, and worn over a simple white linen shirt. With the knickers, which were, as I have said, not bloomers, not baggy or full, but close-fitting as a man’s, she had a Norfolk suit, made loosely fitting in the waist and back, and thick golf stockings, and the usual heavily nailed climbing boots. I have never seen a lady climber look so well before. But it goes without saying that she was slim. She had had considerable trouble, I believe, to prevail upon a tailor to cut the knickers neatly and closely, and not to make the detestable bloomers, with which most women climbers think it needful to disfigure themselves; and also to get the coat cut loosely, and not pinched in at the waist. Of course, she wore a short skirt over her knickers until she left the valley.
The original article continued for one more paragraph, discussing the climbing season in the Alps that year. Unfortunately, the records are somewhat indistinct and not all words were legible.
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MINDSET RESET
FROM ROCKS TO THE MOUNTAINS WITH DR KATE BAECHER For eons, climbers have played in, and surrendered to, the music of the crag and the rock. To be able to kinaesthetically synchronise the body, mind and rock, to move lithely as a dancer but with the strength and determination of an MMA fighter. But for some, they find themselves drawn to a different playground. Fortunately we are not here to debate the eternal, elusive and existential question of why one climbs (either rocks or mountains). What we are here to explore right now, is what the transition from rock to mountain looks like. This is not a comprehensive “how-to” guide. This is an introduction to some of the considerations—and attractions—of moving from rock to the mountains. On the surface, rock-climbing and mountaineering may look similar. But dig a little deeper, and you’ll unearth differences not just in the skillsets and techniques required, but in the psychological experiences of each. Understanding some of these differences will assist you as a climber, to transition effectively from crag to mountain.
Skillset Like any different sport, you’ll need to learn new skills, and understand new equipment. These include, but are not limited to: crevasse rescue, ice-axe self-arrest, glacier travel, walking in crampons, climbing in crampons, technical climbing in gloves, alternating between hiking poles and ice-axes, understanding of weather and mountain terrain, snow anchors, alpine navigation, alpine rope-skills and management, and emergency management. One of the best ways to learn a new skill is simply doing a course. NZ and even Australia have various introductory mountaineering courses. Beyond the technical skills, you’ll need different mental skills. Where the rock demands short to medium length focus and lactic-acid management, the mountain requires endurance. The mountain requires patience and persistence. Prepare yourself for a long, slow slog, with early mornings and late nights. 70 WINTER 2023
Environment The mountain is less similar to the rock than you might imagine. The beauty and safety of the crag—knowing the walk-in, the length, the height, where the sun hits at which time of day—means you can usually predict with reasonable accuracy what you will encounter on a given day. But the mountains? Oh boy. Don’t try to predict that mountain, even if you were up on it yesterday. A mountain is changeable, shakeable, moody. It is a moving entity. You need to come prepared for whatever it may throw at you. This complexity is another reason for completing a course and doing your first ascents with a guide.
Risk Tolerance Robert Macfarlane describes risk on the mountain most succinctly: “There are many ways to die in the mountains: there is death by freezing, death by falling, death by avalanche, death by starvation, death by exhaustion, death by rockfall, death by ice-fall, and death by the invisible aggression of altitude sickness, which can cause cerebral or pulmonary oedema.” Macfarlane is not necessarily against risk, acknowledging it is a motivator for many. “[R]isk-taking brings with it its own reward: it keeps a ‘continual agitation alive’ in the heart. Hope, fear. Hope, fear— this is the fundamental rhythm of mountaineering. Life, it frequently seems in the mountains, is more intensely lived the closer one gets to its extinction: we never feel so alive as when we have nearly died.” Risk on the mountains is real, and the objective hazards cannot always be eliminated, just minimised. Despite this, good mountaineers are not reckless or sensation-seekers. In fact, research indicates that they are control-focused, conscientious, demonstrate immense attention-todetail, and have very high impulse control.
Psychological motivation
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This is an interesting one. Research shows that if a person wants to go mountaineering for ego/extrinsic reasons—for example, to impress other people and maybe notch up a few Insta likes—that person is less likely to achieve their objectives. The type of motivation that is commensurate with success on the mountain is intrinsic motivation. Successful mountaineers are strongly motivated by the opportunity to challenge themselves, rather than being motivated by the accolades they might receive if successful. It’s a question to reflect on. What is your motivation? It may well be a combination of factors, including some extrinsic reasons (for most of us they exist in some form or another). But knowing what ultimately drives you will help you plan for success—in whatever form success means to you.
Mental Health and Coping Turns out, mountaineering is good for your mental health—so long as you can manage the Type 2 fun elements. It can enhance cognitive coping mechanisms such as suppression, meta-cognitive assessments of risk, and emotional regulation. And a final word from Edward Whymper, one of the climbers who survived the 1865 Matterhorn disaster and who later provided an epitaph for expeditions and also for mountaineering itself: Climb if you will but remember that courage and strength are naught without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste: look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end.
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About the writer: DR KATE BAECHER | With over 15 years’ experience, Kate is an accomplished Australian Clinical and Performance Psychologist, whose work specialises in the nexus between human behaviour and complex environments. Kate has a military and adventure background, with expertise in high-performance coaching, research and consulting on mental health risks in remote, wilderness, extreme and austere environments.
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TALE OF WOAH
New caption: Navigating crevasses and rockfall danger on the Grenz Glacier, Switzerland. Image by William Skea.
72 WINTER 2023
ISSUE 43 | VERTICALLIFEMAG.COM
Tale
OF WOAH RISK AND RESCUE IN THE MOUNTAINS Climbing safety is everyone’s responsibility, and it’s something our editorial team are incredibly passionate about. Our Tale of Woah column is our continued commitment to creating a culture of safety within our community. Alpine adventures bring with them new and different safety issues to rock climbing. Here, Lousie reflects on her experiences mountaineering and how she came to decide that perhaps it wasn’t her cup of tea, after all. My brief fling with alpinism started when my friend Andrea suggested one day, “Would you like to come to New Zealand and do a mountaineering course with me?” I was incredulous. “Are you serious? Mountains are cold, dangerous, and have too much bad weather.” Several of my rock climbing friends had died mountaineering in their twenties: Keith Egerton, once my housemate in Richmond; Craig Nottle, a happy-go-lucky med student; and Mark Moorhead, one of Australia’s most talented rock climbers. Andrea had been rock climbing for only a few years and didn’t know anyone who’d died in the mountains. But she was persuasive, and in the summer of 1985, we went to New Zealand, along with our friend John, who was our guide. John was younger than us, but at 25 he was already an accomplished mountaineer and an experienced rock climbing guide. Our alpine course started with the basics: how to self-arrest if you start sliding down an icy slope, how to prusik out of a crevasse, and how to find free camping in Mount Cook Village. WINTER 2023 73
TALE OF WOAH
We did a couple of small warm-up peaks, bailed off Malte Brun (bad weather), and trudged a long way up glaciers with heavy packs. After 10 days, John reckoned we were ready to tackle Aoraki/Mt Cook. Aoraki has three peaks, low, middle and high. Doing all three is called The Grand Traverse. John decided we should climb the low peak via the West Ridge, a technically easy rock climb on relatively solid rock.
warm, and we squeezed into the other. All night long, we could hear Zac’s laboured breath. The moon lit up the smooth expanse of Empress Shelf like a perfect white cover. The overpowering beauty of the scene belied my anguish.
We set off up the Hooker Valley. It was in one of the huts along the way that we bumped into Zac, a climber from the UK. Zac’s goal was to solo the West Ridge, do the Grand Traverse, and descend the North-west Couloir.
After John left us around 9pm, he picked up tracks from a previous party. The night freeze had not yet begun, and the snow remained as mushy as a Mr Whippy soft serve. Under those conditions, crossing the Empress Shelf alone was a perilous game. John fell into 13 crevasses. He managed to climb out of them all and continue.
John decided we should bivvy on the Empress Shelf, close to the start of our route. This meant we could have a leisurely 6am start the next day and were spared a hideous 3am alpine start. Zac decided to join us, as he too was beginning with the West Ridge. The next day, the weather was perfect for climbing: clear and sunny. John led each pitch. He trailed two skinny alpine ropes and belayed Andrea and me up together. At the top of the ridge, John short-roped us up a steep, slick cone of ice to Low Peak. My crampons bit into the ice a mere centimetre; this felt entirely inadequate. I was comfortable on the rock pitches, but on the ice I felt horribly exposed. On the summit of Low Peak, we straddled the ridge, one leg on each side. Out of nowhere, Zac appeared. He had already soloed the Grand Traverse and back again, and was on his way down. He offered to take some snaps of the three of us on the summit. As Zac peered through the camera viewfinder, he took a few steps backwards to fit us all in. I watched in fear and wonder at his confidence. Then Zac took off, and we prepared to descend the North-west Couloir. By now, it was mid-afternoon, and the day's heat had softened the snow. Andrea and I rappelled down each pitch, and then John dropped our ropes and downclimbed. After some hours and multiple abseils, the angle of the couloir eased. We negotiated a treacherous-looking bergschrund and reached the Empress Shelf. By now, it was quite late, but the sun sets late in the mountains in high summer. We noticed a figure some distance away, wandering along somewhat aimlessly. As we approached, it became clear that something wasn’t quite right. “Hello, hello!” John called out. The person turned to us in the fading light; it seemed we were seeing the face of the devil. His jaw and nose were broken and bleeding, his eyes were swollen shut, and his entire face was blotchy with dried blood. It was Zac. He had fallen soloing down the couloir, smashing his face on the way down. John quickly fetched bivvy gear from our stash, packed some essential gear and headed to Empress Hut by headtorch to call a rescue helicopter. Andrea and I zipped Zac into two of our sleeping bags to keep him
74 WINTER 2023
How and where was John? Would a helicopter arrive? Would Zac survive?
Arriving at Empress Hut two hours later, he discovered the emergency radio set was not functioning. He teamed up with another climber, and they set off for Gardiner Hut, roped together for safer crevasse travel. Hours later, they arrived and John made the emergency radio call. At first light, we heard the sweet sound of a helicopter. A flood of relief surged over me as the tension of the previous 24 hours dissipated. In three separate trips, the chopper plucked us off the mountain.
ANALYSIS A few days after the rescue, John and I returned to the Hooker Valley to do the technically easy Copland Pass. Inside the old corrugated shelter just below the pass, a disgruntled climber had scrawled the immortal words “Alpine Climbing Sucks”. I reflected on the trade-off between pain, risk and reward. My experience on Aoraki had been one of the most nerve-wracking in my life. I had been on high alert for 15 hours non-stop. The flood of endorphins I experienced when finally safe in Mount Cook Village was commensurately high. I finally grasped why mountaineering, despite the pain and the risk, becomes as addictive to some people as rock climbing is to me. I never saw Zac again, but I heard he made a full recovery. Andrea went overseas to pursue a career, gave up climbing and took up running. John went on to climb Mount Everest, amongst many other outstanding endurance events. I had one last fling with the mountains when I went to the Himalayas in 1986. Caught out in a storm, I was avalanched and narrowly escaped permanent entombment in a bottomless crevasse. The balance of risk and reward shifted for me. I gave up mountaineering, took up remote off-track bushwalking, and continued to climb rocks.
About the writer: LOUISE SHEPHERD | Louise (also known as Lou, she/her) has been climbing for 40 years and guiding for 35 years. Back in the 70s, there was no trad or sport, it was all just climbing and the culture was to toss beginners in at the deep end. Louise survived this brutal baptism and now teaches trad lead climbing rather differently than the way she learned. She works with The Climbing Company in Dyurrite.
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PATAGONIA R1 TECHFACE HOODY RRP $269.95 As a proud and devoted member of the “hoodies > jackets” club, every year, like clockwork, I’ve made the same birthday wish for my favourite technical jackets to magically sprout hoods. Well, it looks like my persistence has finally paid off! Allow me to introduce the latest member of the R1 family: the Techface Hoody. For those unfamiliar, the R1 Techface is a more weather and abrasion resistant version of the much loved R1 fleece. And now it’s got a hood (yes, the hood is helmet friendly). Nonhood features include high positioned handwarmer pockets, an adjustable pullcord hem, and a very movement-friendly cut. We’re currently testing one out so expect a longer review soon—so far we’re very impressed! Bonus: Did I mention it has a hood? Available now at Patagonia.com.au 76 WINTER 2023
WILD COUNTRY SESSION HERITAGE QUICKDRAW RRP $32.95 If you’ve ever looked at old-school climbing media, you’ve probably noticed how awesome all the retro gear looks, from purple striped harnesses to leopard print leggings. It’s just too bad that 30-year-old softgoods would probably disintegrate if you ever tried to whip on them. Thankfully you don’t have to f#*k around and find out, Wild Country has you covered. They’ve taken their staple Session quickdraw and wound the clock back a few decades (in a good way). I could talk about their keylock nose and I-beam construction, but I’d rather just keep looking at them. Speaking as someone who already owns a lot of quickdraws, I’ll be buying a set the minute they land. Bonus: Available in 12cm & 17cm lengths. Coming soon to Climbinganchors.com.au
SCARPA GENERATORS GENERATOR LOW - RRP $319.95 | GENERATOR MID - RRP $339.95 When you think of mid-top climbing shoes for trad, multipitch, bigwalls and crack climbing, there’s probably one in particular that comes to mind… but soon there may be two. Scarpa has spent over two years and around 98 prototypes perfecting their new Generator line of shoes, and it looks like they’re finally ready. If you’re after an edging and crack climbing machine for all-day (and night) use, take a gander at this beauty. Features include a full-length XS edge rubber on the bottom, a stiff and supportive full-length midsole (edge on a bloody dime), and padded ankle support with a bit of stretchy neoprene in the collar and tongue. Most importantly a huge amount of sticky M70 rubber extending up the sides and top of the shoe for your jamming pleasure. Bonus: They come in four versions: Mens (higher volume) and Womens (lower volume) for both the mid-tops and low-tops. Bigger Bonus: Heinz Mariacher helped design them! You may not know who that is, but you’ll definitely know most of the shoes he’s helped design—you probably even own some. Coming soon to stockists near you
TNF BASE CAMP GEAR BOX (90L) RRP $330 I’ll be honest, the first time I saw these, I had a bit of a “...wtf?” moment. But the more I thought about it, the more it started to make sense. Hear me out. I, like many climbers, store my gear in plastic crates. But, every trip I’ll find myself frantically transferring all my gear from said crate into a duffel—generally sometime around midnight, just hours before I’m supposed to leave. Herein lies the beauty of the Gear Box. It’s a crate when you need it to be and a duffel when you don’t. They’re essentially the same design as the trusty Base Camp duffel, but with a thin metal “kickstand” structure along the border. They’re bomber, stackable, full of mesh organisation pockets, have more grab handles than you have hands, and you can collapse them down completely flat once they’re empty. Bonus: There’s a little see-through panel on the side so your gear can have that window seat experience (or so you can double-check what you packed, either way). Available now at Thenorthface.com.au WINTER 2023 77
GEAR
FROM THE Field
TRIED & TESTED: NUPTSE MULES
Our editors often find themselves peppered with questions at the crag about the gear we use personally. Given we all work in climbing (amongst other things, between the four of us we have 13 jobs!) and are active members of our own climbing communities, it makes sense that people want to know what we’re really using and why. From the desk crag bag of VL’s Managing Editor Coz, comes the second instalment of our highly requested field review gear segment. I’ll be brutally honest, I used to think that insulated slippers were the Crocs of the adventure world. I’d see people kicking around in them at the gym, crag and campsites, and internally roll my eyes at the added spring in their step seemingly coming from their heated clown shoes, as I’d come to call them. This explains my own shock after getting a pair of The North Face Nuptse Mules in January, instantly loving them, and promptly declaring them to our VL team as my 2023 gear pick of the year. What a turnaround! Initially, I’d felt like a bit of a hack (or a “leisure athlete” as they’d say in the snow sports community..) given my presumptuous mocking of said heated clown shoes in the past, but as I sunk deeper into their toasty embrace, I began to welcome the inevitable. They’d won me over. “I manage a climbing magazine. People will laugh at me,” I wrongfully thought, as stomping around in my fresh scuffs over the last six months post-purchase, has garnered the most shoe-related compliments I’ve ever received. While the excitement about my ripper-slippers has left me wondering what it says about my regular shoe choices–after receiving exactly zero compliments about those to date– it’s got me excited to fully embrace the “leisure athlete” moniker and tell you why I’ll never go anywhere without my Nuptse Mules ever again. As climbers, we put our hoofs through the wringer. From long walk-ins with heavy packs, smooshing our piggies into shoes the shape of disappointingly small pizza slices, cramming our said pizza-feet onto tiny footholds for however long our sessions last, to walking around the gym with aggressive shoes still tightly tied (yeah, I see you!). Our feet deserve a bit of respite. If you can imagine what it would feel like to walk around with your tootsies inside a warm, freshly-campfire-toasted marshmallow (without the squelchy, sticky mess a literal marshmallow would entail), that’s what it feels like donning the 78 WINTER 2023
Nuptse Mules when the temps drop. The 550-certified Responsible Down Standard (RDS) goose down fill is responsible for their insane warmth, while the durable, 20% recycled rubber outsole is responsible for keeping you upright & slip-free, stopping you from looking like an actual clown. It’s also the reason why you can motor across almost any terrain from the comfort of your new favourite Scooby Doos, and why they’ve accompanied me on every adventure since I got them. As a newly minted “leisure athlete” living in Lutruwita/Tasmania, I got the Nuptse Mules as added external motivation to get out and get after it in the depths of winter, and while I was right, I’m still surprised by just how much use they’ve gotten. Like most outdoor climbers I know, I’m into multiple adventure sports, which means my heatersneakers have weaselled their way into all of them. I’ve slipped them on between climbs, after long trail runs, and swanned around at the campsite after a day on the mountain bike, and I’ll be packing them out to huts this winter. Every time, I’ve been stoked to have a set of red-hot-foot-caves to thaw out my tired, frosted paws at the end of whatever outdoor tomfoolery I’ve been up to. Unashamedly, my shoe rotation now looks like this:
• Short commute to the gym–Nuptse Mules ✓ • Winter belay duties–Nuptse Mules ✓ • Shoes between climbs–Nuptse Mules ✓ • Sore feet after a run/long walk in– Nuptse Mules ✓ • Quick trip to Woolies–Nuptse Mules ✓ • Snow adventure pack list–Nuptse Mules ✓ • Kicking back to read VL–Nuptse Mules ✓ Overall, I’d rate them 5 out of 5 toasted marshmallows.
OVERVIEW Pros:
• Packable • Warm AF • Grippy AF • Collapsible heel with elastic side panels makes them super easy to slip on/off between winter send attempts or burns at the gym. • Webbing pull loop at the heel so you could rack them, if you were really serious about taking them everywhere!
Cons:
• The Nuptse Mules aren’t water resistant. So for all you bog-dwellers out there, you’ll find the same design features in their synthetic sister version, the ThermoBallTM Traction V Mules. These puppies have a non-PFC water-repellent finish and given they’re synthetic, they’ll keep your flippers warm even when wet.
Best for:
Those interested in keeping their stompers warm in winter and making bold fashion statements.
BETA & BREW
ALPINE COFFEE (CIVILISED VERSION) When it comes to alpine climbing, the coffee situation presents a paradox that has always intrigued me. The lore of “light and fast” demands ruthless efficiency when it comes to packing, making my overly “lavish” coffee kit a prime suspect for the “not alpine” pile. However, anyone familiar with the dreaded (yet indispensable) “alpine start” will understand the pivotal role coffee plays in that subtle art of avoiding an epic or occasionally just surviving one. And so, as I anxiously eyeball my heavier-than-I-care-to-mention coffee kit, sitting next to my already overweight pack, a dilemma emerges. Of course, there are a few options. Here are my thoughts on some of them as one of those insufferable “civilised coffee drinkers”. - Sule (VL’s resident coffee & gear nerd)
OPTION 1: “JUST SUCK IT UP AND DON’T DRINK COFFEE.” F*#k that!
OPTION 2: “WHAT ABOUT INSTANT COFFEE?” Look, if you don’t mind the taste, then it’s a very fitting solution. It weighs nothing, requires no equipment and doesn’t produce any rubbish. But if you do mind the taste, then it’s liquid psyche killer! However, there are now a few specialty coffee roasters—and even a US company founded by pro climbers—who have started making “premium instant coffee”. In my experience it tastes a bit like a dirty pour-over (great route name, btw). This is an improvement, but it’s still not amazing. It will make you feel like Steve House surviving off a diet of powders, gels and other freeze-dried goodies (though if it makes you climb like him, it’s worth it). 80 WINTER 2023
OPTION 3: “WTF IS A DRIP BAG?” This is probably the best solution I’ve found so far and was our go-to system on a recent trip to NZ. Drip bags are basically small pour-over style pouches filled with some pre-ground coffee. They’re made from a teabagtype material and weigh an alpine-friendly 11g each. Generally, they’re flushed with an inert gas like nitrogen, so they’ll tend to last a while, despite the coffee being pre-ground. Are they as light as instant? No. Do they leave behind any rubbish? Yeah, a little. Do they really taste that much better than instant? Absolutely! I’ve tried a few different ones from Ona Coffee, Sample Coffee and Stitch Coffee, and have been very satisfied with the resulting cups, especially considering the weight, portability and convenience. I’ve also tried a few steeped bags (also called “coffee bags”, they are the same design principle as tea bags), but I have never enjoyed them as much. Drip bags are pretty simple to use, but here are a few tips to get you started: Pour gently: Try to keep a steady and gentle stream of water while pouring; otherwise, you’ll create a pit of shame in the coffee grounds, which tastes as bad as it looks. I recommend pouring from something with a fine spout (the Sea to Summit collapsible kettle is excellent for this). Use a small ratio: Drip bags generally come with around 10g of coffee in them. Regardless of what the packet says, I recommend staying around a 1:15 to 1:16 ratio (pouring 150 to 160ml of water for a 10g pack). It’s a good idea to do a practice brew at home with your scale so you can eyeball how much you’re pouring later…or just pack a mini scale anyway (though it might piss off your climbing partners). Pour, swirl, pour: As far as technique goes, I would try splitting it up into two even pours (80ml +80ml) and doing a few gentle swirls to settle the coffee bed. Try to let the water level drain almost entirely in between pours and use the hottest water you can, but lower the temp if it tastes roasty or ashy.
CRAG COOKING
Miscellaneous Hut Soup Ah, the joys of alpine huts and the gastronomic delights they bestow upon us! In the initial days following a food run into town, we feast like kings! However, as the name suggests, perishables have a limited lifespan, and inevitably, anything that hasn’t been eaten has probably… well, perished. Normally, this would call for another journey into town, but weather windows can be hard to come by, and they sure as shit shouldn’t be squandered over trivial matters like running out of food. Traditionally, the Swiss would resort to a little something called “Heusuppe” (quite literally ‘Hay Soup’), thankfully your salvation comes in a less sheepish form known as ‘Misc Hut Soup’. It's like Iron Chef meets dumpster diving, with a touch of desperation thrown in for good measure. The Miscellaneous Hut Soup stands as a testament to the human spirit and the remarkable power of stock cubes.
INGREDIENTS: »
Oil or butter
»
stock/seasonings
»
Water
»
Grains
»
Whatever you can find in the non-perishables box
METHOD: 1.
Collect any root and bulb vegetables you have lying around (onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes, etc), cut out the sprouty bits, chop them up and saute them in some form of fat (oil/butter/ghee). For an extra bit of fun, try chopping the veg with your freshly sharpened piolet (or stomp on it with your crampons!)
2.
While that frys, throw in all the spices and seasonings you can find; rosemary, chilli flakes, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and obviously salt & pepper too. If all you’ve got is paprika then make some paprika soup –if you’re brave enough, maybe add some sus mushrooms from the depths of the food bag.
3.
Now, if there’s one thing you’re not going to run out of, it’s water–so go ahead and add a shit ton of that! Beware not to add more than your stock cubes (or powder) can support though, lest you have a watery soup. Add said stock and bring it to a simmer (remember the flavours will intensify as it reduces).
4.
Time for some carbs. If you’re lucky, you might find a grain like pearl barley or arborio rice in the lost food box, or at least some potato flakes (powdered mash). Whatever you manage to find, add it in and continue simmering and reducing until everything is cooked through and well seasoned. If you have dry pasta then hold off until the last 10mins or so to add it (or just use it to cook a better meal)
5.
Time to jazz it up and let your imagination run wild. Add any goodies you may have; salami, cheese, nutritional yeast, maybe some milk powder, and definitely more oil/fat for texture. Make sure to have a final taste test, and serve when ready.
6.
If it sucks, at least it’s not Hay Soup!
Got a recipe and a delicious tale you want to share? Email us at team@verticallifemag.com 82 WINTER 2023
VAPOR
VERSATILITY ON THE EDGE.
VAPOR is designed to offer supportive edging with versatility aimed at more technical outdoor routes. Innovative technologies and materials make this shoe well-balanced, able to offer great performance in all climbing styles. To locate your nearest stockist I T: 1300 784 266 sales@outdooragencies.com.au I www.outdooragencies.com.au
climbinganchors.com.au Store locations in Alexandria NSW & Fitzroy VIC
