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
