Tin Tin Goes Climbing

Well, it was a week, but, I survived. After two epi-pens and a dose of antihistamine on Friday night, I was pretty shot on Saturday so all the exercise I did was my, now familiar, walk to the chemist for some more epi-pens! Sunday was paddle day, and we were a party of four this week, with Wildey back from the wilds. We lapped out to the Tollgate Islands then headed north to Judges Beach and back via Snapper Island. Robbie was disappointed that we were under 20 kilometres (just shy of 18 kilometres) and it’s testament to my poor recovery that I didn’t even care that we hadn’t hit 20 kilometres.

On Tuesday, I dressed as Tin Tin and walked into the crag to go rock climbing. My tick protection was a full body coating of 80% Deet (very oily smelly stuff), my Tin Tin garb which is a long sleeved shirt and long pants tucked into socks all treated with Permethrin – including my back pack. We didn’t get any ticks but it was so windy we left early. Doug and I had at least 100 phantom ticks but no real ones.

Fun Times on a Friday Night

I have just got the ingredients for dinner out of the fridge and I notice a tickle on my neck, the opposite side to the tick bite that resulted in anaphylaxis. I’m in the house, I’ve had a hot shower, it simply cannot be a tick, except it is a tick.

Two epi-pens later and I’m in the ambulance back to the hospital.

Vale Charlie Kirk

Someone shot Charlie Kirk as he was speaking at one of his trademark Turning Point college campus question and answer events. To say he was gunned down like a dog in the street is a tired yet apt metaphor. He died within sight of his wife and two young children. You’ll probably read a lot in the media about who Charlie was and what he stood for. Some will be true, some will be hyperbole, some will be outright lies. What everyone should do, before they make any conclusions about who Charlie Kirk was, is listen to Charlie Kirk at one of his many college debates, or even in conversation with Gavin Newsom. If you are brave enough, to step out of your cultural comfort zone where your moral and ethical authority is established, you’ll likely find that Charlie Kirk was not who you thought. It turns out, that most people are seldom one thing or the other. No-one is all good nor all evil. Even Trump, who the left continues to call Hitler (the epitaph has long since lost any meaning and is now merely a slur from people who are unable to make a coherent argument), is not all evil.

Life is complicated and simple solutions suit only simple people. It is your right to go through life as a simple person with concrete black and white ideas. It is certainly easier and you do not need to confront the demons that dwell within your own heart – after all are you completely blameless in this life? What you are not free to do is pontificate on something or someone when your entire knowledge base comes from what the nice woman on the ABC told you to believe. You have a right to an opinion but we have a right to dismiss it out of hand if it is obvious that you have never looked beneath the cover.

Charlie Kirk gave hope to a generation of youth brow-beaten by the far left into believing that everything in their world was hopeless and damaged. From global warming to racism, sexism, and all the other myriad social justice issues, the youth of our world are bombarded by the left with the certain message that they are living in the worst of times and the future is apt to be no better than and very likely much worse. This is the burden that the symbolic capitalists have put upon our youth to raise their own status. It is evil and it is wrong. In the west, we live in the best conditions that the world has ever known. We are richer, freer, healthier and more educated than any civilisation that has come before us. We can be better. Humans are the most adaptable species ever to have inhabited our world. Despite our outrageous stupidity at times, we are colossally intelligent, we can and we will make our world better for every single living creature, but we cannot do that without hope and Charlie Kirk gave young people a vision of the future that spurs them to rise up and create that great new world. Rest in peace, Charlie, may god be with you and yours.

Where It All Began: 2003

On Tuesday August 13 2003, Doug, Kumo and I hiked into Monashee Lake  from the west intending to camp for three nights and spend two days bagging summits in the Pinnacles.  Monashee Lake is accessed off the South Fork FSR from Hway 6 to Vernon.  A good but steep hiking trail leads initially through old growth cedar forest and later through extensive avalanche runs to Monashee Lake, which lies roughly midway in the north south running Pinnacle Range (Doug says thinks the trail was way too steep and loose to be classified as "good". As far as trails go, he would call it "unpleasant").  We left the truck at 1.40 pm and arrived, soaked with sweat (it was a hot day), at the lake at 4.00 pm.  We set up camp close to the lake in beautiful alpine meadow,  unfortunately marred by a preponderance of fire pits. There were, however, fine views of The Pinnacles and the Okanogan Plateau.

Next morning, Sandy managed to get stung by a wasp while returning from her morning ablutions and had a severe allergic reaction characterized by redness, difficulty breathing and near loss of consciousness.  As soon as the allergic reaction became apparent, we attempted to hike out but Sandy collapsed and was unable to walk.  Luckily, after resting with her head and shoulders elevated the symptoms gradually abated and later that afternoon we were able to walk back out to the truck.  Coincidentally, we noticed a huge number of wasps around camp.  To prevent further (possibly fatal) wasp stings, Sandy walked out in long underwear, long pants, goretex jacket with hood up, and gloves.  Temperatures were in the high 20's.  

Here is Doug's account of the "Wasp Incident":

After a warm night we crawled out of the tent when the sun reached us around 8:00. Not long after, Sandy returned from her morning ablutions announcing she had been stung by a wasp. She had also been stung about 3 weeks earlier and had developed a large read welt in her calf that was still itchy. Within 10 minutes, she mentioned her allergies were bad this morning and she might even have some asthma. At this point a small voice in the back of my head said "I hope this isn't from the sting ...". I unobtrusively watched her as we began eating breakfast - she was starting to show signs of difficulty breathing, general distress, and unusual behavior. After she put down her uneaten breakfast and put her head in her hands, I dispensed with the subtleties and approached for a closer look. "Did you get a sunburn yesterday?" I asked hopefully, as her face and chest were becoming quite red. "No; get me my mirror", which I dutifully did. She was shocked at her obvious allergic reaction and declared "We've got to get out of here and get me to medical attention". 

 

A flurry of activity ensued; Sandra is the nurse, but I couldn't help but wonder if attempting the 4 hour jaunt to the nearest hospital was the best thing to do. But I think we both felt we had to do _something_ (in hindsight, physical exercise through wasp country when she was having trouble breathing, probably wasn't the best idea). I approached Sandra at the tent and it was immediately clear we weren't going anywhere - she was too weak to tie her boots and was in obvious distress. As a nurse she knew exactly what was going on - racing pulse, a red rash on face, chest, legs, arms, tightness in her chest, difficulty breathing - and knew that she was sinking into anaphylactic shock and that her prognosis was not good. As her world went black, she was amazingly calm, and started preparing me for her impending death.

 

At this point I started to have to really work at staying calm. I could see she was on the verge of unconsciousness and her lips were quite blue (even I know this means she's not getting enough oxygen). As she collapses on her side she shows me by feel where I am to make the tracheotomy cut after she passes out. She tells me it is a long shot as her constricted airway is only one of the life-threatening consequences of her out-of-control immune system. In my mind I'm remembering where the Swiss Army knife is (no time to sterilize), thinking of the piece of tent pole in the repair kit that will probably do the job ... but knowing what a mess I can make of a flank steak, I'm not looking forward to the procedure.

 

We get her into the tent on her back, with her head and shoulders slightly elevated. This helps a bit, and she never does lose consciousness. I measure her pulse at 48 (it was racing less than 10 minutes ago). I watch helplessly as the waves of histamine wrack her body. Her face and chest and eyes would go beet red, and then subside. In a flash her entire body was covered in goose bumps. She suffered through violent shakes. After 5 or 10 minutes of this it seemed likely that the worst was past and she was going to live. That was my cue to have a wee collapse of my own.

The cycle of histamine surge and decline went on in decreasing intensity waves for close to an hour, and at that point Sandy felt OK, but was quite wiped. When I then went outside, I realized that camp was literally swarming with wasps. This, of course, was not good, as another sting for Sandy would literally be lights-out.

 

Sandra rested in the tent until around 1:00 until she felt strong enough to attempt the walk out. We would pass through long distances of flowering plants in the meadow and avalanche paths, so as a precaution, Sandra dressed herself in multiple layers of polypro, fleece, and Gore-Tex, all topped off with loads of 100% DEET. We made it to the truck in 1:45, but Sandy was more than a wee bit hot, as it was another sunny and hot day. 

We visited the doctor on Thursday and now have two "Epipen"s in our possession, that are self injecting epinephrine (adrenaline) needles, which will counteract her allergic reaction should she be stung again. The doctor cringed upon hearing my description of my plans for an emergency tracheotomy - rather unlikely to have been helpful, even if I was adept at the procedure, but still worth trying.

 

I can only shake my head at what would have happened should Sandra had not managed to swat the wasp right after it stung, or had not being wearing long underwear, or even received two stings. It those cases, even a satellite phone would have been pretty useless (not that we had one) as the time from when we realized this was a very serious situation to when she would have stopped breathing would have been 5-10 minutes at the most (Sandy had never had such a reaction before). After such an unpleasant experience, it feels strange to feel lucky, but that's exactly how I feel.

Carpe Diem. This mortal coil. And all that stuff.

Things Seen in Hindsight

It’s a beautiful sunny day and Doug has gone out for an ocean paddle. I was all set to go but, realised that while the head was keen, the body was not. This latest anaphylactic episode has knocked me about a bit more than usual. It turns out, looking back through trip reports, this is the third instance of tick induced allergy I have had in the previous nine months, with each one worse than the last. The symptoms and signs are slightly different to the ones I get after wasp, bee or hornet stings and it is only in hindsight that I have been able to put the entire puzzle together. Despite having had sting allergies for 23 years, I did not realise that symptoms can be other than respiratory, and frequently include gastrointestinal symptoms (diarrhoea and vomiting), and even seizures.

Below is my diary of a tick allergy, extracted from our trip database:

15 November 2024:  We walked in and got Doug set up and then Sandy, after eating a couple of bites of the previous nights dinner, walked along to start trail work. I got incredibly dizzy and felt like I was going to faint. I've never had that like that before. I simply could not walk. I ended collapsed on the track, unable to find anywhere to get on a log out of the dirt as I was so sick. Vomited about 5 times and the other x 1. Lay on my side by my pack hoping for the dizziness to pass off. Eventually called Doug as I thought I should let him know. He was just finishing up and got packed up quick as he could and came along to meet me. I had begun walking out still very dizzy but holding on to trees to keep my balance, only some retching as I had emptied my stomach. I found a tick buried in my shoulder when I got home. It left a big red wheal. I went to bed when I got back.

20 November 2024:Climbed part way up route but feeling icky. Found a tick on myself and felt more icky so we walked out.

19 December 2024:  Got bit by a tick and felt very unwell. Took anti-histamine, felt like I was going to pass out so lay down for a while. I had been belaying Doug up the climbing route but he came down and he managed to remove the tick but it had bitten me. We left after that as I felt quite wobbly.

There you have it. In hindsight, it is recognisable as a clear tick allergy but at no point did I have the usual difficulty breathing I have experienced with insect sting allergies. I’m not sure how I am going to manage in the future. At least with insect stings, you feel the sting and can immediately take medication. Ticks are different and frequently only found later. But, I know that in future, I’ll be reaching for the epinephrine as soon as I feel even a little bit off. Ironically, I often take anti-histamine first hopeful that I can fend off a full blown reaction because I always think “If I take the epinephrine the whole day will be shot.” As if dying doesn’t ruin your entire day! My brain is so low on oxygen and blood during these events that I surprise myself with how daft my thinking is after the event.

Your One Wild and Precious Life

Tell me, what is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Mary Oliver

It might sound hyperbolic, but Doug saved my life yesterday. Within one minute of getting a tick bite, I collapsed into unconsciousness, had a seizure, and began vomiting while unconscious. All this happened when we were deep in the bush. I don’t remember too much. I felt odd when the tick bit, then within seconds, my visual field narrowed and I felt as if I was on a train rapidly withdrawing into a deep, dark tunnel. The world, what I could see of it, span around, and then I was down. It was all so fast I did not even recognise that I was having an anaphylactic reaction, something I am, unfortunately, no stranger to.

Doug, who believed himself to be holding his dying partner of over 40 years in his arms, was amazing. He administered my epi-pen, cleared my airway, put me in the recovery position all while talking to the emergency operator and conveying a GPS location of our position.

I was long-lined out. The second time in my life. The first was after Doug got his knee stuck in a crack on Bugaboo Spire in the Purcell Mountains. That was a fun long-line (apart from the stuck knee), whirling around a couple of hundred metres above the spectacular Bugaboo Range. This last time, not so much. I was barely conscious and throwing up.

This is not, of course, the end of the story. Doug was left alone in the bush with two backpacks of climbing gear, a tough walk out and having watched his soul mate disappear into the air. My friends, Margot and Lippy were wonderful. Margot picked me up from Woden Hospital when I was discharged. I was dirty and smelly and had vomited on myself. Lippy made us a dinner. They both welcomed me into their home and were gracious hosts. I can’t thank them enough.

Life is beautiful, unexpected, above all precarious. Hug the people you love, forgive those you can, seize the day and don’t ever, ever, ever let a single day pass that you don’t thank god or the creator or whatever mystical creature you believe in that you live, breathe and can experience this one precious and glorious life.

Another Budawang Punt: Webbs Crown

If you’ve done anything in the Budawangs besides the few most popular tracks, you’ve punted. I’ve had my own punts, like the time we tried to circuit the ridges around Jindelara Creek, or the Sneddens Pass circuit. In fact, unless you happen to be lucky enough to be following in the wake of a big group or a trail clearing party, punting is more likely than success. A month or so ago, while bicycling and hiking on the east side of Clyde Gorge I had got a glimpse of Webbs Crown: a small flat topped eminence surrounded on all sides by sandstone cliffs lying between two watercourses deep in Clyde Gorge. Similar in character to Hamlet Crown in the Ettrema Wilderness or Russels Needle above the Nattai River but unlike those two locations, I could find no trip or route reports anywhere. In fact, the only reference I could find was my own question on a bushwalking forum about Webbs Crown.

With the aid of satellite imagery and the topographic map, I had identified what appeared to be a route down through the cliffs on the west side of Clyde Gorge in the vicinity of Webbs Crown. If this route worked, we would only (only!) have to ascend and descend 100 to 120 metres in about half a kilometre to reach the base of Webbs Crown. From the base of the crown, we would circle the feature looking for a route to the top. Getting to the top was not guaranteed as, on the topographic maps and the imagery, no breaks are seen but sometimes the only way to know if something is possible is to try.

Budawang bush-wacking is notorious and, at times unpredictable. I’ve certainly had occasions where it wasn’t too bad, but more commonly there are few things worse or slower. It is not uncommon to proceed at a pace of under 500 metres an hour. We were a bit faster than this, but not all that much faster. A distance of about 1.5 kilometres on the map took two hours. And that doesn’t mention the soul and body destroying work of the bush-whacking.

I had hoped that the heath that grows on the sandstone slabs and shallow soil along the plateau might be less thick than other Budawang locations, but that was not the case. Sure, there were some patches of merely hip high vegetation but there were other locations where we made no progress at all. None. At these times, we had to retrace our path and look for a different route. Most common was bush which we could walk through but which was interminably slow and heavy work with fallen trees and branches elevated mid thigh above the actual ground surface which meant each step had to have a metre height. Given I’m only 1.58 metres tall, this was brutish work.

The pass, when we found it, was not a pass. We scrambled arduously down some distance but without an abseil rope we would not be going any lower and, of course, abseiling down is ridiculous when you have to exit the same way. Around 1:00 pm, after much thrashing, we had a quick lunch before trying to salvage all that bush-wacking by walking along sandstone slabs and cliffs that line Clyde Gorge. Although the cliffs are contiguous on the map, the slabs at the top of the cliffs are not. They are cut with small gorges and even on the slabs, thick brush grows and fallen trees have to be surmounted. But, we did get a good look at the west side of Webbs Crown (no way up on the west, south and even the north that we could see) and, remarkable as it sounds, we found a cairn. One single cairn marking a pass down between cliffs that gave access to Clyde Gorge.

I would like to know the story behind that cairn as the only information I have been able to uncover of travel in upper Clyde Gorge (apart from a few trips into the site of Rixons Gold Mine – all done before the 2019/2020 fires) is a few posts on Instagram about a trip from Bhundoo Hill to Batemans Bay through Clyde Gorge. It took this party almost five days before they were able to put packrafts into the Clyde River and paddle rather than walk.

This trip was, of course, a pure punt. We gave up before even reaching Webbs Crown. Had we been made of tougher stuff, we might have at least have tried to get down to the Clyde River and possibly up to the base of the cliffs. Realistically, however, we just didn’t have time. The cycle and bush-whack to the cairned pass took five hours return. The remainder of the trip, even if we did manage to find a route to the top would likely consume another seven hours minimum. When the possibility of success is so low, it’s not hard to opt for the punt.