Paddling Upstream Through Molasses

Today was a high gravity day. We did about 15 kilometres in the kayak. Earlier in the week, when I was planning my training schedule (wait, what, you don’t plan your training? Are you training or exercising?) Tuesday looked like a good day for a downwinder, but the forecast flopped about and in the end, the BOM (which just spent somewhere in the vicinity of $100 million to refurbish their web-site – WTAF) forecast seemed to indicate northwesterly winds, not northeasterly winds. So, we decided we would just go out and do a mid-distance paddle, about 20 kilometres or what we could do in three hours.

PC: DB

We did 15 kilometres. I was really fatigued. Was it poor sleep or the 60 squats (and etcetera) I had done the day before? Who knows, probably a bit of both, but I felt like I was paddling upstream through molasses. We got out to North Head where a brisk northerly was blowing but not much coming into the bay. Lumpy conditions though with a decent long period swell running through.

PC: DB

Back in the early days when I could handle lots of heavy training I would just push through, but I’ve still got my long paddle day to do this week and, although I haven’t learnt much over the years, I have learnt that it’s more important to be able to train tomorrow than it is to incur such fatigue that you need three days rest.

Bang, Stop, Bang, Stop: More Training Around the Bay

Bang, stop, bang, stop, bang, stop. That’s the sound of my kayak hitting the wind waves as we paddle from our home bay across to North Head. It is a perfect downwind run, but also a perfect bash into the wind. When we left home we thought it might be a fizzler but a hundred metres off the beach it was clear the wind was in the 15 to 20 knot range as predicted. About an hour and a quarter to arrive at North Head, and 40 minutes back! The first 500 metres I had trouble getting on the runners but then we were off.

Friday was slated to be our long paddle day but it was also my Mum’s birthday. She is 93. Which I think we can all agree is very old. My brother and his family, who are all awesome people, were heading over to the care home with a cake for morning tea and would telephone me from Mum’s phone. My Mum can’t work the telephone out anymore. When she was 70, my Mum taught herself how to scan photos and create a webpage and for a while she ran a blog! Which is pretty impressive for someone born in 1932, a decade before we even had prototype computers. Educators always want to tell us that kids must have computers in school or they’ll be left behind which is utter nonsense because smart kids have plastic minds and can work stuff out. Adults have plastic minds as long we decide we’ll keep learning throughout life.

Anyway, global boiling hasn’t hit the south coast yet and it was cold and drizzly. I needed to be able to answer the telephone easily and I did not think that would work paddling south on the ocean so we went up the Clyde River instead. We do this about once a year in a training session and if you get the tide right, it makes for a much easier long day. Once we get near to town and the bridge over the Clyde River, it’s flat water paddling all the way. We were about a kilometre from Nelligen when we turned around. Thirty six kilometres but it took over five hours so it didn’t seem particularly fast. No stops as it was too cold and wet!  

Mank is Mank

My mate, Hamish, tells a story of climbing with Bridwell (only Zoomers will need to ask AI who Bridwell was) on the big walls of Squamish in British Columbia, Canada. Night was falling and the pair needed to rappel (abseil) off the mountain. Bridwell slung an old stump left somewhere on a ledge (an un-anchored stump) and asked Hamish to sit on the stump while he (Bridwell) rappelled down. The stump wobbled but held, and Bridwell called up “off rappel.” Hamish, of course, now had to follow Bridwell down the ropes but without anyone to sit on the stump to hold it in place. Breathing out to lighten his stocky frame, down Hamish went. The anchor held, and the two were set to climb another day.

Hamish on the first ascent of Kerouac Crack,

Zoomers will need to look up Kerouac

Years ago Doug and I climbed a little peak called The Tooth in the Cascade Range near Snoqualmie Pass in Washington. The south face is a very pleasant outing with climbing to Ewbank Grade 10 (about 5.4) which we climbed in a couple of roped pitches separated by some easy scrambling. We found ample fixed rappel stations to descend to Pineapple Pass where we decided to rappel straight down to the talus basin below instead of the longer more rambly approach route we had taken around the back of a big rock tower which makes up one side of Pineapple Pass. With a 60 metre rope, we had to stretch the rope right to the 30 metre mark to find a decent rappel station for the last rappel and were shocked to find at around 25 metres, some manky tat around a shrub obviously used by some desperate party to abseil off. This was a shrub; not a bush, not a small tree, merely twigs of a shrub the size of a small blueberry bush lashed together with a bit of webbing. Desperate and dangerous.

Prepped for route cleaning In BC, Canada

If you do anything long enough, even if you try to minimise risk, you have, if not an accident, at least an incident. Doug has rappelled off the end of his rope while cleaning climbing routes in Canada, and I have come exceptionally close in Australia (with rope stretch I just reached the ground and when unweighted the rope ended a metre or so above the ground). Once in City of Rocks, Idaho, while rappelling Cruel Shoes, we discovered that, contrary to what the guidebook indicated, our doubled 60 metre rope did not reach the anchor. This involved some jiggery pokery to get to the final rappel anchor including Doug down-climbing the 5.7 (grade 14) route! I’m embarrassed to say this is only a mere sampling of near accidents I have had while abseiling!

Stripe Rock, Idaho, location of Cruel Shoes

No-one should be doing any of these things. They are ridiculously dangerous if not outright foolish. But, among all my mountain incidents, I have never had an abseil anchor pull completely. While abseil accidents are regrettably common, most accidents occur when the sling fails, the gear pulls, or, infrequently terrain features such as horns, completely fail. Occasionally, people sling boulders which then roll right down the mountain. I remember one such incident from years ago in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta but, luckily the individual involved only fell a few metres because they were on terrain that most people would down-climb.

Down climbing Escalade in the Purcell Mountains

Bolt failures are relatively rare, but not unknown. In 2015, the UIAA (International Climbing and Mountaineering Foundation) published guidelines on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) of stainless steel bolts installed in climbing areas. Notably, Taiwan is one of the areas where SCC has been confirmed, but SCC most commonly occurs in areas close to the ocean and does not typically involve the entire bolt pulling out. Entire bolt pulls out is one of those low probability – high consequence events that people have trouble wrapping their heads around. The likelihood of the event is so low that it is very easy to get lured into a problematic situation where suddenly, it’s all good until it isn’t. The low probability-high consequence event is an absolute classic in avalanche incidents.

Mank on a route in the southern highlands of NSW

The Rescued Podcast (yes, there is the usual “but how did you feel” 20 minute introduction to get through) recently aired the story of three canyoners descending an “expedition” canyon in Taiwan. I can’t say I know what “expedition” canyoning is because people call a three day ski tour an “expedition” these days, but, apparently, the canyon the group were descending was infrequently traversed and required multiple days (or at least two; my mate Hamish would always say that a two pitch route is not multi-pitch) to complete. On the second day, the group approached an abseil down a waterfall that crossed a ledge and ended in a pool. A single bolt described as “an odd style expansion bolt” was found with a piece of cordellette tied around the bolt with the nut securing the cordellette on top. The protagonist describes this procedure as common in “expedition” canyoning to save weight. To a climber, this sounds, well, we can say the word again according to DJT, retarded. Your life is worth the weight of a hangar! And, if you put a maillon on the cordellette, you are close to the weight of an actual hangar!

More mank also in the southern highlands, NSW

Apparently the bolt that “wasn’t quite an expansion bolt” had a pin in the middle. This sounds like a hammer drive pin bolt designed for attaching materials like wood to concrete for “light to medium duty projects.” I’ve never actually seen one of these in the wild and I started climbing in the days of homemade hangars and button head bolts. But strange things do happen and bits of gear get used in inappropriate ways, like the two young blokes who “bolted” the Calgary Route (YDS 5.6 or Ewbank 13) on Mount Yamnuska, a decades old traditional route climbed by thousands of people without weird manky bolts and home-made dog-bones.

Woolies grade orange nylon cord 

used as an abseil anchor, Bungonia Creek

The first person down the abseil (the lightest individual in the group) inspected the surrounding rock around the bolt. It was described as “not spectacular.” The only attempt to test the bolt appears to have been a couple of jerks onto the anchor while the individual was standing on a ledge rigged to abseil. This, of course, is far less than even body weight plus backpack which is the absolute minimum an abseil anchor should hold. Abseil forces can reach up to 2 or even 2.5 kN (kilonewtons) even when the abseil is relatively controlled (not bouncing around like a lunatic).

It is a free hanging abseil down
 from Lost Arrow Spire in Idaho

The individual went ahead and rigged her abseil, “grovelled down” attempting to only put a downward pull on the bolt not an outward pull, and reached the pool at the bottom safely. The next bloke down was a big fellow who probably outweighed the first abseiler by 30 kilograms. You know what happens next. That single anchor pulled and the second canyoner fell to the bottom breaking his pelvis. What follows is an extraordinary rescue and all involved are to be commended. But what of the lessons learnt?

This is manky, Mount Keira

Climbers and canyoners need to understand that it is really difficult if not impossible to determine the reliability of installed bolts by visual inspection. Unless the bolt is incredibly manky and pulls out with finger strength, you simply have no idea what condition the bolt is in. In this particular instance, the bolt used is wholly unfit for purpose and should never be trusted as a single anchor point in any event. As with most things in life, the edge case is easy to recognise but the middle ground where most of life’s events occur is opaque.

Rappeling down a bare ice slope in the Monashees 

because we all have very big backpacks.

But, if you were absolutely desperate to use that single bolt, you could back it up with another piece of gear, or, if that is not available consider a temporary back up with a meat anchor and send the heaviest person first, the lightest person goes last. Still, this is incredibly dodgy because bolts have been known to fail on the second and third person down, and you must make sure that your meat anchor is only back up and does not take the load. If you get the rigging wrong you are not actually testing the anchor.

Slung horn in the Selkirk Mountains

Guides talk about a concept called “error correction,” whereby errors are corrected as swiftly as possible. Sometimes, however, an error is so great that you simply cannot recover and all the things you did after the event mean very little, at least in terms of risk mitigation. Years ago, one of my friends set off to ski the south face (the sun drenched aspect in North America) of a big peak in the Purcell Mountains in early May. They left the trail-head at 11 am! If you are going to ski a south facing avalanche prone bowl in spring, you are at the summit above the ski descent by 9 am at the latest. It is very hard to correct for a catastrophic error of judgement. You might, as this party did, prevent further issues from arising, but sometimes the error is so extreme that the worst possible consequences have already arisen.

Skiing up Mount Brennan in spring

What about abseiling off single point anchors? Climbers, particularly in alpine environments do this all the time. It is with the caveat, however, that the single point anchor is absolutely bomber! And you must be 100% confident in your anchor because you are 100% dependent on it. If you can’t meet that exacting standard, do something else. Ironically, this team was carrying a bolt kit and put a bolt in after the accident.

Bolting a new route in the Kootenays

It is amazing what people will do rappelling. And I’m not pointing fingers at the canyoning group because I have been on climbing trips where Doug has down-climbed entire 30 metre pitches just so we could avoid leaving a couple of chocks as an anchor. How stupid is that! In fact, I’ve probably made most of the mistakes pointed out in this article, notably, the ridiculous frugality that suddenly swamps the minds of otherwise sensible and cautious climbers who are probably going to blow more than the price of a couple of wires at the local bar that evening. Mind you, there are limits. Two of my friends once retreated off the south ridge of Mount Gimli in an advancing storm and left about a thousand bucks of gear on the climb!

Simul rappelling (not recommended)

There is a lot of talk about risk in the podcast. The injured canyoner believes that “risk is, is something that you have to, what you can calculate, of course [sic].” But this is not how risk works. Risk is the intersection between probability and consequence overlaid with exposure and vulnerability and while we might be able to estimate consequences relatively reliably, estimating probability is much less precise. The consequence of falling to the bottom of a pitch is likely catastrophic but how do we estimate the likelihood (probability) of a bolt of unknown origin pulling? Is it 10%, 20%, 90%, and even if the likelihood was only 1% would you do it if the consequence was a broken pelvis in a remote location? But it’s really exposure and vulnerability which cause the problem. Had the party backed up the anchor, or used a different anchor, they would have had no exposure and no vulnerability. Simply put, there would be no accident, no injury, no complex rescue. When it is hard to assess probability sometimes the safest solution is simply to avoid exposure. This is succinctly summed up in the adage commonly used in the ski-guiding community: if the question is stability, the answer is terrain.

Extensive avalanches in Ymir bowl

Another member of the party when asked about risk responded “I come up with these problems of what happens if I have this issue and I only have this set of gear and I make do and figure it out.” This is the gear fallacy. The idea that every problem you have can be solved by having more gear or using the gear you have in different ways. Canyoners seem particularly susceptible to the gear fallacy, whereas the issue is not that you have insufficient gear, it’s that you are not thinking accurately about the situation. Interestingly enough, this particular accident is one of the few that actually could be prevented by using more gear. Back up the anchor or put in a second bolt. Consequence, probability, exposure and vulnerability all managed by one action.

Hamish rappelling off a horn in the Purcell Mountains

The third member of the party when asked about risk said “just trying to work out what could possibly go wrong and how I can fix it.” This isn’t a bad answer but is a little bit arse backward because fixing things after they have gone wrong is appropriate for error correction but not for risk mitigation.

Risk mitigation is actually about assessing probability, consequence, vulnerability and exposure and modifying these constructs to plan and conduct an adventure that fits within your own acceptable risk. There’s a very good Tedx video here which presents these concepts in a model suitable for outdoor adventurers. In the video, Statham describes a complex ascent of a large mountain where the usual camp for the summit attempt was under a large ice cliff. Dozens of parties had camped in the exact same location but Statham’s crew deemed the consequence catastrophic even though the risk was low. They used a different summit day strategy and avoided the camp.

An inadequate belay

But it’s hard to appropriately assess a risk mitigation strategy if you don’t first recognise the risk. This seems to have been the issue with the canyoning party. The concept of a single bolt anchor failing was never seriously considered so no mitigation strategies were considered. And it’s easy, in the excitement of the day or the even the pressure of time to push forward without considering the edge case – the high consequence, low probability, high exposure and vulnerability event – when suddenly, your best day ever becomes your worst.

Loop Sea Kayaking

Andy Kirkpatrick wrote a substack article about a recent solo ascent of the Matterhorn in which he floated the idea that “content creators” – which is such a meaningless term that I have put it in quotation marks – risk being owned and driven by the audience they have created. But, it’s not just content creators that feel this pressure, anyone doing anything for any group of people feels some incentive to make people happy, unless, of course, they are a sociopath.

PC: DB

In any event, there seems to be an ever decreasing number of paddlers interested in 30 kilometre paddling days, so, for my latest Sunday paddle for the NSW Sea Kayak Club, I came up with the idea of offering multiple distances across the same trip. Each paddle loop was about 10 kilometres and paddlers could join for any one or more of the loops. If you haven’t been paddling on the ocean for a long time or have only been doing sub-10 kilometre paddles, the idea of a 30 kilometre open ocean day can be intimidating. I learnt early on in my outdoor career that there is a very small minority of people who enjoy being thrown into the deep end. Most people thrive in the “adventure zone” where difficulty meets competency and fitness.

PC: DB

We met at Wimbie Beach because my local beach can have a sucking shore dump and is quite shingley with very little sand. Also, the parking is marginal. I paddled down from my local beach and noted that there was a decent (12 knots or so) westerly wind (off-shore) blowing. By the time I got to Wimbie Beach, the wind was strong enough that I had to do up the chin buckle on my paddling hat to stop it blowing off. Having to buckle my hat on is a bit of a key indicator for me!

PC: DB

Our first planned loop was to the Tollgate Islands as this trip is a perennial favourite but that off-shore wind was a bit of a concern. Our group was certainly strong enough to paddle out to the Tollgate Islands and back into shore but I am trying to make good decisions these days so with agreement from my paddling partners we did the second loop (around Snapper Island) first. By the time we left Snapper Island, after paddling through the rocks for a bit, the wind had fallen so our next (second) loop was out to the Tollgate Islands. There was very little wind by the time we got out to the islands but a decent ENE swell running so we did not go into all our usual play spots. We did, however, see a large cluster of seals resting about 200 metres off the Tollgate Islands! Occasionally, we see one or two seals at the Tollgate Islands but this was a group of 8 to 10 individuals. I have no real knowledge of the issue but I take this as a sign of a healthy ecosystem.

PC: DB

It was certainly feeling like lunch time by then (or breakfast time for me) so we paddled back into Wimbie Beach. At this point, two paddlers decided 18 kilometres was enough and they would pull out. Doug and I will be back out for a longer paddle this week so we were also happy with our paddle distance at 23 kilometres. The wind, which switched about all day had increased again but this time from the north so we enjoyed a paddle into the wind for the last three kilometres of the day. Later than evening, the wind swung about again and came from the south. I’m not sure if the loop option is a great idea, as I didn’t actually lure out any of the lurkers on my list, but, it was worth floating.

A Good 30

There was a strange green blob of 15 to 20 knot winds on Meteye along the coast from Durras to Batemans Bay, but the majority of the map was blue (5 to 15 knot winds). Meteye does the wind forecast in square tiles and three hour time periods. It something to do with how the map is constructed and produces odd hard edges and very precise lines when there is no precision or hard edges in the natural environment. That’s why people struggle with GPS tracks when ski touring or bushwalking. GPS waypoints take you in a straight line from point A to point B but straight lines are virtually never useful when navigating the natural world.

PC: DB

Whenever I see these oddities on Meteye I’m suspicious. How likely is it that 100 kilometres of coastline has winds to 15 knots except for this 10 km stretch where the wind is 20 knots? About as likely as those Epstein files ever coming to light or the ABC losing it’s obsession with identity politics. The correct answer is, of course, never. But sometimes you do get lucky, which doesn’t mean we won’t hear more about the patriarchy from the ABC.

PC: DB

We went north for our 30 kilometre day because there was a northeasterly wind forecast. That’s our typical summer wind, blowing on-shore as the land heats up. It was, global warming notwithstanding, a cold morning for mid November. Moruya was 4 degrees but we were a degree or two warmer. Still, I wore two shirts and long paddling tights, my usual winter kit, in, if you recall, mid-November!

With calm conditions, we set a good pace across the Bay, between 7 and 8 kilometres/hour and then we turned north to paddle up the coast. Usually I paddle close in shore because these longer days can be dull otherwise just looking at the ocean but we were set to do 30 kilometres and sometimes I just get sick of the rebound paddling close to shore. The paddling is slower and if you are out for distance it takes longer. It took about two hours to get to Durras where we had a very brief beach break then turned around.

The northeast wind started ticking up as soon as we turned south past Wasp Island and gradually ticked up. Not unusual for November. We were faster immediately. The northerly current is obviously running because the wind wasn’t that strong until we were passing North Head. Then, as we ran across the Bay, the wind got stronger and stronger and we were catching runners with our speed easily reaching (well not that easily, you have to paddle hard to catch runners) 10 and even 12 kilometres! We did the final six or so kilometres back to our home bay in a bit under 40 minutes. It was probably one of my easiest 30 kilometre days so early in the training cycle.

Could it be all the mountain biking I’ve been doing? Our local trails go up and down, up and down, up and down, so a 30 kilometre afternoon ride involves, at least for me on a nonnie (not a cheaters E bike) a lot of huffing and puffing up to the top of the downhill runs. It is a not boring way to get in your zone four training because the huffing and puffing falls quite naturally into intervals.

Dodging a Bullet

Doug calls me the human wrecking ball because I can manage to break anything. The first time I met Doug’s parents we were staying at their house in White Rock south of Vancouver and I managed, on the first day, to pull the shower curtain down from the wall. I was intimidated by Doug’s family in those days as they all appeared very rich to a kid from a working class family whose father worked two jobs from the outer ‘burbs of Sydney and the fracas with the shower curtain was distressing.

Doug and I have been together over 30 years now and the number of things I have broken is uncountable. Right now, of course, both my paddle and the Big Foot in my kayak are broken which is why I’m not out paddling with Nick and Doug right now and how I’ve dodged a bullet because the wave rider buoy off Batemans Bay peaked at around 5 metres at 10 am and the wind is gusting to 20 knots. These are just the kind of days when Quick Nick emerges from five years of house renovations to paddle.

Quick Nick pic

I took the mountain bike out for a run on the Mogo trails. It’s Sunday so the E-bikes were out. Times have changed; 30 years ago, when I was 30 people who were 30 would be ashamed to use a motor to ride up a 100 or so metres on a well graded trail. But here we are. Giving up our vitality for convenience. My legs were sore because I’ve started the Delorme protocol again. Which means I did 50 weighted squats yesterday. But it’s endurance training season so it’s critical that I try and maintain my rather paltry amount of muscle mass.

From Round Mountain I rode down Spitfire but my legs were shaky so I walked that dratted dip that has thrown me off the bike every time I’ve been down Spitfire. The body remembers. The day before, while training, I had a mountain bike video on and for the first time I actually thought “Why not try to get better in a more planned way rather than my usual haphazard I’ll work it out way?” First thing I did was wear shoes with decent tread because, apparently, having good soles on your shoes that grip the pedals increases the control you have when biking. I usually wear my oldest running shoes which have a nice smooth worn out sole much like a bedroom slipper. Turns out grippy shoes do work. I went faster than normal even though my legs were a bit shot.

Secondly, I tried deliberately to lean the bike while keeping my body upright. Apparently, the side lugs on mountain bike tyres are aggressive and meant to “grip” the trail as you cant the bike over. Of course, I felt like the bike was virtually touching down I was leaning it that far but, that’s beginners mind I’m sure a bystander would barely notice bicycle lean at all. Anyway, it was diverting. I added a bit more distance and elevation gain by zooming down the green trails to the Botanic Gardens which was terrific fun.

Hikes and Bikes at the South End of Namadgi National Park

We had to make another trip to the ACT and also had to pick up my kayak from the south coast which all equated to a lot of driving. The only way to make so much driving tolerable is to plan some activities along the way. Shanahans Mountain and Mount Boboyan have been on my list for a long time. After all, there are tracks to the summits and each walk takes only around an hour so why would you not go? But, these two trails are at the far south end of Namadgi National Park and are too short to be worth the long drive on their own. South again, however, right on the border is Mount Clear and the shortest drive from Canberra to my kayaks location on the south coast happened to be down the Boboyan Road.

First up is Mount Boboyan via the Yerrabi track. In spring, the top of the hill is a mass of wildflowers. Very pretty unless you are allergic to bees in which case you walk gingerly through the masses of insects and masses of flowers. A short descent from the trig leads to a big rock platform with a sturdy panoramic sign detailing all the peaks visible from Yankee Hat down to Yauk just peaking out in the distance.

A little further south is Shanahans Mountain with a short loop walk and filtered views to Mount Clear and the long ridge of the Clear Range. We camped at Mount Clear campground, a lovely little spot by Naas Creek with a plethora of kangaroos along the grassy valley bottoms.

Next morning we rode all the way along Long Flat Fire Trail (not that flat) to Mount Clear Fire Trail (FT) and the top of Mount Clear. The bikes got stashed near a massive boulder on Mount Clear FT and, to save an inexplicable 60 metres up and 60 metres straight back down again on the FT, we contoured through open bush (I haven’t been in such easy to walk bush for years!) at the 1400 metre contour. Mount Clear has filtered views, a trig and lots of communication towers. There was still a little snow visible in the far distance.

The four hour outward bound trip was replaced by a return trip of around two hours as the FT riding was very fast. Apart that is, from the two kilometre section along the southern tributary of Nass Creek. The topographic map shows Long Flat FT running pretty much south along the western side of a small creek. Which it does, sort of. The almost two kilometre section from the north side of the creek (right near the 1334 metre spot elevation on the map) to the junction with Mount Clear FT is very vague, and, when you are bombing along on a bicycle coming from the north easy the overgrown FT is easy to miss. The FT is marked with a piece of blue string around a tree but we only saw this on the way back. On the outward journey, we shot straight past this junction and followed an old FT unmarked on the topographic map which junctions with Long Corner FT (runs along the Boboyan divide) at a water tank (quite close to the 1376 metre spot elevation). This route is longer and has an extra 70 or 80 metres of elevation gain but I can’t say it’s slower on a bicycle as Long Flat FT is slow riding along the creek as there is barely a trace of the FT left.

Either route works, although the more main, undocumented FT is about a kilometre longer with a bit more elevation gain. We rode both, following the Link FT on the way back. The Link FT is barely visible most of the distance but runs along the creek on grassy open meadow so no trail is really needed if you are walking although it’s a bumpy ride on a bicycle. It’s flat, however, so still easily navigated on a bike. In wetter weather, maintaining dry feet might be a challenge. I got a “booter” where the FT fords a minor creek. Once we hit the main Long Flat FT the rest of the trip was a breeze, zooming along the well maintained track with the uphills easy to ride. One of those trips where you are so happy to have a mountain bike!