Good Bye Dear Friend

One of the first, if not the first, friend we made in Nelson passed away yesterday – too young and with too much still to achieve in life. Kim was a tireless mountaineer and environmentalist. He had climbed more mountains in the Kootenays than anyone else I know (or can think of), had been up more valleys and explored more ridge-lines. No mountain was too big, too small, too inconsequential or too far. 

Along with his love of mountains came a love of wild places. For almost 20 years Kim was at the forefront of the Save Jumbo fight. Many other people would have been worn down by the two decades fighting big business in a struggle reminiscent of David and Goliath, but not Kim. After 20 years, he still spoke passionately for keeping Jumbo Wild and was involved in the Jumbo Wild movement right until the end.

Kim and Janice on Keystone Mountain

One of the most extraordinary things about Kim was his prolific and complete notes on all the mountain trips he had done including road access details, route details, weather, times, companions and more. His recall of his trips, which must have numbered in the thousands as Kim was out most days, was incredible. He could literally recite mountain heights and route details from memory and only occasionally had to check his extensive route notes. We used to joke that Kim could remember every detail about every mountain he had climbed but not where he put the car keys.

His passing leaves a huge hole in the hearts of his family, his many friends, and the community as a whole. When you remember Kim, as surely everyone who was privileged to know him must, remember him in his beloved West Kootenays, wandering along an alpine ridge with the world spread at his feet on his way to yet another glorious summit.

Climb on, dear friend. 

Kim taking a break in meadows near Ben Hur Lake

after climbing Caribou Ridge 

Strength

“Don't you ever worry about doing this sort of thing with me?” my 80 year old, osteoporotic, spinal column stuck together with glue, can't feel her feet mother asked me as we cautiously picked our way down a bush track in Heathcote National Park today. In truth, I had under-estimated the difficulty of our days bush-walk as I had been busy with other things when planning the trip and had only briefly glanced at the trail description. “Mostly on fire-roads” was all I could remember, and, my mother does relatively well on fire-roads. The 60 vertical metre descent down a rough, steep bush track to access the fire-road had either slipped from my consciousness or never been there in the first place.

“I try not to think about it” I flippantly replied. In truth, the only thing I ever did think about on these occasions – and, perhaps regretfully, there have been a few of them – was “what will Search and Rescue think if I my mother falls over here and I have to call them to haul her out of here?” If Australia's Search and Rescue teams are anything like Canadian Search and Rescue teams, their condemnation seems guaranteed. I can certainly remember quite a few call-outs with Nelson Search and Rescue where, however unspoken it might have been, the disapproval of various team members hung heavily in the air.

But, if we can laud disabled climbers tackling Everest, El Capitan, Kilimanjaro, and other big name mountains, why can we not similarly celebrate an 80 year old grandmother going for a hike in the woods? Strength, after all, does not come from doing what comes easily, but from trying that which is hard.

Eucalpyt reflected in pool, Heathcote National Park

Avalanche Epiphanies

On Saturday, an acquaintance of mine was caught in (triggered) a size 2.5 slab avalanche in the SelkirkMountains. Luckily, she was not killed, but, unluckily, did suffer relatively severe injuries. I know the area reasonably well, having hiked, climbed and skied there many times, and things could certainly have been worse. The terrain is typical Kootenay skiing – steep sided treed valleys with little gullies and terrain features all of which worsen the consequences of getting caught in an avalanche. 

The party did many things well, apparently after the avalanche, the injured skier was rapidly reached and a rescue quickly activated (she was not completely buried), they exposed only one person at a time to the slope thus reducing the potential number of victims and leaving more people to render assistance if needed, the party had obviously made a number of snowpack observations, and were all carrying standard safety equipment. But, of course, any time we trigger an avalanche, unless it is small and intentional, we've also clearly made some mistakes.

I've triggered a number of avalanches over the course of my skiing career, so many, in fact, that I am not sure I could recall all of them if pressed. I have been, of course, terrifically lucky, in that I never triggered anything big, most were small and intentionally triggered (or at least half expected) or were triggered remotely from a safe location. Many times, I triggered smallish slabs that were unexpected, but was saved from further harm because I routinely practised safe ski practices, such as exposing only one person at a time, getting out of the way at the bottom, avoiding high consequence slopes in times of uncertain stability avoiding convex rolls, starting out on smaller terrain and all of the other fairly standard tactics that can improve ones safety margin in the mountains. 

In the first year after I took my CAA Level 1 Avalanche Operations Course, I did, however, do what many new graduates of that course do, and got caught (in my case almost caught) in a big dangerous avalanche, the result of being too cocky. The episode scared the shit out of me as it had the potential to kill or at least seriously injure everyone in the party. There was one clear sign that I chose to ignore (and I take full responsibility for ignoring this sign as I was the most highly trained and experienced person in the group) and that was a moderate sudden planar failure on a compression test 40 cm down on a suncrust. I ignored this obvious red flag because we were on a ski traverse that I had wanted to do for ages and I had finally managed to get the weather and the companions to do the trip, and, we were at the base of the final avalanche slope - beyond this one slope, we had no further danger to contend with. All those things, irrelevant as they are, somehow blinded me to the danger into which we skied. We were lucky, we were in similar terrain to my friend - steep, lightly treed so that the trees could not anchor the slope but only increase the consequences of getting caught – and, while the entire slope from one side to the other cracked and shifted, some magic of gravity held the slope in place and we were able to safely “get the hell outta there.”

My friend and her party made similar mistakes but just weren't so lucky. They too had dug snow-pits, and, somewhat chillingly, found a buried surface hoar – moderate to hard sudden planar failure (but down a whopping 115 cm) on compression tests. The avalanche bulletin for the day rated treeline as moderate and alpine as considerable and noted that remotely triggered avalanches (always a scary sign) were still being triggered on the buried surface hoar (buried almost one month before). The bulletin also noted that, and I quote verbatim: “February 12th [surface hoar] is now down about 100-150 cms and continues to be triggered by light additional loads on Southerly aspects where it is sitting on an old sun crust.” 

Hindsight is always 20/20. In retrospect it is clear that while the group may have thought they were in treeline terrain (moderate hazard), the snowpack characteristics (and terrain) were clearly alpine (considerable hazard), sudden planar failures should always make us think twice about the stability of a slope (even with hard test scores), a skier is a light additional load and, despite it being statistically less likely, a weak layer down 115 cm can be triggered by a skier, solar radiation and heat can rapidly destabilize the snowpack, widespread surface hoar layers can propagate large distances and release above a skier, and, finally, but most importantly, deep persistent weak layers require conservative terrain choices – skiing a 38 degree slope (even one at a time) is not an appropriate terrain choice for this classic low probability/high consequence deep persistent weak layer situation. 

I have no idea how decisions were made in the group, always the most informative aspect of any accident analysis. Perhaps the party thought that they were in treeline terrain because of scattered trees and considered the hazard moderate. Perhaps they thought that a layer buried over a metre could not be triggered by a skier (statistically unlikely, but practically irrelevant), perhaps they under-estimated the effect of the sun and heat on the snowpack (it was a warm sunny day), or perhaps like me, they were too motivated by ambition and too little by prudence. 

After my serious near miss, I consciously became much more conservative in my terrain choices whenever stability was uncertain. The big lines only got skied on very select days when stability was bomber and I was with a solid party. I became, quickly, abruptly, and with some chagrin, aware that, despite some education and experience, what I didn't know far exceeded what I did know, and I needed to allow some margin around my terrain choices in case my analysis of stability was wrong. I can only hope my young friends have the same epiphany. 

Accidentally triggered, 60 cm crown, surprised yes.

Foodies and Work-Out Snobs

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperaton.  What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.  From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats.  A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.  There is no play in them, for this comes after work.  Henry David Thoreau.
 

My relatively spartan paleolithic diet wouldn't really qualify me as a foodie, but I am, as I have realized, a work-out and food snob. It could be the fervour of the newly converted, although four years have passed since I radically switched diet and work-out routines. It could be a reactionary defence mechanism against the surrounding societal pressure to eat a carbohydrate dense diet and to exercise based on a series of outmoded concepts. But, it is most likely that I feel entitled to some smug self-righteousness because, no matter how difficult it was, I got up early, did my WOD, walked wherever I had to go within a reasonable distance, engaged in active outdoor sports, and spent a whole lot of energy avoiding eating all the good tasting but bad for you food that surrounds me every day. And, did that day after day, week after week, month after – well you get the picture - even if I felt tired, muscle sore, weak or really, really would have liked to join you when you ate that big chocolate cake.

Whatever the origin, I know that I, however surreptitiously and covertly, feel just a bit superior to – what really amounts to 95% of the population – who eat a the standard Western diet with it's heavy emphasis on dense carbohydrate sources and slot in their thrice weekly fitness class at some globo-gym, which some how miraculously means that the rest of the week can be spent in slothful indulgence.

Exercise and activity should be something that comes naturally to you and which you enjoy and shouldn't be something you force into your 45 or 55 minute work-out window. Driving to a fitness class is asinine - in fact, driving anywhere you can easily walk in half an hour is asinine - so is standing on an escalator when you can take the stairs, sitting when you can stand, and any of a hundred other things people do that reduces their energy output.

Eating a diet that is slowly killing you is similarly foolish. You don't have to be Crossfit games rigorous, but the least you could do is cut out the grains and dial back the treats so that they are treats not daily occurrences.

But, I gotta go, it's sprint day today, time to get outside and run hard.

Today’s WOD:

Warm-up: Three rounds of 10 back extension, 10 air squats, 10 warrior sit ups.

Work-out: 15 rounds of 10 seconds on/10 seconds off sprints. 

Working some lock-offs on the train on the way home from a hike

As Good As It Gets

This morning the marine forecast for our local coastal waters was for light and variable winds to 10 knots with a swell below 0.5 metres. Perfect weather for paddling the open coast. Doug and I met my brother at a small boat launch in Dolans Bay at 9 am. On any normal day, the steady sea breeze would be beginning in an hour at most and would increase throughout the day to reach a blustery 20 to 25 knots by afternoon, but not today.

We caught the outgoing current east past Burraneer Point and Bass and Flinders Point, where we turned north and, keeping well out from the backwash (clapotis) zone, we paddled north along the rocky coast-line to the surf beaches of Cronulla, where we moved in closer to shore, sliding up and down the parallel swell. A couple of light rain squalls brought a little more wind, but, as we paddled north, the wind gradually died until the ocean was glassy calm.

With our kayaks we were able to squeeze through a small surf break on the reef off Pimelwi Rocks where we pulled into tiny Boat Harbour. After a swim, we surfed back through the reef break and had lunch on the beach and another swim. A light breeze was rising from the north and this pushed us back down the coast and into Port Hacking where we caught the incoming tide back to Dolans Bay.

Ocean kayaking just doesn't get much better. 

Calm Day at Leura Beach

Do You Really Believe That?

I want to believe. Fox Mulder, The X Files

Last night, my smart young niece – it makes me feel old to lay claim to a niece starting university today – was telling us a story about a friend of hers who had gone to Cambodia and, apparently, descended on multiple zip lines into a jungle valley, stayed overnight, then climbed out on a 300 metre Via Ferrata, that had the rungs too far apart for her to comfortably reach. An interesting tale, but, a tale none the less.

When I hear these apocryphal stories which, whilst perhaps containing a kernel of truth are clearly exaggerated beyond rational belief, I am astonished that intelligent people actually believe them.

Zip lines are expensive to build and maintain, and, the average tourist might happily descend one, or perhaps even two, but to descend multiple zip-lines over a long distance would not only consume more hours than exist in a day, but would be beyond the physical ability of all but the fittest tourists. Tourists in good enough physical condition for such an activity are not paying a tour guide to take them about but are off on their own adventure.

Climbing 300 metres on a Via Ferrata is similarly beyond the ability of the average tourist, unless the angle was closer to 20 degrees than 90 degrees – in which case one has to wonder why a Via Ferrata would be necessary. Sustained climbing up a Via Ferrata at any angle approaching vertical is actually a strenuous activity requiring far more upper body and core strength than the average person possesses. Even moderately well conditioned climbers used to climbing and stronger than average are routinely crushed when climbing the aid pitch on Smith Rock's Monkey Face.

The only explanation I can find for this incredible show of facile gullibility among erstwhile intelligent people is that they really have no comprehension of what the activity involves and so cannot assess the validity of whatever story is being promulgated. Anyone who has tried rock climbing or even attempted to grind out a few dead-hang pull-ups would be immediately sceptical of such claims. Even if one were to discount the fitness involved, moving even one or two people through challenging terrain such as described in this story would take a long, long time, moving half a dozen people, all of whom are fumbling with unfamiliar harnesses and sundry gear could be measured in geologic time.

From an entertainment perspective, there is nothing enjoying a tall tale, just don't view the story as a documentary.

Monkey Face in Smith Rocks

Where Are All The People?

During our recent, and reasonably extensive, nine weeks travelling around southern NSW and eastern Victoria, we spent almost all our time in National Parks, Coastal Reserves, Conservation Areas or similar. In other words, we were out and about in the areas of the country where you would be most likely to see other people hiking (or walking as it is called in the land of Oz), kayaking, canoeing, or just generally being physically active. Some of our trips, such as the Nadgee-Howe wilderness walk or the Light to Light walk are world class multi-day backpacks and the waters around Nooramunga/Corner Inlet are about as ideal as you can get for ocean kayaking – plentiful and exotic bird and marine life, clear and protected waters, literally dozens of beach front campsites - touring with an ocean kayak just doesn't get any better.

But where were all the people? If any of these trips had been in Canada, there would have been many other people hiking or kayaking. Some trips, in fact, would have been so popular that a lottery system would be used to allocate spots along the route. Yet, in Australia, we saw virtually no-one. Well, that's not quite true, we would always know when we were within 5 to 10 minutes of some road side access because we would see people. Other than that, the country/ocean side was virtually vacant (with the exception of power boaters).

From an outsiders perspective, and, despite being born in Australia and now returning to live here, I still consider myself an outsider, Australians appear, on the whole to be much less active than Canadians. Repeated studies have shown that participation in physical activity among Australians is declining every year and, while some 50 to 70% of Australians (depending on the survey) report engaging in physical activity, that same 50 to 70% consistently over-estimates their level of physical activity by as much as 50% compared to objectively measured levels. Canadians participate at about the same rate as Australians but participation in physical activity is actually increasing in Canada, not declining.

Australians do seem to like the outdoors, every weekend and school holiday sees them out in throngs packing the local campgrounds to a much greater extent than Canadians (perhaps the more benign climate encourages more camping), but, all the Aussies seem to do when they are camping is sit. Well, again, that's not quite true, sometimes they lie. What they don't do in significant numbers or to a significant extent is engage in physical activity.

There are hard-core Australians out there – I've even met some of them – climbers who've gone to the US to climb big wall routes, kayakers crossing Tasman Strait from Victoria to Tasmania, cyclists racking up 400 km rides in 24 hours, but the average Australian just doesn't seem to believe in doing anything much of anything.

The quixotic thing about Australia is that there are gyms everywhere – even small towns will have a gym, and around the Sutherland area, there must be a dozen gyms within walking distance (if, of course, anyone actually walked) of each other. There are almost as many gyms as there are pubs and pie shops, and that's a large number! Yet, despite all these opportunities to exercise, very little seems to actually get done. At some point, each individual and the country as a whole, is going to suffer serious consequences of this population wide sloth.

Deserted beach on the Light to Light walk