“Too many trip leaders use the whistle like a referee,” said Rob as we were paddling east out of Port Hacking towards Port Hacking Point and Jibbon Bombora. I almost laughed out loud. I have been on the occasional trip with leaders whose desire to control every fart in the group means that the whistle blows every few minutes whether required or not. In such circumstances, a paddler is either driven to confiscate the offending whistle to render it off-limits or just to ignore the bloody thing in the hopes that it will stop. One on trip, I can remember a friend saying “I’d like to take that whistle and …” well, you get the picture. Around about the 10th whistle blow of the day, I certainly concurred.
I’m still working towards Sea Guide certification which means “gaining experience.” Gaining experience, as everyone knows, is actually making lots of mistakes and hopefully learning from your mistakes. It’s an essential part of any outdoor adventurers education and generally has to be done by trial and error. “Why didn’t they listen to me?” is the oft-repeated refrain of the more experienced but many of us – perhaps most? - simply have to make mistakes ourselves to learn from them.
Years ago, when we lived in Calgary and were weekend warriors in the Rocky Mountains, I organised a trip to climb four peaks in a day. We would all park at the terminus of Highway 66 in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and Doug and I would ride mountain bikes up Big Elbow River Valley and stash our bikes near the base of Banded Peak. We would climb Banded Peak, traverse ridges to Outlaw Peak, continue along to Mount Cornwall and finally Mount Glasgow. Our two friends would ride their mountain bikes up Little Elbow Creek and stash their bikes at the base of Mount Glasgow and they would traverse the route in reverse. By my calculations we would meet up somewhere between Outlaw and Cornwall to swap instructions on how to find the respective bikes.
All went well except, our friends never showed up. Doug and I climbed Banded Peak, Outlaw Peak (twice, once on the way back) and Cornwall Peak and waited and waited yet no climbers came along the ridge. Our friends had very poor route finding ability and, despite us having spent the last three or four years trying to get them to learn how to read a map and navigate terrain, they preferred to simply follow us around. They were lost. Very lost. So lost that it took them 12 hours to eventually reach the summit of Mount Glasgow by which time they had completely circumnavigated the mountain and had finally climbed the mountain via a sketchy route on the east side of the mountain instead of the west side. One of our friends, despite our advice “Why didn’t they listen?” had brought his dog and the sharp talus had cut the pads on the dogs paws to shreds so that the dog was reduced to a hobble.
Doug and I, after retracing our entire route, got back to the car park at 5:00 pm (we’d left around 7 am) to find two lone cars (ours and theirs) in the parking lot. We had no food left over and had been on the move for 9 of the last 10 hours, but nevertheless, I got on my bicycle and rode up Little Elbow Creek to try and find my friends. Doug alerted the rangers. I found no bikes, no sign of anyone, despite getting off my bike frequently to search the woods beside the trail, so returned to the car park. At 10 pm, the ranger who had a key to the locked gate on the forest trail, drove back into the parking lot with two very tired, very sheepish climbers, and a dog with bleeding paws. Later, talking to my friends, we asked if they had any spare clothing, or a compass – I know they had a map because I had given them the map – or any gear in the event of a night out. Between them they had one cotton sweatshirt, one jacket, and, of course, one dog – which might be useful for cuddling for warmth on sub-zero Rocky Mountain night at altitude in late September. It was a lesson they had to learn for themselves.
And, over the two days I led trips (under supervision) at our club’s AGM, I learnt some lessons too. My trip planning was very slack, which is weird really because I have been known to be an obsessive trip planner with bearings and back bearings, checkpoints and boundary lines, food, water, regroup locations, all sorted ahead of time. Additionally, I was not perfectly clear in my instructions (I dislike telling adults what to do), possibly because I was not exactly clear in my own mind. At the end of the day, however, nobody capsized or needed towing or wandered off – a real plus compared to previous trips, and everyone, including myself had a pretty good time. Bonus points for not blowing the whistle once!
No comments:
Post a Comment