Minus One

It’s that time of year: north wind, south wind, north wind, south wind. Today it was north wind forecast so we left early hoping to get 40 kilometres done in reasonable time. The northeasterly was up early. We were at Wasp Island by 8:45 am. Flat Rock to Wasp Island felt slow. The northeasterly wind was stronger and we had a northerly current. At Point Upright, we had a pause in the shelter of the headwind, but we were three kilometres off the magic twenty! Bumpy conditions and a headwind to Grasshopper Island where we pulled the plug and paddled back to North Durras for a quick land break. My stomach had been queasy all the way and I had eaten nothing but forced down an egg wrap on the beach before we turned south.

Sloppy seas and lumpy, bumpy conditions all the way to North Head where we ducked into the bay between Three Isle Rocks and North Head to sit for a moment out of the lumpiness, then home across the bay. We came up three kilometres short so bashed back out and around to Caseys Beach and back for a final tally of 39 kilometres. One kilometre shy of the goal.

Below is my speed graph. The first fast bit is to North Head, then a quick drop in speed as we head north against both current and wind culminating in the slowest section to Grasshopper Island. The faster return journey with current and wind behind us.

All That We've Lost

...make sure that my ability to meet and trauma and everything goes a little bit beyond the bare minimum....

Do you remember when Joe Simpson crawled down Siula Grande in Peru?¹ Or when Doug Scott crawled down The Ogre in Pakistan after breaking both his legs? No-one knows those stories anymore which is our loss. I listened to the monthly Sharp End Podcast today, and thought, as I often do, why do I listen to these episodes? The stories can be modestly interesting but the analysis makes vanilla ice-cream look like an exciting new flavour. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single guest say “I should have made better decisions.” The standard answer to the “learnings” (I blame the Millenials, or perhaps the Zoomers for popularising “learnings,” although the term has apparently been around for a centuries) is always “I need more gear.” Never, I need to make better decisions.

The first thing you have to get past in this episode is the annoying Zoomer who relates the story, who, in case you missed the 334 times he mentioned it, is a “professional” guide. Whatever that means. Anyway, the accident was just that an accident. Sydney injured her knee (apparently the quadriceps tendon was torn) which sounds like a really sucky injury to sustain, but stuff that like happens in the mountains. Sometimes these things are preventable by being stronger or having better proprioception or being less fatigued, but, injuries are a part of outdoor adventure life.

These guys were lucky. Not only did they get plucked off by a helicopter but they had a bag of bivvy gear dropped to them by helicopter. That gear drop made the difference between a cold night out at 3,000 metres and a relatively comfortable bivvy with food, drink, sleeping bags etc. What’s striking about this episode is that the two climbers simply sit on the ridge where the accident happens and wait for rescue. That seems odd to me. With a partially torn quadriceps tendon it is highly unlikely that you’ll be able to get out of there alone, but, it’s 4.45 pm when the accident happens, you’ve got four hours until sunset to do something, anything to make some kind of shelter for the night. Obviously there is no wood for a fire, but you might scavenge some snow for drinking water, move some rocks around to get some flat ground, build some rock walls for protection from the wind, or even just grovel your way to a slightly better spot to spend the night.

One of the best ways to avoid unplanned bivouacs at 3,000 metres when you have sustained an injury is to start early! This won’t necessarily prevent an accident, although if you are hurrying to get somewhere before nightfall that can increase your risk of accidents, but if you do need a rescue, the agency that has to come in to haul your arse out of there has a lot more daylight hours to work with.

When I was with Nelson SAR, the call for a missing skier or injured hiker almost always came after dark. Start early and you’ve got time to deal with anything that comes up. Leaving camp at 11 am with your boom box speaker, your fishing rod, and your almost dead mobile phone doesn’t leave much buffer for when things go wrong. And we all need buffers.

1As an aside, who gives Simpson’s amazing story of tenacity and survival a one star review because they don’t know how to use a dictionary (here’s the actual review: “To enjoy the book, you may need to really know what a 'col' is, what a 'moraine' is …”). Goodreads seems to be as big a cesspit as Bluesky.

The Pawlata Roll and Other Musings

It took me a long time to learn to roll my kayak. I mean a really long time. Evolutionary time long. Certainly the process wasn’t helped by being in a kayak that was way too big for me - I rolled my new Pace the first day I took it out, but kayak size notwithstanding, learning to roll was a long and wearisome process. People gave me all sorts of tips, few of which were helpful. The one tip that did help was starting with a pawlata roll and then gradually moving your hands further and further back along the shaft until you are in your regular paddling position. The brilliance of this is, you have a fall back roll when all else has failed. There is so much lift and leverage with a pawlata roll that it’s actually hard to mess it up. Not impossible. You still have to keep the blade on the surface of the water and sweep the paddle not pull, but as a fall back roll there is not much to beat it.

Pawlata roll with a greenland stick, PC: DB

I heard a paddle story yesterday that made me think about the pawlata roll. Two of my mates were out paddling and they both jumped onto the same wave for a surf. You might argue this isn’t ideal. One pearled (bow buried) because the wave was steeper than they anticipated, hit a rock with his bow, and subsequently capsized and bailed. The other broached immediately (steep waves will do that) and also capsized, tried to roll a couple of times and failed, so also wet exited the kayak. A party of two kayakers both in the water. Normally, if this happens, you are close enough to the beach that you would just swim in. If you can’t manage the kayak, you can let it go as it will make it’s own way to the beach (with the caveat that the kayak is not going to smash on the rocks).

Kayak surfing

They were off a point so swimming in was not an option. The story teller got out his paddle float, inflated and attached it to his paddle and managed to get back in the kayak using the paddle float as a roll assist, while the other paddler some how managed to scramble back into their kayak. This situation is made for pawlata rolls. A paddle float will work because you cannot pull the float under water (one of the common reasons for rolls failing is that people pull the paddle under water instead of sweeping it across the water) or you can use it as an outrigger but it takes time to inflate and attach, and you have to hang onto all your kit while doing that. Pawlata rolls are quick and efficient. I use a pawlata roll every time I fail a regular roll and every time I re-enter and roll so I have done a hundred or more pawlata rolls.

A pawlata roll is, in a way, a buffer. A buffer, as we all know, is an extra allowance or extra capacity. We needed a buffer yesterday. Although the was only forecast to hit 10 to 15 knots, we had sustained winds far in excess of that for two to three hours. The most important buffer we can have in outdoor sports is physical capacity (and technique). Most of the people who have trouble paddling into strong winds have a very poor forward stroke. Some have both a poor forward stroke and lack of physical capacity. Yesterday, we made up for that by having stronger paddlers tow the weaker paddler, but ideally, every member of the paddling group would have some spare capacity that can be called upon when conditions don’t match expectations.

The Laws of Kayaking

The Rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. Aldous Huxley.

The golden rule of sea kayaking is no-one ever needs a tow when it is calm or you are paddling downwind. It was a funny sort of day. Calm with a low swell as we left Korners Park and headed east. I had thought we might paddle along the north shore of Batemans Bay as far as North Head and then back, but conditions were so good we headed off for the Tollgate Islands. The northeast wind was building, however, and by the time we got to the Tollgate Islands it was pretty solid at 15 gusting 17 knots. All but one paddler was solid but the one paddler was on the slow side so we turned and headed back without lapping the islands which we normally do. A good call I think as it would have been quite rough on the east side of the islands.

PC: DB

It was easier paddling back but we weren’t a lot faster, almost two kilometres an hour slower than Doug and I would paddle, but the wind slowly died and conditions calmed. At Snapper Island, a few paddlers went into the little channel to look at the cave, and the new bloke, put a face mask on and rolled over, looked at the sea life, then rolled back up. We did a bit more pottering around the rocks and then headed across to Square Head. The gutter could be paddled from the south end but it was too shallow for the northern exit although the new bloke did manage to get his timing right and paddle out across a little over-fall. There were a couple of seals at Square Head!

PC: DB

And then the wind hit! Straight from the west and funnelled down the Clyde River valley. Our slow paddler got slower and our speed plummeted. We were only three kilometres from Korner Park but that three kilometres would take an hour (or more) at our speed. The slow paddler did not want a tow – they never do! Half way to Surfside, the new bloke suggested a tow and the slow bloke agreed. So the new bloke towed the slow bloke about a kilometre into Surfside Beach. I took over then and towed to Pinnacle Point. At Pinnacle Point the coast turns due west and I could see streams of plume blowing back off the tops of the wind waves. Doug offered to tow me while I towed the slow bloke and I readily agreed. So we plugged on with an in-line tow for the last 1.5 kilometres to the beach.

PC: DB

Upon landing, I immediately put the BBQ on to heat as it was so windy I was not sure I could cook the meat I had brought for lunch. I built a small shelter around the BBQ with plastic bins to shelter the cooktop and the meat did cook. The slow bloke loaded his kayak onto his car but neglected to strap it down and, as we were finishing off hamburgers and sausages, a big gust picked the kayak up from the roof and slammed it onto the parking lot. Cracked right across the hull! Thereafter, with four people for each kayak, we lifted the remaining three kayaks onto cars and strapped them down. By the time we got home the wind was from the south; the only quadrant we missed was easterly.

The Long Day

The southerly hit just as we paddled through the gap between the Tollgate Islands. There was a slight tickle of wind, and Doug said “here comes the southerly,” next minute it was 18 to 20 knots. It was the end of our long training day. We were meant to get off the beach at 7 am but I had a terrible nights sleep and felt like the walking dead when I woke up. A couple of hits of coffee later and I suggested we go as far as Burrewarra Point and see how we felt – really how I felt as Doug felt fine. It’s always a good idea to get started, often the crux of any trip is just getting started.

PC: DB

We were at Burrewarra Point at 9.15 am so we kept paddling turning west into Barlings Beach. Region X was out with some punters in plastic kayaks heading east to Burrewarra Point but we saw them later on a beach inside the point so I don’t know if they made it. We turned around at Barlings Beach and paddled north to the little bay on the north side of Pretty Point for a break. On the long days, I like my first break to be after the half way mark. That way it all feels like a downhill glide.

PC: DB

From Pretty Point I suggested we go out to Black Rock and on to the Tollgate Islands. My watch had died because I forgot to charge the battery so I did not know how far we had paddled but heading home via Black Rock and the Tollgate Islands would add some kilometres. And here we are with a strong southerly blowing nearly four kilometres off-shore but otherwise close to the end of the days training.

PC: DB

We could see our home bay but aimed off to the south so we didn’t get blown past our destination. I was glad I had buckled my hat on before we left the Tollgate Islands as it was definitely a blow your hat off kind of day and I took a few waves across the deck. About a half a kilometre out we turned and ran with the wind into our home bay. I think we were a bit slower than normal, there is definitely a north-south current running along the coast right now, but we did 34 kilometres in just over 5 hours so that’s certainly reasonable. Especially when you wake up feeling like flattened veal. My apologies to the vegans.

First Documented Report of Ageism

This is about climbing The Nose on El Capitan but it could be about any very popular area anywhere in the world. Twenty years ago, on a weekend, we climbed Dierdre, the classic six pitch 5.8 (15/16) layback crack on the Apron of the Stawamus Chief. Unless you start climbing at four in the morning, it’s impossible to get on the route first and we spent more time hanging at the belays waiting for parties ahead to clear the route than we did climbing, or at least that’s how it felt. All the popular routes on the Stawamus Chief are like this nowadays, chock a block with people queued up to climb. The route itself was slimy and polished with the traffic of thousands and thousands of climbers. Granite is a hard rock but you run several hundred climbers up a route year after year, many of whom are beginners, and even granite polishes until it is a slippery as an eel.

The massive corner crack on Dark Shadows

Sometimes, I think waiting in line for climbs is worth it. I’ve climbed Cat in the Hat in Red Rocks twice and had to wait both times for the party ahead of us, but the five pitch (mostly long pitches) 5.6 (14) traditional route is so much fun it’s worth the line up. Same with Dark Shadows. It’s an absolute beauty and, after climbing it, I thought it was worth the hour or so wait time to get on.

Pitch 3 on Dark Shadows

These days, however, I really would rather avoid the crowds. It’s a big deal for Australians to fly to Europe and climb in the Alps where the gondolas and trains give easy access to amazing climbing, but, also masses of people. Instead of the Alps, you could go climb in the Sierra Mountains of California on the big granite mountains there, or, head to Canada, and, once you walk away from the Stawamus Chief into the remote backcountry, there are dozens and dozens of potential climbs still waiting for a first ascent. There is not the ease or convenience of huts and gondolas and trains to over 3,000 metres that are found in the Alps, but isn’t a bit of hard work worth escaping the crush of crowds? Cheaper too. Even though Canada is not a cheap country, you could still be like John Clarke and spend six months climbing in Canada for the cost of a month in the expensive European Alps.

In John Clarke country

The old story about John Clarke is that none of his routes were above 5.7 (14/15) because John said that was his upper climbing limit (he never used any specialised gear, never even wore a helmet) so any peak or route he had ascended must be no more than 5.7. The joke, of course, was when a bunch of young gun climbers went out and tried to climb some of Clarke’s routes and found them pretty sporting 5.7’s.  This might have been the first documented example of "ageism."  

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.