Category: mountain

Posted on

Thumbs 2014 Nov

The Thumbs, Nov 2014

The Thumbs as seen from Wylds Craig. They call!!

Back in 2012 when I declared that I wanted to join a bushwalking club to have company on longer, harder walks and to meet others who shared my passion for wild places now that my husband’s Parkinson’s disease prevented him from joining my wilder adventures, I had a nebulous, undelineated vision of the kind of walk that this might involve.

Pursuing our way across the button-grass valley to our tent site. 

The walk I did last weekend, in which a valiant group of us climbed The Thumbs (a sharp, slippery, skywards-pointing column of rock at 1204 ms asl) in mist and intermittent light rain, seeing little but experiencing much, was an articulated version of exactly what I had had in mind.

Climbing; the mist obscures our goal.

Everyone was cheerful at our meeting point, all happy to be undertaking this challenge. I, too, was mildly excited, but also apprehensive: I had no expectation of actually reaching the top as I was temporarily operating with only one hand, and I was sure I’d need two for the final, vertiginous climb. I’d get as far as I could go, and enjoy the journey, however far it took me. The slippery conditions reduced my chances considerably. I also had stomach cramps that made me a little sombre. One foot in front of the other: let’s see how far that gets me.

She’s up there somewhere
Graham is still smiling. Is he just laughing at the joke of taking on something as big as this in the mist?

We arrived at our intended overnight spot, set up our little tent city and retreated into our self-erected shelters to eat in the dry before reassembling to attempt our goal. The distance to the top was not far, horizontally speaking, but the vertical challenge meant that the expectation was three hours in each direction. Here we come.

Nearly there

Mud meant that sometimes we slid backwards more than we pushed forwards. Often it was the case that clutching grass or small bushes was the only thing that stopped us slipping back to a ridiculous extent. My hand was weighing on my mind as I did my single-handed grabs. Was I ridiculous to even try when I am in this state? We came to a spot where I just couldn’t haul myself up, and asked for a shove from behind. “It’s going to get a lot trickier than this,” Glen warned. I thought he was right. I looked back down the slope, thinking about bailing out, but knew that would cause more problems than it would solve, considering I was part of a group, so continued on. In fact, we were both wrong: for a one-handed climber, that particular moment was the trickiest part of the entire undertaking.

Graham, one of the few who STOOD on the summit. Most of us were content to just sit.
The mist was thick and the drizzle pretty drizzly as we arrived in a little saddle before the summit. Graham, our worthy leader, said our path lay around the northern side, so we had more circling to do. In that shroud, it was hard to find the mountain, let alone the best way up. On we went, looking for a promising chute to use to gain height. All shapes were obnubilated, but I could see with great clarity the fact that there was no way that I would be attempting a climb like this in these conditions without the presence of a group. We fed off each other, providing many sets of eyes, giving each other verbal or practical support. “Na. Too airy,” said Ben as he explored one lead. “This way looks OK,” offered another. One person failed at “over”; another reckoned we could fit under. Bit by bit we worked our communal way upwards.

Descending using the preferred five-points-of-contact method.
At the very top, the rock was slippery, the penalties for falls in any direction fatal. As G summarised it: “If someone falls, there’d be no point in setting off a PLB. We’d just try to console the family afterwards.” I found it an endearing factor that guys and girls alike treated the summit with enormous respect. Most of us approached and exited the highest point crawling or by “bumming” it. On a dry day, we would have probably approached with dignity and aplomb, but this was no dry day, and you could feel the slip factor with most steps you took. We gave it the obligatory touch and departed quickly to less sloppy ground. Thanks to the group effort, every single one of us got there – injured and uninjured; vertigo sufferers and the unchallenged in this regard; the fit and the less so. All of us made it, and I regard that as a huge testimony to Graham’s leadership.

Looking back at our conquered goal

And looking down at part of where we’d come from (our tents are still out of sight, way below).
I had wondered how on earth I was going to descend such a slippery, steep slope with only one hand, but had refused to contemplate this problem before it confronted me directly. As it was, there was very little difficulty: I just used the one good hand twice as often. Soon enough we all got back to the tents unscathed.

View across to Lake Gordon

 

The south face ascent that we rejected on this occasion 🙂

It was great to be warm and dry for the first time in about ten hours. I felt full of respect for my fellow travellers, almost all of whom had had to overcome some challenge or other in order to reach that goal. I love being with people for whom doing something like that is more important than maintaining creature comforts at home. I love people who are prepared to get dirty, uncomfortable, sweaty, cut by razor-sharp grass, carry heavy weights, be bruised a bit by the odd rock, fall in disguised mud holes, get exhausted fighting obstacles, soaking wet from rain and bushes, or decidedly out of breath – all in pursuit of an experience of the sublime: an encounter with the infinite and with a factor far, far more grand than the self.

Evening light at tent city. Clear Hill behind left.
The next morning, we walked to a point overlooking the Gordon Gorge before our walk out. I was so starving by dint of the weekend’s exertions that I ate the equivalent of two full dinners while driving home in order to eat a third one prepared by my waiting husband.

The dramatic Gordon Gorge. Mt Wright behind.

Posted on

Tyndall 2014 Nov

Climbing
I have a suggestion for you, my reader: If you would like to experience the Tyndall Ranges in fairly desperate conditions, then just give me a ring. My record is unblemished. You’ll be assured of a good adventure and atmospheric photos – and, most important of all, of fairly disastrous weather.

Cresting the top: Tyndall.
The first time I went, the waterfalls were flowing uphill; the gale blew pack covers off and made zipping up coats impossible; the tops were knee deep in water. Dying from hypothermia was on the programme, but omitted this time. The second attempt, I scored a blizzard and summited solo in a snow squall with only my gps to confirm I’d reached the black dot. On the way out, all features were obliterated, not only by the deep fog of the previous day, but also by a blanket of fresh snow hiding all underneath it. The gps said where a track should be. The ground didn’t. Dying of hypothermia was on the programme, but was again postponed. This last time, I made another attempt at this interesting way to terminate my life, but failed yet again. Here I am, the cat who comes back (so far). Let me tell you this third variation on a theme.

Molly on top

We had been scheduled for a while to do a walk this weekend in the south-west, but when I looked at the horrific forecast for Saturday (a great deal of rain), I changed plans: Let’s go to the Tyndalls. We can use the track heading upwards in any weather and save cross-country navigation and any bush bashing that may occur for the sunnier Sunday. Deal.

Salome explores a different section

The car trip there was painfully slow. There are monstrous sections of 40 kph speed limit on the B18 heading south. It took five hours to get there! I parked, eyed the dark veil approaching, obviously laden with rain, and was impatient to get our climb done before it dumped on us. It was already eleven, and I was cross at the delays. Our pace was good – Molly and Salome are nice and fit – and we were at the top, photos taken, tents pitched and eating lunch before the storm broke. We sheltered in our timely-erected havens (on the summit) waiting for it to finish. It wasn’t as bad as I had expected.

I love it up here to bits. It’ s so nice to see the view!!
By 2.30, things seemed to have cleared enough for us to decide to take on Geikie that afternoon rather than waiting for the morrow. We packed the normal emergency equipment and set out, hopeful. We made fabulous time early on, and Tyndall seemed to be a good distance behind us, Geikie getting nice and close, as it began to rain at the far side of a tarn past Lake Tyndall, down in a basin between the two mountains. Mist began to envelop us. Unfazed, we journeyed on, happy with what the watch and our eyes said about progress.

Tenting on top. Geikie in the background.
Somewhat wetter, and definitely in a space defined by the very near environs (maybe about 10 metres visibility at this stage), we decided to have a check on the gps, as we had lost all sense of where our goal might now be, and how near we were to it. I was very disappointed to see the results: having blitzed the first bit, this next section, going up and down over mini-spurs and sometimes diverting to avoid cliff lines or backtracking to get around obstacles, had been slow. We were only maybe two thirds of the way there, and we had used up one and a half hours. I did my maths. It was still possible, however. A second source of disappointment was the realisation that my gps had not tracked a single step of our journey. The screen must have been bumped, turning the tracker off. Now I’d have to navigate my way on the return journey, whereas I’d hoped just to retrace our steps. On we continued, mist thickening up, rain getting heavier.

Another inspection of beauty (after lunch this time) before we set out for Geikie
Bruce and I enthused over the scenery despite the rain: we were in love with the myriad glistening tarns and their backdrop of dove-grey rocks with a pinkish hue. The girls were rather more blasé, telling us that the scenery was like the western coast of Sweden.
Now it was time to climb again: with necks bent low to the driving rain, up the slope we moiled. I gave my compass to Molly, asking her to sing out if our line drifted too much from the direction we wanted (this is often best done from behind. Bruce usually does it if we’re just two). All was well, except for the time. Our stops and checkings and decision makings were slowing us down. Now it was 4.35 and we were at a top, but not at the top of Geikie. Rather, we were on a high point (1140ms) called The Bastion, which is tall enough to be an Abel, but is not one as Geikie is next to it, and there is not a drop of 150ms between them. To get from The Bastion to Geikie, you have to descend about 70 metres to a saddle and climb again (even more). The scrub became thicker. Visibility was zero. It’s quite possible that ten metres from us there was a glorious, scrub-free route, but we didn’t have the luxury of sight.

Bruce and I were now anxious about elapsed time (and actual time). His capacities were waning. Molly in particular was all for pressing on. Her argument was that we couldn’t get any wetter, and we’d be back shortly after dark, even if not before dark. Both of these statements were true, and had it not been raining, I would have been happy to continue, but wet cold is the worst cold, so my reply was that although we couldn’t get wetter, we could get colder, and I had a man with Parkinson’s to think about. Had they not been with us, we would have turned around earlier, in fact, but I was indeed pleased to have climbed something, even if not Geikie.

One of very few photos taken on the Geikie part of the expedition – a long exposure of a tarn

The cliff line that we followed on our return journey was exhilarating with its sense of space out to our right as we made excellent speed along it, using movement as a means of warming ourselves up. Just as it was time to leave it (it swings around from the direction we needed), Bruce decided he needed more tablets to fund his motion, so we all stopped while he felt around in his daypack and did his tablet thing. I used the waiting time to photograph – just three quick snaps of nothing much, but it was the first opportunity in ages where I was stopped doing nothing and it wasn’t raining too badly. The girls were still with us, but when we turned around having packed back camera and tablets, they had disappeared. Oh well, they’d be up ahead, no doubt over that little rise just there. But when we mounted that little rise, they were absolutely nowhere to be seen. The mist closed right back in, and Molly had my compass. (We never saw them again until we reached our tent).

Sunrise from our tent window
Bruce was tired, despite his tablets (it had been a long day!), and I was going more on feel than anything else. Paper maps (which I had) are pretty useless with nil visibility, and I was unwilling to walk with the gps screen on lest I fall and break it, or run out of battery from overuse. I save it for emergencies, so headed us in the direction I felt was right. My feelings were pretty good and we didn’t go off course too much, but we definitely did not choose the fastest route, and Bruce was stumbling a bit. Time went by and it got darker. I could hear him breathing at almost a grunt each breath. I tried to jolly him along. I was ready to finish this adventure.

Same: different observer position
I checked the gps again. Yes, on vague course, but we were lower than I wanted; we had not happened on the track that existed in this area, and we still had more left to climb than desirable given the grunts I was hearing (not Azaranka level: just quiet ones, but there). A few more small falls, but we were gaining good height and at last we reached the cliffs that define the summit. But where was our tent?

Now I’ve gone back to the actual summit, 2 mins from the tent. Losing the pink. My Lee GND filter was in my pack, but I didn’t have time to get it out 🙁

 I stood in the way-marked yellow dot (that indicated its whereabouts) and could not see it. We circled and circled. I began to feel mild panic when at last we saw its shape. We must have been a mere three metres away and yet it had been hidden from us by the thick soup of cloud. It was only six-thirty, but it appeared to be about eight, judging by the light.

The sun is making a valiant attempt at mounting the ridge
Next morning, Bruce had real trouble waking me for sunrise. The wind had flapped the tent all night and I didn’t fall asleep before three a.m.. I missed what he tells me was a beautiful red sky.  He nearly gave up rousing me, but tried a second time and got success. I dashed outside, and luckily did get some before the sky lost all its pink and the mist closed back in for another few hours.
The descent was uneventful.

Last pink from the top. Oh how I love this place.
Posted on

Ragged Jack 2014 Nov

We have crested the slope at this stage, and believe (falsely) that the summit of Ragged Jack is only a quick play along the rocks away.

It now seems to me astonishing that I have driven past Ragged Jack so many times without ever noticing its existence. I guess my eyes were always fixed on the more dominating Ben Lomond massif behind, which grabs the limelight due to its bulk, and yet, Ragged Jack is a much more interesting shape. Now that I’ve climbed it and know of its presence, I think it’s a wonderful mountain, and can’t imagine failing to register it. John Berger, in his excellent book Ways of Seeing, discusses how knowledge influences what and how we see, and certainly, knowing Ragged Jack as I now do, will forever influence the way I regard it in the future.

Having fun with the self-timer at the summit cairn.

It’s always wonderful when predicted bad weather moves through early (or fails to appear). Tomorrow was supposed to be the one sunny day of the week, but this morning, the sun was shining and the sky looked clear, so I suggested to my Swedish visitors that we go climb Ragged Jack after lunch. Of course, they readily agreed.

It works better with me at the button :-). Here is Salome jumping.
I have no idea why, but I was expecting very thick bush and a long section of bashing through it before emerging at a rocky section, final climb to the top. The actuality was far nicer than the expectation, and the girls and I enjoyed not only getting our two points (they’re now right into this points business) but we delighted in the climb itself, and the forest we went through.
As my car does not indicate decimal points of a km, as road RJ7 was not labelled, and as the gps said we were west of where we needed to be when we stopped, we were a little uncertain at the start, but decided to just climb anyway: the contours were self-evident and if the path we had was not the right one, we’d just go across to the real one through the bush at some other stage. As it was, the path did all the things I wanted it to, so we didn’t need to leave it.

Summit view, looking to the southern end of the Ben Lomond massif.

We climbed using it for 34 minutes, until we found the group of very obvious cairns that the book promised us. What we hadn’t been promised, but what made life easier, was a series of tapes and cairns that allowed us to chatter instead of concentrating on navigation as we climbed further through the terrain that was pretty open and nicely rocky. We were all enjoying ourselves, and playing “spot the cairn” like a treasure hunt with an obstacle course thrown in for good measure.

And my favourite summit view, to the other half of Ragged Jack and Mt Barrow beyond.
It took 30 minutes to climb from the path to a point where we had crested the main climb that lead to the summit. From there we just had to follow the cliff line to the highest point. That, however, was easier said than done, as it was here that we met thick bush that slowed us down as we tried to find less prickly paths through it (we were a lot more successful at that on the way back: such terrain is easier seen from above). The final part along the top took us 27 mins.

Up there we had our obligatory jumps and poses, a snack and a gaze at the surrounding mountains, and then it was time to descend, hoping to see the same wombat that Molly saw, but Salome missed, on the way up.
Posted on

Freycinet, Mt, and Mt Graham 2014 Nov

Mt Freycinet and Mt Graham Nov 2014

Sunrise, Friendly Beaches
The day for climbing My Freycinet and Mt Graham had a remarkably lazy feel to it right from the start. Sunrise was magnificent, and we were in no hurry to leave the beautiful beach that we’d camped beside. It’s pretty hard not to want to linger longer by pure white sand, aquamarine water and pink sky.

Having climbed Mt Dove (and Mt Amos) the previous day, the four of us were still in a jubilant mood, and looking forward to today’s mountains, even though they offered no particular climbing challenges. Having changed our plans of where to sleep (see yesterday’s posting), we were running about 28 hours late, but that didn’t matter on a day with only two easy mountains on the programme and all day in which to complete them.

Wineglass Beach

Off we set at last for the Wineglass Bay saddle. Wineglass never palls. A google search tells me that it is consistently rated as one of the top ten beaches of the world – which means that the judges have unexpectedly good taste. It is magic. For the second time in two days, the girls had to pinch themselves to make sure they hadn’t gone to heaven early. You have to spend time at a beach that wonderful, so we stopped at its entrance to have a swim. (No, not me. Anyone who knows me knows I’m too much of a wuss for that. I always photograph the swimmers and mentally join in that way.) We then lengthened contact with the beach by having a slightly early lunch at the other end. The day was long; our goals still easily achievable.

View from Mt Freycinet.

At last we had reached the business end of the day: stomachs satisfied, swimming urge dissipated, off we climbed through the forest and along the track that was almost white with the eroded quartz grains. Everywhere we looked, coloured flowers drooped over the track, picking up the light as they did so – shining yellow, white, pink and purple and greeting us as we passed, brushing our legs with their perfume.

Molly on Mt Freycinet

Up on the tops we met a group from LWC who had also chosen the single dry location of Tasmania this weekend, and warm hugs and greetings (and introductions to the Swedish girls) were exchanged. They were on their way to the beach below to camp, while our goal was to sleep on the summit of Mt Graham. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll by now know that that is my style. We only took about five more minutes after meeting the others to arrive at our destination, so were setting up our tents quickly and looking out at louring clouds. Hey. BoM said there would be no rain here today. How dare they look so businesslike! For the first time that day, there was a little haste. We did want to summit Freycinet today and not postpone it. There was still enough light.

Me, flying over Mt Freycinet.

It took only eighteen minutes down to the saddle without packs, and then twenty three up Freycinet along a track that filled us with delight as it weaved through the open forest replete with flowers. Once we were on top, we could relax about encroaching darkness – and the weather. We still had heaps of light left, and the rain was holding off. It was time for general exploration, handstands and jumping poses on the rocks that had enough space for such things.

Sunrise from Mt Graham.

Back at the tents, we were in the process of boiling water for dinner when the hail began. I poured water on the packets of powder to rehydrate them and we all huddled into our two-man tent. It was cosy with four. Hail changed to rain, accompanied by gruff, angry wind, but none of that mattered: we had our safe haven, and ate our rehy-dehy food with relish. The day before we had discovered that we all love singing. There we sat in a tent in the storm and sang for the next three hours: some beautiful, gentle songs with soothing melodies and haunting harmonies; some silly, make-us-all-giggle ones. Some sophisticated, some childish. Some negro spirituals and rounds. On we went, laughing and singing and enjoying ourselves, finishing up with Christmas carols before the girls went out into the night to find their tent and “sleep” (the wind raged so strongly that no one actually got much slumber, but at least we lay down and pretended. It was worth losing sleep just to be there and experience this beautiful mountain and the fury of the elements).

Halfway down

In the morning, we enjoyed sunrise from the summit which was only about two minutes from the tent. The wind had not yet abated, but we weren’t being blown off our feet. A bank of clouds prevented the sun from coming straight out of the ocean, but we loved it anyway, and gazed in wonder that one could camp in a spot such as this. The girls bubbled with enthusiasm.

Salome on Wineglass Beach

We sang nearly the whole way down the mountain, full of joy at the beauty around us, and stopped at the beach for yet more swimming, eating and gymnastics. The last time I did handstands was in the 1980s, when I did them in the surf with my niece, Sarah, gleefully doing stands in shallow water and then being tipped over by the approaching wave. It was time to see if I could still do them. I thought it would be rather embarrassing to end up needing to be helicoptered out because I’d hurt my back doing cartwheels along the beach, but fortunately it didn’t come to that. Both handstands and cartwheels  “worked” (generous assessment), but certainly not with anything like the style of my teenage years!! I used to adore gymnastics. Legs were not straight; body was not directly over my hands – but I had huge fun trying. Salome and Molly were fantastic. It’s actually very hard in the sand, as it sucks your energy instead of giving you spring back. When you admire the photo of Molly below doing a handless cartwheel, just remember that. Normally such things are done on a sprung floor. Her “bounce factor” is brilliant.

Molly doing a handless cartwheel.
We had also scheduled a climbing of Mt Mayson for this day. The instructions were rather obscure, and we tried about four false leads climbing upwards into thick scrub before we found the one that worked. I was dangling my huge full-frame DSLR (I didn’t have a daypack with me) as well as my Galaxy Note which doubles as my gps system. Both were crashing against the rocks a bit and had me worried about their safety, as most steps involved climbing boulders and sliding along ledges. I felt clumsy; I was also very hungry. It was time for me to have real food. I suggested we go back down to the carpark and deposit our big packs, pick up daypacks and climb back up to where we were, now that we knew we were on the right lead. Molly and Salome agreed. (Bruce had already opted out of this climb and gone to the car by himself.) Down we went, up we climbed, yet again. I was inching around an obstacle on a narrow ledge and noted that I felt decidedly woozy. I was very, very low in blood sugar. I think I was also low in salt. I can tell you that after a scallop pie, a lemon-meringue tart, an OJ and a cappuccino I felt fantastic again, but by then it was too late. I have promised to drive the two girls back to finish what we began, but on that day, I needed food more than a summit point. Alas. We’ll be back to Mt Mayson for round two some time very soon.
Posted on

Dove 2014 Nov

Mt Dove Nov 2014


My hands sting with abrasions; there are several small slits that smart even more; my thighs have little pock marks and I feel pretty shattered – and yet I can say without the slightest touch of irony that I had one of the best weekends ever – climbing Mt Dove (and later, Mts Graham and Freycinet) on Tasmania’s East Coast.

Salome climbs Mt Dove. You can see we have come across a cairn. We kept finding them – a wonderful reassurance that we were choosing the right route. However, DO NOT think that you can follow these. We very rarely saw one cairn from the one behind. They were a happy confirmation of success, not a guidance to it.
I have noted before that it is often the case that when you give, you end up receiving far more than you ever gave. The two Swedish girls I took mountain climbing this weekend think I have done them an enormous favour, and yet I feel as if I am the one who has received.

Last week I accepted into our house two girls who were the friends of the daughter of a friend (Elin is now, of course, friend in her own right – I am just explaining the connection) that I made orienteering in Sweden in 1986. A friendship that began with a random act of hospitality on Marie’s part has continued to this day as a wonderful extended family attachment. On the weekend, I agreed to take the girls into the mountains. Plans A and B both had to be abandoned due to the weather, leaving only one dry place in the whole of Tasmania: the Freycinet Peninsula. Off we headed. I had that “here we go again” feeling; the girls were excited.

Molly climbing Dove

One of the things we learn when we become parents is to see the world afresh through eyes encountering its wonder for the first time, and that is what we experienced on the weekend through the eyes of Molly and Salome. Whereas we, utterly spoiled by beauty, were far too blasé about the marvels of Freycinet, Molly and Salome believed they had landed in heaven, and shared their joy and excitement in noise and action. We loved it.

“Yes” to beauty, says Salome.

The first item on our agenda was Mt Dove, the rather inhospitable next-door neighbour to the more-climbed Mt Amos. However, as we parked, the sky looked ominous. We wanted to climb something, so opted for the much easier Amos, knowing we would get wet. Dove is not a mountain you climb in the rain. Its granite, nicely abrasive when dry, is as slippery as polished marble when wet. We just took the barest essentials, as Amos is a very quick climb, and off we set. My husband, who has Parkinson’s disease, said that seeing’s we were only climbing Amos, he would come too. He had no intention of attempting Dove, which is a much more difficult mountain, with huge slabs of exposed, dangerously sloping granite cliffs, and no path up it. You have to find your own way in the maze of bush and rocks, losing sight of the wider context of your climb as you get buried in the minutiae of the needs of the next few metres.

Molly, excited by the view. We’re now pretty sure we’ll make it to the top, and are feeling pretty excited.

Amos was, as usual, wonderful, but just as we were appreciating it, and deciding that Dove would definitely have to wait until Monday, a hail squall came, and we needed to shelter under some boulders. Ice bombardment finished, it was time to descend, but the girls and I were curious about the route we would take when the weather cleared.
“Let’s just suss out the early part,” we agreed. Off the summit we slid in the direction of the Dove-Amos saddle. It was fun, and my husband was coping. We stood there and looked longingly in the direction of the next summit.
“Let’s do it,” said Salome.
“Yeah, let’s” we all agreed – Bruce too (the trust of this man that I will manage to keep him alive in the direst of circumstances is remarkable). Off we set.

Getting higher, but still not there yet

A look at our route reveals the sad fact that we hit a dead end early on, but only one, and after that it was pretty smooth sailing – challenges were there in plenty, of course, but all overcome with little difficulty. About half way up, we had a manoeuvre that we all agreed was beyond Bruce’s hampered capabilities, so we “parked” him at a spot with a nice view, marked his whereabouts on my gps, and continued as a trio. Up the granite, through a corridor of scrub, up the granite …. we repeated this pattern, gaining height admirably. Oh the excitement when we saw the trig just a few metres away around the corner of a boulder. All three of us were overjoyed. I had given up on this mountain for this day, and here we were. We jumped around and photographed and uttered all the superlatives that one mutters when faced with supreme beauty. Molly, amongst other things, said: “Amazing”, and Salome and I did the first thing that came into our heads at the mention of that word, and began, to our mutual amazement, to sing “Amazing Grace”. Next thing, all three of us were singing all four verses of this beautiful song in harmony as we descended, retracing our steps. We sang the rest of the way down. At last, I have found other people who love to sing while they walk.

Yes, we did it. Excited girls on top.

Back at the saddle, we tossed up whether to climb back up to the summit of Amos and descend on the track, or to find our own way down near, but not in, the gully. We voted for the descent option, and set out, sidling around cliffs and tugging at roots and branches as we made our way both along and down. Time marched by. The sun started to get an ominous golden tint and the shadows got long. We appeared to be in a cul-de-sac, in which any direction that was vaguely forward was too hazardous for my husband to attempt, especially as he was now getting tired. No. We’d have to go back and do what we should have done all along, and head back for the summit of Amos, hoping to intercept the track near the top. These rocky bluffs offered too impenetrable a fortress.

This was taken after we had stopped attempting to descend just above the gully and were climbing Amos once more. By this stage, I had stopped fearing that we would spend the night on the mountain, so relaxed enough to take a photo.

Backwards, upwards we pushed with the day drawing to a close. I began to suss out overhangs for overnight possibilities should it become necessary. However, at last with a whoop I called the others: I could see a bit of blue tag. We had mounted the spur we needed and the track now lay slightly below us. Hoorah. What a fabulous team effort it had been. We would be sleeping in our tents tonight after all. I have not yet mentioned that the wind was ferocious – so much so that I had no idea whether any of my photos would turn out, as I had trouble stabilising the camera. As we descended, we were grateful to at last have dropped out of its reach, although we could see it whipping up waves on the normally tranquil water below.

Emerging on top of the spur that would connect us to the Amos track. Victory is in sight.

We had been planning on sleeping at the end of Wineglass Bay, but had now run out of time. The gale was a westerly, so I drove us to the Friendly Beaches where we set up our tents on the sheltered eastern shores, happy and complete after our successful ascent(s).

Sunrise at the Friendly Beaches next morning.
Saga to be continued in the next post, later today or tomorrow.