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The Antarctic Peninsula Adventure

I write from Ushuaia, the most southern city in the world.  Tomorrow, Feb 13, we board a 75ft yacht, the Australis, and set off to sail to the Antarctic Peninsula, to climb!  Our objective is the unclimbed West ridge of Mt Parry, Brabant Is.

Ushuaia is a cool little town, rapidly expanding up a steep hill.  Here we are surrounded by mountains at our backs, and the port to the forward view, an atmospheric start to our journey.   It’s a little like Eastern Bloc architecture with a touch of Scottish Coast village meets the Latin Quarter – an eccentric mix!

We are staying with Javier, an old friend of Roger Wallis and “Capitana Conny”, Roger’s partner and a Ship’s Captain.   Javier runs a quaint B & B, near the centre of town, “Martin Fierro” is a skinny and tall wooden and green slate tiled building that feels like a home, and produces a thick black coffee, pastries and bread rolls at breakfast.  Javier pours the coffee at breakfast and we sit at a long table overlooking the town and the harbour.  His telescope is pointed at the Australis. 

 We have just met our crew and been on the boat, so very exciting.  Ben Wallis and his partner Skye are our crew; Ben and his father Roger own and run the business Ocean Expeditions, and Ben and Skye have been running all the charters to the Peninsula for this whole season.   

Deano returning from the Australis...

On the boat we are going to have a couple, names yet unknown, who have sailed on the Australis in warmer climes and are friends of Roger Wallis; a Scientist, George, pronounced  “HorHay” (I’m unsure how it’s spelt) who is an Argentinean Whale specialist; to whom, since the Australis had spare berths, they offered a place in order to support his study; and a mother and her 4 year old son sailing down to the Peninsula to join up with husband/father to winter over on another yacht!  Then there are the three of us, and Ben and Skye, the crew.

We have a nice cabin, in fact we all have cabins because the boat is not full, lucky us.  The whole set up looks fantastic, and we’ve got space to put stuff – some of the 150kgs we three brought over! 

In all, we’ve had two full days here in Ushuaia, shopping for our adventure, doing lots of computer-based chores, and drinking wine.  Dean accidentally ripped up the 50 ARS (approx $25 NZD) counterfeit note we’d been slipped when he was “smoothing” it out, and Penny accidentally said no to a carafe of house wine thereby ordering a rather expensive bottle we polished off at a low-key lunch – before we knew what it cost - and I am simply awaiting my own budgeting slip-up which is obviously inevitable.

....We are not able to be on the internet to add to this story until we return.  After Whales and dolphins and ice bergs we land back in Ushuaia March 14^th, weather dependent.  Hasta Luego!

November, December, Jan & a bit of Feb 2010:

November: My return to New Zealand guiding - the first time in two and a half years due to knee surgery, was an adventure.  I had a client called Alasdair, a super intelligent accountant from Scotland who had worked for two years in Italy and has continured to live in Europe.  Alasdair had booked for one peak but because of the weather and condfitions, actually got two other mountains in a week when many people failed to climb anything.  He had a fantastic time doing"real" New Zealand mountaineering, exploring a gorgeous valley called Canyon Creek. 

In Alasdair I found someone who truely enjoyed the nuances of the outdoors as well as the technical and high exposure aspects of mountaineering; the colours of a frozen lake, cooking in a rock bivouac, camping in the bush and collecting wood for the fire, exploring one of a hundred waterfalls, climbing in a remote area with no-one else around.  What a great start to the season!







In December I went onto to work with a great guide, Calum, on an instruction course for the international guiding company Adventure Consultants.  We flew to the head of the Tasman Glacier, the longest non-polar glacier in the Southern Hemisphere, I believe about 26km long.  EVERY guide has worked up there staying in Kelman Hut...except for me.  Ive been to the smaller hut nearby, Tasman Saddle Hut, and climbed some of the local peaks but finally i made it to Kelman! Calum had a sense of humour and a committment to the job that made the time zip by with enjoyment. 






Late December I was forntunate to join with Shari, another hyper-intelligent person, this time an orthodontist who was about to squeeze Mt Everest in between finishing her specialist exams and undertaking research in the UK she'd already intiated in Australia.  Shari hasnt got a huge amount of alpine experience yet, but has a lot of motivation.  She is great to be with in the mountains as she realises that climbing is not all about reaching summits but also about people and history and sharing beautiful sunsets and laughing a whole lot. 

    





The end of 2009: For several days throughout the year including the 28th of December,  I am fortunate enough to be working with a luxury tour company Ahipara, and a fantastic woman, helicopter pilot Alex Ford of Aspiring Helicopters.  Alex and I have created a day of exploring the Southern Alps specialising in the secret corners of the alpine environment that attract us so. 

My passion is alpine lakes, surrounded by grass or alpine tussocks or ice cliffs.  On these special days we fly to West Coast beaches and have lunch on cliff tops above seal colonies, drop down to river pools in West Coast rivers from whence comes the beautiful Maori name for the South Island, Te Wai Ponamu - The waters of Greenstone.  We fly up waterfalls and burst out over lakes surrounded by cliffs and sheer drops to the valley floors.  We may land on a glacier and plunge over crevasses and ice falls to the valley floor.  Alex is a great pilot, has nothing to prove but is fully committed to flying well.  She and I share a passion for the New Zealand mountains and wilderness and a skill in exploring and discovering beautiful places.

Images yet to come!



October 2009 Ama Dablam 6856m!

On the 28th of October this year David Gwynne-Jones from Dunedin, NZ and I stood on the top of one of most beautiful mountains in Nepal, maybe even the world, Ama Dablam!

We had cool adventures, spent our time acclimatising, and meeting interesting characters at Base Camp and higher camps.  From Camp One to camp three we climbed on sun kissed rock out of the prevailing wind, it was so enjoyable.  Once we were acclimatized we had a swift but cool ascent from Camp 3 to the summit and back to Camp two.  I'd go back in a heartbeat.




              

Update, the last few years:

Guiding: For the past years I have been a working as both a mountain guide and as a community based physiotherapist.  My guiding has been both in New Zealand and around the world, working for companies such as Adventure Consultants (NZ), Jagged Globe (UK), Himalayan Experience (France) and Aspiring Guides (NZ).  I’ve had the privilege and opportunity to guide Alpamayo in Peru; Aconcagua, Argentina; Cho-Oyu from Tibet, Lobuche East and Mt Everest from Nepal. 

Climbing in China:
In April - May 2009 I had another fantastic adventure with a woman called Penelope Goddard (quite the high achiever, an Avalanche forecaster on the Milford Road and a ski guide).  We attempted the East Face of an unclimbed 6000m peak Nyambo Konka with two Americans.  When weather and conditions forced our retreat, Penny and I explored into a remote valley to make (most probably) the first ascent of a 5000m rocky mountain.  It was all so mysterious as we were not able to see our peak until the summit day!

       ...dinner at Camp One!


On Nyambo Konka...

I looked down at Mark and said absolutely nothing.  We were in a white-out half abseiling and down climbing the East Face of Nyambo Konka, retreating to a tiny ledge of ice at 5600m on a rib of snow between two avalanche runnels, the only potential bivouac place en route to the summit ridge.  The white-out was really a pink-out with the very last light of the day colouring our retreat.  I could see Mark as a dark blob in a pink rather steep world.  The pink world started to snow graupel heavily and suddenly we were immersed in the most intense ear-drum-bursting thunderstorm I’ve ever experienced.  Then the lightning came and all around us the pink walls of cloud flickered with tiny orange lights, repeatedly.

I was dressed in my jacket with collar and hood up, and goggles.  I turned in my abseil and looked down at Mark.  What was going through my mind was that Mark was strong and resourceful, a mountaineer and veteran of many new routes, more to the point he lived on a large land mass and large land masses have electrical storms in the mountains.  Because of all these things he should therefore have some kind of magic answer to this situation of extreme electricity... and I said nothing but looked at him 20m away.

“I know!” he yelled in reply over the wildness, “I’m scared too!”

    

    



Injury: It’s not all been good and glamorous; I’ve been injured and have had operations to repair an injury to my left knee.  At times I have not been able to do any exercise.  At one point I wondered if I would be able to return to the mountains with a pack on my back.  Thankfully, and I say that with deep relief, I can carry a pack and I seem still to be able to go uphill ok! 

House Building at Lake Hawea: The past 18 months have also been spent at home finishing building the house I started some years ago.  My partner Dean Staples came into the property building commitment with a less than half-finished house.  It was a structure that the builder and the building inspector state (with a few eyes cast to the heavens) described as “completely outside of 3604” (the New Zealand standard building code).  That is now our catch phrase – whether something (usually not building related!) is within 3604…or not.  We had to retro-engineer the building, and have added rooms to make it more functional.

Thus, at the start of 2009 we entered a space that amazed us with the experience of living within its walls.  I have had a life-long amateur interest in architecture and spatial design, and once Dean came into the project with practical and visionary ideas, the team result is fantastic. There is a straight-walled earth-roofed part half of the house, and a curved-walled, soaring roofed half.  We have converted the garage under the earth roofed into two sunny bedrooms with courtyard, and a bathroom, and added the most romantic bedroom for ourselves under the eaves of the highest part of the other roof, looking directly out to Lake Hawea.

We have a single big room with a very high ceiling for living, cooking and dining.  As a child I used to read books set in Europe in the Pyrenees and the Apennines where people would gather in a farmhouse kitchen at a huge table, to eat simple foods with fresh salads and red wine.  For me, coming from a tiny, relatively poor family of just my mother and I, it evoked a feeling of comfort, abundance and simple luxury. 

Wishes come true: In late March, before I left to climb in China, and Dean to guide Everest, we sat having a meal with salad, wine and candlelight, on a huge wooden table.  I remembered this childhood passion and desire, marveling in the realization that, unconsciously I had been able to create my childhood dream.  Be careful what you wish for, they say, as it can always come true!