It seems Sunday is turning out to be Basecamp Dreaming day. I just re-read the previous post from a fortnight ago and am really happy to see that we're making good progress.
We've moved straight on to the action phase: creating task lists, building up our itinerary, testing out our gear and even starting our physical training in preparation for Base Camp.
I'm noticing how differently Damien and I define 'preparation'.
I am the personification of the ill-prepared, fly by the seat of your pants traveller. The most I usually manage is a browse through a glossy destination brochure or perhaps a quick flick through an out of date Lonely Planet guide book. Damien on the other hand is the data-driven, minutely researched, detailed itinerary type of traveller. It's such a relief.
The other day I confessed to him that in 1999 I arrived at Uhuru Peak on top of Mt Kilimanjaro in Africa wearing a pair of corduroy jeans and a wax jacket I had borrowed from Tania. My hiking partner at the time, Adam, had asked me where my hiking boots were (I was wearing a kind of cross trainer) and did I have gators? I had to ask him what gators were. I remember being surprised that we were hiking through knee-deep snow and wondered how it was that I hadn't found out before reaching 5895m above sea level.
There is absolutely no chance of that happening this time. Before we even touch down in Nepal Damien will know every inch of the 175km or so of terrain which will be our constant companion for 16 days or so. Using Google Earth he is entering the GPS co-ordinates of each day's progress so that he can pinpoint on a 3D rendering where we will (should??) be at pretty-much any moment on any day of our trek; the altitude we will be at, where our nearest water source is, the quality of the nearest tea house and probably how many steps we are from the nearest loo!
Already he has input the data for the 10 days which take us from Lukla to Everest Base Camp - he presses the go button and you are taken on a 3D journey across a terrain map which flies across from Monju to Namche Bazaar on to Tengboche, across to Lobuche and finally Gorak Shep before the day you trek in to Base Camp. It is so amazing to be able to mouse-click on a terrain map and turn your angle this way and that to see what we'll be seeing with our own eyes. He had better be careful, because if the image gets any more detailed then there will really be no need for us to go ourselves, we could just do the virtual Base Camp trek and see all the sights without even getting our toes cold.
Speaking of cold toes - we decided our Tassie winter provided the perfect conditions to test out our gear for its capability in extreme weather. Kath's husband Andy is in training for a Kilimanjaro trek in August, so we teamed up to do a hike on Mount Roland on Friday of this week. The weather forecast was foul - rain and gale force winds - couldn't ask for better gear testing conditions.
Damien and I headed out to Sheffield the day prior and did Mt Claude in showery, cloudy and cold conditions. What can I say about it? It was a trudge up a steep access road to a communications tower then a walk across a blustery saddle with zero visibility. The most striking feature was a kidney on the path - a water-logged and pale kidney. We didn't discover the creature from which it had come.
At the summit of Mt Claude there is a chock-stone between two very tall rocks. We had read on the Bushwalk forum on the web about various ways of getting up to the top of the rocks which circumvented the need to cross over the apparently daunting chock-stone.
First we went hunting for the cave with the blue rope in it which seemed the most promising way up. But no luck. Oh well, thought I, at least we made an effort.... never-mind... back down to a warm and dry cafe we go.
But no, Damien suggested we try around the other side of the mountain. Jack the dog and I followed. The low lying alpine heath gave way to chest high scrub as we rounded the big rock, and then became a forest of dense prickly stuff that was well over my head. And we were pushing through it, like early explorers in the Amazonian jungle. I had no idea where we were going and we stayed in range by calling out to each other. "I must be stupid" I thought to myself more than once. By the sounds Jack made as he contemplated jumping off slippery conglomerate boulders into unknown depths of scrub below he was thinking the same thing.
Finally, thankfully, we conceded defeat to the gale-force wind, the zero visibility, the slipperyness of the rock and we turned for home. I very nearly skipped the whole way back to the car. There's nothing quite like the promise of warmth and dryness to put a spring in your step.
We ended up in Sheffield, cosy in the drab surrounds of the Sheffield Pub. Spend a day out in conditions like that and even the drabbest pub is positively luxurious. A couple of beers, plates laden with stodgy pub food, some reasonable red wine and we were fortified for our next day's hiking.
Friday made Thursday's weather seem almost hospitable. It was a deluge. I felt we owed it to Andy to let him know what he was in for before he left Launceston. I texted him the news that it was raining hard. He came back with this "Chance of precipitation 100%; Motivation 80%. I'll be there, just a bit later".
So we three headed up Mount Roland grateful at least that the temperature was a reasonably warm 12 degrees even if it was bucketing down on us. Mount Roland is a much nicer walk than Mt Claude - no communications towers to remind us of civilisation. No kidneys on the path to remind us of deadly creatures which may be lurking in the forest either.
Up and up we walked, passing pleasantly named landmarks - Charlie's waterhole with its charming plunging waterfall, and Misty Rise which was well and truly misty. The streams channelling underneath the path became tannin-stained rivulets spilling over the path which we rock-hopped through. We were already drenched but we were doing our best to keep our boots dry on the inside for as long as possible.
Soon enough though, we found ourselves fording rapids roaring with a deluge of water plunging downhill. That was the end of dry boots - in fact dry anything - for the rest of the hike. From that point on we became one with the water. It came from the sky. It filled the walking track - we spent the next couple of hours ankle deep in it.
We decided to bypass the Mt Roland summit track - there were no views to be had on this day - in favour of a shorter route back across Mt VanDyke. Andy called it the path less travelled. And that became pretty apparent. We were back to pushing our way through head high scrub again. Only this time we were doing it in a slippery flood. My feet were frozen so I had to avoid the water whenever possible, which meant walking across the heath scrub. I felt bad about crushing the bushes, but figured it was more important to keep my toes intact. In parts the descent was less like hiking on a walking track and more like being part of a human waterfall, just going with the flow.
I hit the ground maybe 6 times on the descent - every surface was slippery, especially the rocks, tree roots and the mud (which is basically everything). Damien had to fish me out of some bush that swallowed me whole. He grabbed the back of my jacket and returned me to an upright position. He reckons I need to come with a handle attached to my back.
We were waiting for a turn off back down to the O'Neill Reserve - if we missed that we'd be hiking across to Mt Claude again. None of us was interested in that, so we kept a keen look out for the fork in the path. We managed to find it and returned to the lower terrain of the track, noting how benign everything appeared down below. At the base everything seems so harmless - but in the four and a half hours it had taken us to go up, over and down the mountain we had become well versed in just how different the conditions are higher up.
It's all a good lesson for us - for me at least - and that's the whole idea of doing these training hikes in all conditions, so we know the sorts of things we need to prepare for when we are over in the land of extremes.
One thing we now know for sure - there's nothing quite like a 700 loft down jacket to sink into when you've finished your day's hike...
In coming weeks we plan to do the hike from Dove Lake along the Overland Track to Waterfall Valley then down to Scott Kilvert Hut returning to Dove Lake. Who knows... next time we may have the challenge of hiking in snow!
We've moved straight on to the action phase: creating task lists, building up our itinerary, testing out our gear and even starting our physical training in preparation for Base Camp.
I'm noticing how differently Damien and I define 'preparation'.
I am the personification of the ill-prepared, fly by the seat of your pants traveller. The most I usually manage is a browse through a glossy destination brochure or perhaps a quick flick through an out of date Lonely Planet guide book. Damien on the other hand is the data-driven, minutely researched, detailed itinerary type of traveller. It's such a relief.
The other day I confessed to him that in 1999 I arrived at Uhuru Peak on top of Mt Kilimanjaro in Africa wearing a pair of corduroy jeans and a wax jacket I had borrowed from Tania. My hiking partner at the time, Adam, had asked me where my hiking boots were (I was wearing a kind of cross trainer) and did I have gators? I had to ask him what gators were. I remember being surprised that we were hiking through knee-deep snow and wondered how it was that I hadn't found out before reaching 5895m above sea level.
There is absolutely no chance of that happening this time. Before we even touch down in Nepal Damien will know every inch of the 175km or so of terrain which will be our constant companion for 16 days or so. Using Google Earth he is entering the GPS co-ordinates of each day's progress so that he can pinpoint on a 3D rendering where we will (should??) be at pretty-much any moment on any day of our trek; the altitude we will be at, where our nearest water source is, the quality of the nearest tea house and probably how many steps we are from the nearest loo!
Already he has input the data for the 10 days which take us from Lukla to Everest Base Camp - he presses the go button and you are taken on a 3D journey across a terrain map which flies across from Monju to Namche Bazaar on to Tengboche, across to Lobuche and finally Gorak Shep before the day you trek in to Base Camp. It is so amazing to be able to mouse-click on a terrain map and turn your angle this way and that to see what we'll be seeing with our own eyes. He had better be careful, because if the image gets any more detailed then there will really be no need for us to go ourselves, we could just do the virtual Base Camp trek and see all the sights without even getting our toes cold.
Speaking of cold toes - we decided our Tassie winter provided the perfect conditions to test out our gear for its capability in extreme weather. Kath's husband Andy is in training for a Kilimanjaro trek in August, so we teamed up to do a hike on Mount Roland on Friday of this week. The weather forecast was foul - rain and gale force winds - couldn't ask for better gear testing conditions.
Damien and I headed out to Sheffield the day prior and did Mt Claude in showery, cloudy and cold conditions. What can I say about it? It was a trudge up a steep access road to a communications tower then a walk across a blustery saddle with zero visibility. The most striking feature was a kidney on the path - a water-logged and pale kidney. We didn't discover the creature from which it had come.
At the summit of Mt Claude there is a chock-stone between two very tall rocks. We had read on the Bushwalk forum on the web about various ways of getting up to the top of the rocks which circumvented the need to cross over the apparently daunting chock-stone.
First we went hunting for the cave with the blue rope in it which seemed the most promising way up. But no luck. Oh well, thought I, at least we made an effort.... never-mind... back down to a warm and dry cafe we go.
But no, Damien suggested we try around the other side of the mountain. Jack the dog and I followed. The low lying alpine heath gave way to chest high scrub as we rounded the big rock, and then became a forest of dense prickly stuff that was well over my head. And we were pushing through it, like early explorers in the Amazonian jungle. I had no idea where we were going and we stayed in range by calling out to each other. "I must be stupid" I thought to myself more than once. By the sounds Jack made as he contemplated jumping off slippery conglomerate boulders into unknown depths of scrub below he was thinking the same thing.
Finally, thankfully, we conceded defeat to the gale-force wind, the zero visibility, the slipperyness of the rock and we turned for home. I very nearly skipped the whole way back to the car. There's nothing quite like the promise of warmth and dryness to put a spring in your step.
We ended up in Sheffield, cosy in the drab surrounds of the Sheffield Pub. Spend a day out in conditions like that and even the drabbest pub is positively luxurious. A couple of beers, plates laden with stodgy pub food, some reasonable red wine and we were fortified for our next day's hiking.
Friday made Thursday's weather seem almost hospitable. It was a deluge. I felt we owed it to Andy to let him know what he was in for before he left Launceston. I texted him the news that it was raining hard. He came back with this "Chance of precipitation 100%; Motivation 80%. I'll be there, just a bit later".
So we three headed up Mount Roland grateful at least that the temperature was a reasonably warm 12 degrees even if it was bucketing down on us. Mount Roland is a much nicer walk than Mt Claude - no communications towers to remind us of civilisation. No kidneys on the path to remind us of deadly creatures which may be lurking in the forest either.
Up and up we walked, passing pleasantly named landmarks - Charlie's waterhole with its charming plunging waterfall, and Misty Rise which was well and truly misty. The streams channelling underneath the path became tannin-stained rivulets spilling over the path which we rock-hopped through. We were already drenched but we were doing our best to keep our boots dry on the inside for as long as possible.
Soon enough though, we found ourselves fording rapids roaring with a deluge of water plunging downhill. That was the end of dry boots - in fact dry anything - for the rest of the hike. From that point on we became one with the water. It came from the sky. It filled the walking track - we spent the next couple of hours ankle deep in it.
We decided to bypass the Mt Roland summit track - there were no views to be had on this day - in favour of a shorter route back across Mt VanDyke. Andy called it the path less travelled. And that became pretty apparent. We were back to pushing our way through head high scrub again. Only this time we were doing it in a slippery flood. My feet were frozen so I had to avoid the water whenever possible, which meant walking across the heath scrub. I felt bad about crushing the bushes, but figured it was more important to keep my toes intact. In parts the descent was less like hiking on a walking track and more like being part of a human waterfall, just going with the flow.
I hit the ground maybe 6 times on the descent - every surface was slippery, especially the rocks, tree roots and the mud (which is basically everything). Damien had to fish me out of some bush that swallowed me whole. He grabbed the back of my jacket and returned me to an upright position. He reckons I need to come with a handle attached to my back.
We were waiting for a turn off back down to the O'Neill Reserve - if we missed that we'd be hiking across to Mt Claude again. None of us was interested in that, so we kept a keen look out for the fork in the path. We managed to find it and returned to the lower terrain of the track, noting how benign everything appeared down below. At the base everything seems so harmless - but in the four and a half hours it had taken us to go up, over and down the mountain we had become well versed in just how different the conditions are higher up.
It's all a good lesson for us - for me at least - and that's the whole idea of doing these training hikes in all conditions, so we know the sorts of things we need to prepare for when we are over in the land of extremes.
One thing we now know for sure - there's nothing quite like a 700 loft down jacket to sink into when you've finished your day's hike...
In coming weeks we plan to do the hike from Dove Lake along the Overland Track to Waterfall Valley then down to Scott Kilvert Hut returning to Dove Lake. Who knows... next time we may have the challenge of hiking in snow!