Tag: hiking (Page 3 of 4)

Mt Asahi, Hokkaido

1 November 2018 / author

Summit fever is usually a dangerous phenomenon that kills climbers. High on the flank of some improbable peak, overcome by the desire to reach the top after all that effort, time, and money, the climber ignores the safety rules, continues well past the turnaround time, and ends up dying because there’s not enough time, energy, or both, to get back down. It seems to happen on Mt Everest a lot.

That fine sunny day near the top of Mt Asahi on Hokkaido I had summit fever too. The difference? About 6,500 vertical meters. Mt Asahi is a modest peak, and although in late Autumn it was already covered by a surprise coat of snow, it’s a simple walk to the top. A wind was picking up, blowing hard above the last shoulder of the mountain. I didn’t want our daughter, sleeping soundly in my backpack, to be woken by that blast. Yon suggested that she and our two friends could wait at the shoulder if I thought I could be back quickly.

Summit Fever!

Horse riding at Lake Son-kul and the road to Kazarman

25 October 2018 / author

↑Storm blows in towards Lake Son-kul

A breeze can turn to a blast in seconds. We lazed at the door of our yurt in the last light of day, and the wind did just that. “Ai!” yelled the matron of the camp, if that’s the way to describe a tough as nails Kyrgyz mother. Seeing her start tying down the other yurts, we clued in quickly and did the same to ours. Moments later the storm hit, sending dust flying and causing the horses to whinny in complaint, their high pitched wail rising high over the thumping flap of woolen yurt doors cutting loose from their ties. Rain splashed down, brief but hard, and then, almost before it had come, it was gone. The sun put in one last effort, the air was soft again, and the cold night fell.

Mighty Mount Yotei

18 October 2018 / author

Rain. Of course it’s raining. Because it’s the last day of what could be our last trip to Hokkaido for a long while. So, of course, it’s raining. I get up anyway, still dark at 5am, quietly so I don’t disturb my wife and kid (who’s bunking with us this holiday). Just alert enough to drive, I head out of the village fully expecting to be back in bed in 20 minutes. But suddenly, around the corner, I see Yotei. It’s a giant triangle looming over everything. Dark, dominating, and really big.

And its summit is clear. Not a low-level cloud in sight. I speed up, just a little. Alone, early, clear summit. Rain or no, it’s time, at last.

Stok Kangri II: Summit Day

2 July 2018 / author

A hundred vertical meters beneath the summit of Stok Kangri. Would I make it?

Continued from Climbing Stok Kangri I: Leh to Base Camp

Just past midnight. It’s Summit Day.

Someone bangs a saucepan and yells “Good Morning Base Camp!” I feel well rested. It’s not too cold, and I put on my clothes and go into the homestay tent. Thankfully it doesn’t smell too badly of cheap fuel. Breakfast is porridge and there’s honey and I drink some tea. We’re given a packed lunch, too, all wrapped in foil. The others seem tired and they reveal they didn’t get much sleep. Poor Tom is suffering from a churning belly. Of all the mornings!

I feel strong, and I think I might just make it.

Ladakh’s Sham Valley

27 April 2018 / author

Summer 2014: Momentarily lost in the tiny village of Hemis Shupachan, I turned down a stone alley and bumped into an old local. He greeted me warmly and asked where I was from.
“Australia? Which city? Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra?”
“Wow, you know your cities. Have you been to Australia?”
“No! But Ricky Ponting is my friend!”

Review of Osprey Poco baby carrier

10 April 2018 / author

If you like hiking and you have a child, well, the good news is you can keep hiking. I did a lot of research online before our kid arrived about the best heavy duty child carrier. I wanted something that could conceivably support an overnight camping hike. The Osprey Poco gets a lot of love online, and deservedly so.

This thing transformed my life, because it showed me you can take your kid anywhere.

Tiger Leaping Gorge

23 March 2018 / author

Once, a mighty tiger roamed the mountains of ancient China. He ruled the steep cliffs with impunity. But along came a hunter, as mighty in the world as the tiger was in the wild. Slowly and carefully, quietly and expertly, the hunter stalked the tiger. Through forest and clearing, up mountains and down, until late one night, above the river, the tiger was cornered. A huge cliff behind him, and the powerful, deep, ice cold waters of the river below. The hunter drew his arrow, the bowstring stretched back ready for the killer shot. All was quiet. Savouring the moment, taking quiet satisfaction in his expertise, the hunter loosed the arrow.

A’nye Maqen: Searching for the high holy mountain

14 March 2018 / author

Our directions were less helpful than a pirate’s treasure map – we didn’t even have an “X” to mark the spot. Just the name of a village deep in the Qinghai plateau: Xiadawu. Near there, so these clues suggested, we could find our way to one of the holy mountains, sacred to Tibetan Buddhists: A’nye Maqen. In all, I’d found two sentences on the internet, and they were a few years old. Not much to go on. But in one of my favourite novels, Professor Lidenbrock had made a Journey to the Center of the Earth with nothing more than a centuries old scrap of paper reading:

Descend, bold traveller, into the crater of the jokul of Snæffels, which the shadow of Scartaris touches before the kalends of July, and you will attain the centre of the earth; which I have done: Arne Saknussemm.

If a fictional Professor could do that, surely we could reach A’nye Maqen?

Mongolia’s Malchin Peak and Potani Glacier

6 March 2018 / author

The wind only howls when you’re inside. Something about the pipes and cavities in a building seems to cause the eerie wail that changes pitch like a theremin in a fifties sci-fi classic. Outside, at nearly 4,000 meters, above a glacier and far from the nearest building, the wind just roars. It’s less like a vintage cinema score and more like standing behind a jet airliner at the end of a runway; a relentless loud roar that varies only in how hard it buffets you as you balance – or try to – on a path made of loose boulders on a twenty degree slope. That’s all I was aware of, that and the fiercely bright blue sky, as I made my way up the shoulder of Malchin Peak, a 4,050 meter high pile of grey boulders above the Potani Glacier in the far west of Mongolia. The altitude didn’t bother me; the boulders didn’t bother me. But that roar was so loud it seemed to consume the very oxygen around. The summit seemed so close, the visual definition crystal clear in the frighteningly bright and blinding sun. But I knew I wasn’t going to reach it. That roaring wind literally blew it from my grasp.

Climbing Huayna Potosi in Bolivia

28 February 2018 / author

↑ Glacier Yoga, 5,600 m above sea level

Edmund Hillary once said “Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it”. That very much sums up our approach to Huayna Potosi, a popular peak just north of La Paz.

Sir Ed, a remarkably likeable guy, it seems, also said: “You don’t have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things – to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated.” This is certainly true of Huayna Potosi, known by some as the “easiest six-thousander in the world”. We’d even heard one woman, blissful in her ignorance, tell us Potosi was easy because “there are no clouds above 4,000”.

But as we battled a fairly convincing snowstorm before dawn at 5,750 meters – just a shade above the mythical “zone of no clouds” – we thought that perhaps Potosi wasn’t as easy as the “been-there-done-that” guys on the backpacker trail liked to make out.