Stranded

I have started rock climbing! OK, so I actually have not climbed an actual rock yet, but I've started going to the climbing gym in Napier. The Hawke's Bay Climbing Club organized a weekend trip to Mt. Ruapehu to practice ice tramping techniques. Included in our list of required equipment were ice crampons, ice axe, and a helmet-very serious tramping! When you have an ice axe in your hands, it's hard not to feel extremely cool and Sir Edmund Hillary like. We arrived at the Bird and Forest hut on Friday night. It turned out to be more of a lodge-electricity, running water, and even refrigerators. That's my kind of roughing-it!

I was in the beginner group. All morning we learned how to walk in crampons (which is pretty much like a big monster-firmly plant your feet into the snow, and keep a wide stance. This is so your crampons don't get stuck on your pant leg and cause a potentially dangerous fall), and learning to self-arrest (When you do fall, using your ice axe to catch yourself from plummeting to your death in the very slippery ice) Good times! It was a cold morning and I was thankful for every single layer of merino wool clothing I was wearing. Thank you, sheep!

By noon, the wind had picked up significantly, and I had stopped having fun. Climbing club motto: "Time to quite if you've stopped having fun." So our group decided to head back to the hut for a nice relaxing afternoon by the fireplace. But that turned out to be wishful thinking. We ended up getting stuck in the mass exodus trying to leave the mountain. We sat in our car for 5 hours before the snow patrol informed people it was too dangerous to drive down the mountain and we needed to evacuate our cars and head for the ski lodges. By this time it was dark and the wind had turned from windy to blizzardy. People where being roped together and led to shelter. I was lucky to be a car with Jeff and three other extreme outdoor kiwi blokes (Crazy Kiwis as I like to call them) Since we had all the right gear, we ended up having to practically ice climb up the mountain (that may be exaggerating just a bit!) to a lodge that wasn't too packed with people. So we spent the night on the floor, in our clothes, and huddled together for warmth. We were lucky we got to stay in the Boy Scout lodge. Those scouts made sure we had food and at least a few blankets to share around.

The next morning was absolutely beautiful except for the evidence of the snow storm the night before. We spent the next hour digging out our cars. The weekend was a bit more than I bargained for, but it will definitely be remembered as one of my great adventures.