(It was very hard to balance that tube of vegemite – another reason vegemite shouldn’t come in tubes)
And also, a snake ate another snake! And then the eaten snake crawled out of the eating snake!
Category: general
Unfortunately this time the jinx did not take itself out on me, but my hapless climbing partner. We drove to Haffner Creek, changed into boots, loaded ourselves up with climbing gear, hiked in to the climbs, picked a likely looking first climb, climbing partner racked up and started leading.
The ice was quite hard, the climb was very vertical, and climbing partner started to get pumped and shaky, attempting to place an ice screw that just wouldn’t bite. Front bail of one of climbing partner’s crampons popped off, and climbing partner rapidly went from being a few metres up on the ice to being on the ground.
Luckily he was falling onto snow and his legs were fine, but unluckily he nicked himself in the face with his tool on the way down. Meanwhile the other tool was still up in the ice. And a lot of blood.
After the lone tool was rescued we packed up and drove home. A hospital visit and two stitches later and he was as good as new again.
So we dashed off to the Junkyards for a couple of hours of laps on a toprope – and ended up getting some climbing in after all.
The avalanche danger has been very high recently, so a lot of the more interesting backcountry skiing has to be avoided at all costs. And most of what’s leftover has to be approached with a healthy dose of paranoia.
So on my day off I went and did what was basically a hideously ungroomed nordic trail, with no avalanche danger whatsoever, as it was so flat and far from anything that could conceivably be viewed as a skiable slope. But still pretty.
We kept the mountains at a healthy distance, and there were signs of natural avalanche activity everywhere.
But there was sun! And even if the downhill back to the car didn’t involve floating through fresh powder, well at least it was downhill.
The sun shone on us feebly from far away.
But the snow was soft and fluffy.
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
not a creature was stirring, not even that mouse I killed yesterday.
Which is good, because the last thing you want on Christmas is a hoard of zombie mice attacking you.