0.) Sleeping in a snow cave .

I dug these pictures out from September 2005 . I had listened to people's advice and done a snow-craft course in preparation for a climb up Ruapehu .
These pictures were taken with my canon S70 back then .
This time I intended on sleeping in a snow cave on top for the night and maybe capturing a sunrise . I started walking from the top of the Bruce road carpark . I left a notice on the side window of my car " I'm sleeping in a snow cave on top of Rauapehu, if this sign is still here on 15/09/2005 .... I want to be cremated " .






That's Egmont in the distance - my next climb maybe ?



I keep a tarpaulin on my pack , it is folded over and sewn up like a large bag in case things get nasty and I need shelter in a hurry ....



The ''fun' coming down started the next day , more on that later ....

I saw this red sign and wandered over to see what it said ..... " danger - cliff"





Strange place to put a tent !



This ridge has actually caught me again recently - I start climbing , head for the ridge going up , and it goes straight down again after a while ...



The weather was starting to look 'iffy'



but after 3 1/2 hours I was on top ! That ridge was where I was going to build my cave ....



Things were looking a little dull for a while .. that small spot in the middle is two people ....



Then I saw these two skiers who had climbed to the top to ski back down , the nutters had all this hot gear on , jackets etc....



So I asked them to take a snap for me .... you can see I've made a decent sheath for the machette , it's useful for cutting blocks of snow .




I wandered around for a while taking snapshots here and there ....



and noticed a line of 'dots' at the end of that hill ..



So I headed towards it and stopped to admire the 'flowers'



When I got to the hill I had chosen I suddenly saw no need to waste energy building my own snow cave ....





Welcome to Hotel snowcave !







Of course the entrance needs to be lower than the floor to keep heat in but they could have made this a bit lower - I fixed it later after having some rest ....



Whoever slept on this side had a green bedroll because half of it was still stuck to the snow .



Possibly another two people fitted on this side .....



I soon made it a little more 'homey' ....









Now here's the crazy part , last time I slept in a 'snow mound' [ that's another story that I managed to live through ] , I got very cold because I never had enough insulation under me . This time I folded the tarp under me , put down my mattress , climbed into the bivy bag in my -30 sleeping bag , with my jacket on ....... in 10 minutes I was so hot I threw it all off and rolled onto the snow to cool down - it was about 2 degrees celcius at that stage !







It was a rather uneventful night [ thankfully ] , had to leave the sleeping bag unzipped to prevent overheating [ 0 degrees inside ] , at 3 am woke up and finally pulled the zip up because I was getting cold - stared at the roof and wondered how many tons were above my head and what chance I would have if it collapsed on me ....
6 am woke up .







I wandered around for a while snapping pictures ....





and I can feel my pulse speeding up as I view this picture again .... and it's been nearly 4 years now .....




I should have posted this in the morning , now it's going to take a while to get to sleep tonight

I walked up to the edge and looked down the slope .....



Mistake no.1 . I had bought some cheap crampons on trademe , they kept jumping off so I had strapped them to the top of my pack .
I decided it was too much hassle to put them on anyway so I would just dig my heels in as I walked down - easy .
But the snow had melted and refrozen overnight and it was all ice . I struggled for a while and then decided to put my snowcraft training to use [ not really ] and dug the tip of the ice axe in , leaned on it , and slowly pulled it out so I could do a 'self arrest' and slide down using the tip as a brake [ that was mistake no.2 by the way ] .
It lasted about 5 seconds - I took off like a bullet , lost control , ramped through the air and swung my ice axe into the side - it got ripped out of my hand because I have a weak grip - and for that same reason I had had a safety strap fitted .
So there I was dangling on the slope by my wrist .
I decided to kick into the ice to get a foothold - it worked for a while and I started making my way down - then the ice got really thick and my left boot wasn't properly tightened [ #3 ?] so 6 months later my bruised toenail finally fell out  .
After a bit more struggling somehow one clip on top of my pack came undone and the crampons hung in front of my face - I thought "damn ! , how do I do them up again " . I put my hand on top and somehow touched the other clip which came undone and they both fell in front of my face .
I thought ''great , it's too much to put them back so I'll throw them down the slope and pick them up at the bottom later " .
Then it occurred to me that if I had them on I wouldn't be in this mess .
In 5 minutes I had cut a platform , put the crampons on and was walking down backwards kicking my spikes into the ice - easy .
this is the angle of the slope .....



And that's looking back up the slope .....



So I carried on walking back to the car taking pictures ... realized I would have slid all the way down here



might have stopped here ....



definitely would have stopped here if I got this far ....



looked at this sign .....



and thought that I could only go alone because for some reason nobody wants to go on these trips with me !

When I got home I downloaded the pictures and as I started going through them the shock started to sink in and I started shaking when I saw where I would have ended up if I never had that safety strap - imagine the damage to my camera !
Someone suggested I have a few drinks and I told them I don't drink alcohol . So they suggested some 'calming medicine' from the pharmacy and I told them I wanted to face my fear - I don't want to have to rely on something to calm my nerves or I won't have conquered my fear .
Now I'm ready for round two - but this time I have some decent crampons [ and a D90 !] .





And that's the story that earned me the title "The mad South African " a few years ago - coined by another South African mind you !