Travels with Skis

Black Peak

I have been getting rather behind on this blogging thing, so I shall attempt to get back up to speed with a whopper of a post.

Mid August was the scheduled start of our trip to Black Peak. The pervious few days there had been an unusually large amount of fresh snow which had been dropped by a seemingly endless cycle of warm and cold fronts. The whole of the South Island had been put on a backcountry avalanche alert - all heliskiing operations shut down, and people were advised to avoid the backcountry like the plague. There was a week facet layer in the snow pack at a depth of about 2 meters, and with the additional weight of the new snow, things were looking decidedly dicey. The morning that the snow stopped falling, and while everyone else heeded the advice to stay clear of back country, P and I, with our guide and a German girl called Nina, loaded our gear into a helicopter and headed for Black Peak.

Black Peak's summit is at a little over 2200m, and is about 7km as the crow flies from Treble Cone. There are two ways to get there - either take a quick heli ride, or walk. The 'walk' is basically what is known as ski touring. You have synthetic skins which you attach to the bottom of your skis, and special bindings that allow you to release your heel. In a nutshell this allows you to walk up snow faces (otherwise know as 'skinning up'). The walk to/from Black Peak takes about 6 hours, and consists of a number of faces to skin up, a few ridge traverses, and some downhill sections. The plan was to heli in, and then four days later walk out.

The reason for the trip to Black Peak was primarily to learn about avalanches - how to assess snow stability, pick safe routes, and to learn what to do when the worst happens. Our guide, Nick, was apparently the best in the business. A little background... this guy spends the northern hemisphere winter taking *very* rich people skiing. The idea is that these rich people like to be the first people to ski down mountains, so the trips normally take place in Alaska/Greenland/the Himalayas etc. and involve lots of helicopters, and other big boys toys. Nick is also the only person I know who has had a helicopter land on top of them. It is quite a story so I think it is probably worth a few lines. He was taking clients to Greenland, and after being snowed in for a few days, Nick and a second guide went out to check out some potential descents. After being dropped by helicopter, the second guide fell and broke his femur, so the helicopter was called back. On landing (by all accounts it was a pretty steep slope), the main rotor of the helicopter caught the snow. In trying to correct, the pilot tilted the main rotor backwards - probably a bit too far given that he chopped the tail clean off the helicopter. The long and the short off the story is that the helicopter lost its engine, gearbox, and a lot of other bits and pieces in addition to the tail, before ending up on top of Nick. If this guy could get out of a situation like that, then I figured if I was heading into the backcountry at avalanche o'clock, then it was probably best that I was with someone like Nick. Did I mention that Nick is also the only person who I have ever met who has been fully buried in an avalanche? If there was ever motivation for not being caught in one again, then I suppose spending several minutes not knowing if you were going to make it out would be it.

I don't know if you have ever been in a helicopter, but it is quite a ride, especially in the mountains. The pilots like to stay as close to the ground as possible - I guess so that they don't get caught up in the strong localised winds that seem pop up from nowhere in the mountains. The helicopter never seemed to be level - we dropped over ridges like a stone, and swooped up valleys. For someone who is scared of flying it was a truly nail biting experience. We were dropped at the hut where we where to stay for the next 3 nights. The hut was about 3m by 6m, and purely functional - four bunks, and a couple of gas burners to heat food. My first job was to dig out the toilet from the snow drift that had engulfed it. Nice. After a spot of lunch we practiced transceiver searches. The idea is that if an avalanche happens, you need to be able to find the buried victims very quickly to give them a chance of survival. The stats say that if you can't find them within 15 minutes then the chances of finding them alive are somewhat slim. A transceiver works by broadcasting a signal which a second transceiver can then pick up - with a bit of practice, and a good understanding of search patters you can get pretty good at finding people. Of course, throw a few buried transceivers into the mix at the same time, and things get a lot trickier. The rest of the afternoon was spent ski touring - skinning up faces and then skiing down. There is nothing to make you appreciate a powder run more than having to walk to get to the top. I would guess, on average, a 45 minute walk would give you ten turns! Throughout the afternoon Nick would constantly point out avalanches that had released in the surrounding area - pretty soon we could see why people were being strongly advised against being out here - more faces that not had had slides. The key to spotting avalanche prone slopes is to check out the three A's - angle, aspect, and altitude. If you can see a face that has already avalanched and it has the same angle, aspect, and altitude as the face you want to ski, then it is probably a good idea to pack up and go home. The more avalanches that I noticed all around us, the more I realised that this trip really did have the potential to be a little interesting! The evening was spent drinking wine, eating food, and a small lecture on the snow metamorphosis process, and how that impacted snow pack stability.

Day two consisted of more of the same - lots of ski touring, and more transceiver searches. In addition we got our first taste of digging snow pits. Avalanches usually happen when there is a weak layer in the snow pack which is then covered by stronger layers. The weak layer, given the right conditions (a skiers weight?), can shear away, triggering an avalanche. Digging a snow pit allows you a good look at all the layers that make up the snow pack. In addition to looking at the snow, there are several tests which you can perform which give a good indication of the snow stability (compression test, rutchblock test, burp test - insert links).

By day four we were all feeling much more confident about our understanding of the snow, and its stability. As so often happens, when you are ignorant of the facts, things don't seem so intimidating. When I first arrived at Black Peak, I approached snow stability with a kind of 'it looks okay to me, so lets ski it' attitude. I was now constantly looking around for safe exits, terrain traps, and other tell tail signs of avalanches - perhaps a little paranoid? Probably, but I guess if you really do want to ski in the back arse of nowhere, then I don't suppose a little paranoia can hurt. We started our walk back to Treble Cone early in the morning, hoping to get back for early afternoon. Our route would take us over the summit of TC, down over the ski area, and to the car park at the bottom. Thoughts of hot latte, and potato wedges at the TC cafe provided much inspiration for me on the hike home. The closer to TC we got, the more ropey the terrain seemed to get. I think it was the point where the guide had us cowering under a rock overhang to avoid a potential avalanche from above that I realised that the return journey probably wasn't going to plan...

Five hours into the return trip, we were within maybe 100 yards of the summit of TC. The end was within touching distance. Only a steep gully was between us the easy ride home on a groomed piste. Only 100 yards horizontally, but in reality we needed to drop down about 400 vertical meters to the valley floor, and then skin up the other side of the gully in order to get home. Home seemed painfully close, but significantly more painfully far away. Nick seemed somewhat jittery. Remember the 3 A's? Well, put it this way, every other slope for the last 7km with the same characteristics as this one had already avalanched, but this one hadn't. Primed and ready to go was another way to describe it. Option number 2 was suddenly tossed into the arena. Ropes. The look on Pierra's face when she realised that Nick was suggesting that we scale down the gully using ropes was priceless. Climbing down one side and then out the other is one thing, but to do it in ski boots and carrying heavy packs and skis is quite another. Ever hitched a ride with a helicopter? No, neither had I. That turned out to be option number 3. Apparently it pays to know people who know people. Especially when they own a helicopter (A side note - if you ever meet someone who goes by the name of Hannibal, and wears a U.S. military style baseball cap with huge aviator sunglasses, and should he offer you a lift in his helicopter, TAKE IT. I can assure you it will be the craziest ride of your life).

It is difficult to sum up the Black Peak trip. I learnt so much about practical snow safety, something that I really should have done a long time ago, in one of the most beautiful and isolated environments in which I have ever found myself. I also skied some amazing snow. There is nothing like having a whole mountain to yourself (a fresh line every time - perhaps that is every skiers dream?). Spending time isolated in the mountains brings out a new beauty in them, something which you don't see when you are looking up at them from the comfort of bar with a pint in your hand. The snow and the mountain become more than just an expensive playground - spending time at Black Peak is one hell of a way to discover a healthy respect for the mountain environment, one that you will never get from riding up a warm cable car in Val D'Isere. Very quickly it becomes apparent that you are just a spectator, and ultimately any time the mountain wants to have its say it will do exactly that. I guess the trick is to find the safest seats from which to be a spectator.

posted by snow_gibbon @ 5:14 pm