why carry an ice axe when local rocks do the job?
Original post
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/82402551/tourists-call-for-help-from-icy-tongariro-alpine-crossing
I did think about putting this in gear talk
We have all said it before, no point in saying it again. There will be someone for the Darwin Awards soon.
on tongariro its usually the weather that gets them. ngauruhoe taking a slide on snow or ice has been fatal on occasion.
you normally start out on the crossing at 1300m at the road end and go up from there. if you're inadequately clothed or equipped then things start going downhill right from the start and accelerate the higher you get
Have to give the single guy a little respect. He realized he ha a problem and came up with a way round it instead of sliding into the crater like the other 2. Still he was grossly inderprepared
no i wouldnt give him any respect, he chose a steep descent on a south facing slope , theres a far easier descent going back down on the northern side of tongariro where there's less likely to be as much ice...
but like a lot of people going up there he may not have had a map and known what his options were because he didnt plan very much if at all..
Compare to so many people up there that are like "Oh no a snowflake lets call for a rescue"
After he messed up at least he tried. Doomed to fail but he did try
yes, points there, but it could still have ended badly having to cut steps with rocks and no ice axe for self arresting
From the limited descriptions I've read, it seems that if rescuers hadn't been passing by on other business and noticed him, we mightn't ever have heard anything about his story unless he had an accident.
It's probably not the smartest thing to be doing, but it's not as if there aren't plenty of people out there who've done some radically un-smart things, gotten away with it and never made the news. Some people here have some fairly dodgy stories from earlier days. Sometimes that's how people develop an appreciation for risk assessment and learn stuff and sometimes not, but without knowing much more about the person it's difficult to judge.
most of my mistakes were made in the days when there was minimal information available on the routes i was taking,
today is vastly better for the information you can get on the internet about routes. thers more information available about the tongariro crossing than just about any other major walk in NZ. and yet theres endless stories about people who are way out of their depth on the crossing , and even then they don't know when to turn back.
just google the place you're going to and you'll see relevant news articles if there are a lot of issues with the place. and you can plan for eventualities accordingly... thats what i've done in recent years and its saved me from some potentially nasty situations and led to far better trips than i might have had otherwise because i didnt know anyone personally would could give me that quality of information about locations like this..
Search the forums
| Forum | The campfire |
|---|---|
| Started by | geeves |
| On | 22 July 2016 |
| Replies | 26 |
| Permanent link | |
Participation in the forums signifies acceptance of forum rules.
In order to manage spam, new members are limited to 1 post every 10 minutes.
Formatting your posts
The forums support MarkDown syntax. Following is a quick reference.
| Type this... | To get this... | |
|---|---|---|
| Italic | *Italic text* | *Italic text* |
| Bold | **Bold text** | **Bold text** |
| Quoted text | > Quoted text | > Quoted text |
| Emojis | :smile: :+1: :astonished: :heart: | :smile: :+1: :astonished: :heart: |
| Lists |
- item 1 - item 2 - item 3 |
- item 1 - item 2 - item 3 |
| Links | https://tramper.nz | https://tramper.nz |
| Images |  URL/of/image |
 |
| Mentions | @username | @username |