Windy Tops

Tag: mountain running

  • Good LandSAR Publicity

    This morning’s Dominion Post has some fab publicity for New Zealand’s LandSAR organisation, derived from a couple of recent high profile incidents in the Tararua and Rimutaka Ranges in the lower North Island.

    The first article profiles a couple of people who volunteer their time and expertise to work with Police who usually coordinate their types of searches. The second article describes some of the mechanisms and processes of a systematic LandSAR operation in New Zealand, and a summarised history of how it came to be this way.

    Both make worthwhile reading.

    Various other links of relevance: New Zealand Land Search and Rescue, LandSAR Wellington, Police dog Thames found on High Ridge in the Tararuas, and Runner found in the Rimutaka Range.

  • Not my preferred form of agony

    Here’s a quick pointer towards the Tararua Fastest-Known-Times site, which has been spread around social media in the last few days. It caters to a mentality which doesn’t so much appeal to me, but which has a good following. My own preferred form of back-country turture would be one of pushing through leatherwood at 100 metres an hour. 🙂

    There’s at least a loose history of running in the Tararuas, going back at least as far as the likes of Sam “Big Mac” McIntosh, Bill Gibbs and friends in the 1940s, as documented by Chris Maclean’s Tararua history. More recently there are certain people around who have always looking at challenges like running an SK, or a Southern Main Range loop as a day-trip, or otherwise. It’s grown in the range as a sport in the past few years, however, with the influence of local running groups and relatively recent events like the Tararua Mountain Race and the Jumbo Holdsworth Race, as well as a growing community in nearby centres.

    The increased interest naturally comes with new challenges, particularly where safety and skills are concerned, but hopefully the protocols around what’s acceptable in a new activity will become well established over time. And yes, I know there are plenty of people out there who already think carefully about this.

    On the off-chance that you enjoy this type of thing, you might also like Taranaki Speed Records, which documents the speed records for such enlightening achievements as the most times ascending (and descending) Mount Taranaki in a 24 hour period.

  • Feather-weight safety protocols

    As I was writing that previous post about how PLBs aren’t automatically everything that they’re sometimes made out to be, an incident was unfolding in the Tararua Range where a PLB would probably have been really really useful. Fortunately things worked out well, with a high portion of luck, as reported by TVNZ (including a video), via Stuff, and the NZ Herald. Wellington LandSAR, one of several LandSAR groups to be called in to help, also put out a press release.

    In short, a mountain runner entered the range at Holdsworth Lodge on Saturday with the reported intent of running around the Holdsworth/Jumbo circuit. He didn’t, instead changing his mind to run up the Baldy Track to South King, and presumably then around the Broken Axe Pinnacles, back past McGregor and Angle Knob, and back to the original circuit. This is a significantly longer and more remote route by comparison, on which he’d have been likely to meet fewer (if any) people depending on the conditions. If you want to check this all on a map, start about here and then scroll around.

    As it happened, he became completely disoriented on South King. When standing on a high point with cloud in all directions, he probably thought he’d turned around to go back the way from which he’d come. Instead, however, he was following the complete opposite direction into Dorset Creek on the other side, and into an even more remote part of the range. He sheltered for Saturday night under an improvised rock bivy, somehow then made his way along Dorset Creek into the Waiohine River, breaking a toe in the process and “having a particularly nasty experience in the river where he went under”. Upon noticing an orange track marker he eventually found Mid-Waiohine Hut some time after 2pm on Sunday after much hunting around in heavy rain, at which point he was finally able to determine where he was.

    He left a note for possible searchers, started a fire and ate half a jar of peanut butter that had been fortuitously left behind by someone. By now it was Monday and the first helicopter had finally been able to fly in, having previously been restricted by weather. The note was discovered, and soon after the man was spotted and collected, climbing up the track towards Isabelle and back to Mt Holdsworth. Meanwhile, multiple teams of searchers had started by scouring other parts of the range, based on information that he’d intended to run the Holdsworth/Jumbo circuit. With his decision to deviate from the route, it’s no wonder that the man wasn’t found on Sunday.
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