Beacons and Bollocks

Mike over at Windy Hilltops has been recently talking a bit about the excessive selling the media has been doing lately of "Always carry a beacon".

Now, while I agree that if you can access one, they are a good thing to take with you on any trip, I am getting a bit tired of this new "tradition" that has appeared of publically berating people for not having one when 12 months ago they would have been credited with doing everything correct. Not everyone can afford to buy one, not everyone really needs one, and they are not always available for hire.

For example, we have this article in the Dominion Post:

Three Lower Hutt women missing in the Tararua Ranges have been found after spending two extra nights in the bush.

The Palmerston North Rescue helicopter located the 55 year-old woman and her two daughters aged 18 and 21 at 10am at the Island Forks bivouac.

They were airlifted back to Levin where the 18 year-old received medical treatment for a minor knee injury. The women were due back from an overnight tramp to the Waitewaewae Basin on Sunday, but took shelter at the bivouac after the daughter hurt her knee.

The injury and the high level of the river stopped the group from completing the tramp. Search Coordinator Constable Kevin Dalzell said police were notified by the woman's husband late Sunday evening when they did not arrive home.

"While the group had good clothing, shelter, a cellphone, and food, they did not have a personal locator beacon or a mountain radio which are crucial to take when you're out in the bush. There was no cellphone reception where the group was located and they would have had to climb some distance to get reception."

The older woman is an experienced tramper while her two daughters have limited tramping experience, he said. "It was a good call by the women to stay on the track under shelter until they were located."

The search covered a large area from the Waitohu Valley Road, through to Mount Thompson and the West Waitewaewae River, down to the Waitewaewae Hut and back up to High Point Mick.

(Bold emphasis mine)


I'm sorry, but calling a PLB "essential" in situations like this is a bit ludicrous. The women had found shelter, and appear to have been waiting out a drop in river levels before probably attempting to get themselves out. They had left what appears to be substantial information with someone who raised the alarm. The injury was "minor", and it does not sound like it had become a life-or-death situation yet, although they might have started running out of food. (In fact, a later article suggests just that).

In fact, in this situation, the "experienced" tramper (the Mum), was a former Search & Rescue member (according to articles). If she went out for a weekend with no beacon, but was still confident she would be found when something went wrong, then she seems to have done a lot right.

I have seen many situations recently where, yes, carrying and setting off a beacon was a good thing. And similarly situations where the person involved should have carried a beacon or similar - although in that case, the runner did a lot else wrong, like going a different route to intended, keeping going when lost, and taking no other emergency equipment. In fact, he was lucky to find a hut, which gave him knowledge of where he was again so he could get out.

Mark and I sat down and discussed the situation these women found themselves in and we agreed, if we had been in this situation and WERE carrying a beacon, we still most likely would not have set it off until it became VERY obvious we couldn't get ourselves out and / or we were completely out of food. But then I guess I wouldn't particularly be expecting SaR to be out the morning after I became overdue, especially if it was known I would be across a river that might have flooded in the rain we have had - so you then have the debate of "If SaR are likely to be looking for you, do you set the beacon you have off to tell them where you are, or do you opt to NOT set it off in the hopes they realise its not that urgent?"

For anyone who has read any of my back-stories, you'll recall a tramp we did where a beacon was set off for what was probably a similar injury to the one in this story (funnily, in the same river catchment, just much closer to the road). In re-hashing that trip and the situation, Mark and I concluded that if we were now leading it, we would probably not set off the beacon - something that was only done because it was the old 121.5 beacon, whose batteries were 10 years out of date, and the frequency was not being monitored soon, so may as well try - instead relying on the two people we had sent out to the road end to "raise the alarm" and let SaR then decide how they wanted to evacuate our punter - whether they thought they could walk her out, since we were only a couple of hours in from the road end, or if they would send in a helicopter anyway.

Yes, that would have meant a couple of hours extra waiting for the helicopter to arrive, or possibly 4 or more hours for a walk-in party. But (like the three ladies rescued this week), we were not in a life-or-death situation. Unlike the ladies, we had enough members of our party to spare two to walk out together and we didn't have a high river to cross. We had emergency shelter, and it was only soon after lunch on Saturday, so we still had the better part of two days food. We also knew that at least 6 other tramping club members would be coming through our location the next day - these are all things that a PLB cannot transmit to SaR.

With a modern beacon in hand, in the same situation, with the same kind of party, I would not activate it. Simply for the fact I believe that, other than life-or-death situations (where a beacon still might not get you a chopper fast enough) beacons should be used in situations where you cannot rescue yourself, and / or cannot walk out to get help in a reasonable amount of time.

Glam Tramping

02 - 04 November 2012

Queen Charlotte Track (Ship Cove - Endeavour Inlet)

Team: Mark, Me

Yes, this is the first post I have written here in a -VERY- long time and I am sorry! To be brutally honest, I've only done two tramps since January, what with going to Europe for six weeks and then coming home pregnant.

I decided I wanted to do something a little different for our 2nd wedding anniversary, and given the hellish time we had been having in the preceeding weeks, Mark took very little convincing, since it was something I was (for once) enthusiastic about.

Roll on Friday night and a ferry sailing for the first time since January. It was reasonably calm and quite quiet. The only bad thing was I went to get dinner too early and wound up with less options, but at least I found something to eat! The ferry ran a little late, and by the time we had collected our bags and walked to the Mercure (oddly actually about the cheapest place in town that offered private rooms), their front door was locked as reception was closed. Thankfully the staff hadn't left yet, so they let us in and got us checked in.



Saturday morning, and unusually for a tramping trip, we dressed in "normal" clothes so we could head down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. It was ok, but we were both left wishing there was something more akin to a McDonalds in town to get a second breakfast at. We headed back up to our room to get changed and finish packing before checking out and walking the two minutes to our water taxi.

A bit over an hour later, after a water taxi ride that more accurately impersonated an extended rollercoaster, we are delivered to Ship Cove in damp, breezy conditions. Leaving our overnight gear on the boat to be delivered to the nights accommodation seems almost sinful, but so good at the same time. We figure there is no point in rushing out of Ship Cove, so take our time using the toilets and making sure my pack is well adjusted before starting the grunt up the hill.



Once we got to the top of that first climb (Lookout Point), things got markedly easier. Apart from moving very slowly down some wet clay-based steep bits, we made really good time all the way to Tawa Saddle, including having stopped for lunch. We were in and out of raincoats all day till Tawa Saddle when it started really raining, and turned southerly with a vengeance.



Cnoc Na Lear guesthouse was further along Endeavour Inlet than we had expected, and so getting to it seemed to take a *really* long time, especially since I had started to get sore / tired hips coming down from the saddle. But we made it, our hosts were wonderfully welcoming and the room was immaculately presented. I threw myself straight in a nice warm shower before getting dressed again and lying down on the bed for a nap. We had opted to have dinner provided, and it was lovely - both the food, and because it meant we didn't have to cook (but there were 4 hotplates, a toaster, jug and microwave in the room, so you could cook if you wanted). The owners cat came to visit several times, and earned the nickname "unimpressed cat" when we put it back outside, as it sat there staring at us for a while.

After an evening wander down to the wharf, we had an early night. It was amazing how dark it was. I guess thats what happens when there are no street lights. I know its something I'm used to from tramping, but it was so surreal to experience when staying in a hotel-like setting!



In the morning, we had a relaxed breakfast, paid our hosts, packed up and went for a cruisy wander around to Furneaux Lodge for a drink before our scheduled pick-up. We had planned originally to walk around to Punga Cove, but the afternoon pick-up risked us missing our ferry home, so we settled for a morning pick-up instead, deciding to see if we could get on an earlier ferry.

 

The walk was just what I needed to ease the muscles from the day before, and it was lovely walking in the sunshine with close to no breeze. Sitting on the deck of the restaurant at Furneaux with a nice glass of OJ was a treat too. Once back at the guest house, we changed back into town clothes, and our wonderful host put our packs on his 4x4 to take down to the wharf for us. Our water taxi was a little late, but at least conditions were smooth this time!



We made it to Picton with just enough time to ring the Bluebridge and ask whether we were likely to be able to get on to their earlier ferry. Thankfully we could, and even better, the shuttle over to it was due to arrive at the water taxi berth within about 5 minutes. Just on an hour later, we were on the ferry, heading home (and I have vowed to do everything I can to avoid the Santa Regina in the future. The vibrations, for over 3 hours! I wound up having to put my head on Marks knee and sleep to fend of the migraine-strength headache that was trying to arrive).

So, final thoughts on "glam tramping"? I love it. Seriously. And I think Mark quite enjoyed carrying a lot less stuff than normal too. Now to find some money and persuade him that the Milford Track as a guided walk IS a good idea. I'm working on that one for about our 5th wedding anniversary, when perhaps our new adventurer is old enough to stay with its grandparents for a week.

There and back again to see how long we can take

21-22 January 2012


Field Hut, Otaki Forks road end, Tararua Forest Park

Team: Me, Clinton (co-lead), Mark, Jo, Anita, Maarten, Maren, Debbie, Shannon

Originally scheduled to be a 3-day weekend Southern Crossing trip, things went a little differently, which wasn't overly surprising given that it was my first attempt at a Southern Crossing, and it took about 6 attempts to get the Jumbo-Holdsworth completed after similarly many years of wanting to!

We left Wellington early on a Saturday, to an interesting weather report, and one punter down at short notice. We spent a while trying to repack Clintons gear at the road end, to see if he could leave any behind, failed and started walking. It was hot and muggy and we knew we had a solid slog up the hill ahead of us to get to our target for the night - Kime Hut.



Jo and I quickly fell to the back, finding both the climb and the heat strenuous. After a while, we gave most of the others their head and I left Clinton in charge of them while Mark, Jo and I wandered up at our own pace to meet them at Field Hut.


Recognising my weakness, and unwilling to drag the rest of the party down, I decided to tell the others that I was not continuing on the crossing, and would instead return to Otaki Forks the next day before collecting them on Monday afternoon at the Kaitoke end. Given Marks lack of excitement over the trip, I assumed he would want to join me (which he did), and after a good discussion sitting around at Field Hut in the sunshine, Anita and Jo also decided to stay.

 

We shuffled some gear around to ensure those heading off had essentials such as first aid kits, cooking gear and food, plus the locator beacon and then saw them off. Thank goodness for a group that included no-one new to tramping, because Clinton realised about 35 minutes further along that he couldn't make it either, and so 5 of us stayed at Field Hut that Saturday night.



There is nothing quite like chilling out in the sunshine at a tramping hut. The peace, the excuse to do absolutely nothing, its all fantastic. We shared the hut with about 6 others, which meant that there was enough body warmth to not need to light the fire. Dinner was great, we threw everything we had into it to avoid carrying it out, and gave the leftovers to one of the blokes in the other party.



Sunday morning we woke wrapped in misty fog, with the wind gusts throwing occasional shots of rain at the hut. A great morning for a long sleep-in. Up late by club standards (we ate breakfast about 8.30am), we dallied in the hut until lunchtime so that we could be back at the road end as close to 5.30pm as possible for our pick up.

 

The walk back down was hard in its own way - the bottom half of it a lot like coming down from Powell Hut, smooth and reasonably steep, it seemed easier to run, which we didn't want to do. We all got down in good time, and with about an hour to spare before Pete was due to return to collect us, so we turned left before the bridge and went in to Parawai Lodge, so we could have a brew and sit down to a couple of games of cards while we waited.

As soon as we got there, it poured with rain. Seriously bucketed down. It had started trying to rain on our last bit of the walk (we had studiously ignored it, heads down, follow the track, get to shelter), but wow, that was some epic rain!

 

Pete was waiting at the carpark when we wandered out at 5.30pm, and we were all home in good time. On Monday I took the van back out to Kaitoke to collect the others, who had made it all the way across without any issues, and who had seen snow at Alpha hut that morning.

Covert Ops Black Tie Lunch at the Waihohonu Hilton

Waihohonu Hut Daywalk, Desert Road.
Lodge weekend, 01 October 2011

Team: Myself, Mark, Colin, Nathaniel


Friday night, 5.30pm, Wellington Railway Station. Perfect. We have infiltrated a party of climbers heading for “The Lodge”. This lodge will be a perfect base for our weekend operation. We hope this lodge will prove as comfortable as it sounds, even if it traffic reports indicate we might be in for a long drive.

Friday night, 6.30pm, Upper Hutt. A detour to pick up another member of the climbing party. The interlopers still haven’t been roused out of the van, it appears there may be space enough that they continue not to notice us.

Friday Night, 8pm, Levin. The climbers have all disappeared into a den of iniquity calling itself “Noodle Canteen”. To continue avoiding notice we split in half and head for alternative eating establishments, ensuring we are back ahead of the climbers so we don’t get left behind.

Saturday, 7am. After a short nights sleep due to a late arrival, some generous soul is cooking breakfast already. We quickly demolish some food, do a spot of cleaning up and inch our way down the crusty ice to the van, where the climbers are waiting for us to drop them off. It appears we have been noticed.

Saturday, 10am. After a successful mutiny against the climbers in Whakapapa Village, we gained control of the van in a bloodless coup and have arrived at a carpark in the middle of nowhere, somewhere alongside the “Desert Road”. We have been reliably informed that our mission will see us walking in to a “Waihohonu Hut”, and that it should not be a long time before our destination is in sight.



Saturday, 11.30am. We appear to be lost. Colin has visited several “huts” in the past, and is adamant that this is not a “hut” and that the spacious lodge with running hot water we have instead found is the mysterious Waihohonu Hilton. With this in mind, we change clothes to something more suited to the location and settle in to demolish our lunch as if we are just here minding our own business.



Saturday, 1.30pm. We are starting to doubt our directions. We have consumed two courses of food and seen only a pair of Australian trampers. Perhaps our quarry is at the historic hut? We know we are running out of time, as we should be leaving the hut already if we are to make rendezvous with C at M, but we decide that since we are here, we should continue and make a thorough investigation, to ensure we have not stopped a hut too early.



Saturday, 1.45pm. There is no one at the historic hut either. We are perplexed. So we capture our smallest member and string him up instead, just to prove that we have achieved something with our day. To ease his feelings and our confusion, we return to the new hut for a spot of dessert, deciding we can now run late for our rendezvous as we were given spurious information in the first place.





Saturday, 2.30pm. After taking our time to ensure that the change to daylight savings the other weekend was not the cause of our mission failure, we change back out of our dress clothes and leave the Hilton as swiftly as we arrived. The trip back makes us aware of the fact that there is actually a height above MSL difference between the carpark and the Hilton – are we sure we are going the right way? We don’t remember feeling like we were climbing to get there, but we are definitely dropping now.

Saturday, 4pm. The van is in sight again. Luckily the climbers didn’t manage to trace us here and claim it back. We roar (gently) off onto the Desert Road again, back around the mountain to the Mangatepopo Carpark, where our next rendezvous point is.

Saturday, 5pm. There are more people at the rendezvous than there should have been. This makes us a little worried, but we collect them all anyway as they all appear to fit, before dumping one out at the next junction as we return to the lodge too late for a beer at the pub, and after Happy Hour has finished. Thankfully dinner appears to be not far away – not that us interlopers need any after a relaxing three hours having lunch on a mission that was only successful in that it caused no further injury to Colin and included tasty food.

Sunday, 10am. The climbers have invited us to join them at the Tokaanu Hot Pools. We gratefully accept, as it’s a perfect excuse to escape the boarders vs skiers debate that appears to be ongoing at the “lodge”.

Sunday, 12.30pm, Waiouru. The debate has found us again. Save us all. We escape as quickly as is politely possible and continue the drive back to Wellington.

Hot Days Peddling

Rimutaka Incline Rail Trail, Hutt Valley

February 6, 2010

Mark and I

Mark and I had decided it was time for a new form of adventure, so we bought a mountain bike for me so we could go for bike rides together. Our first trip out was the Rimutaka Incline, just beyond Upper Hutt. Since we only had our car, we decided we would cycle in from the Upper Hutt end, have lunch at Summit Station and ride back.

It was a gloriously hot and sunny Saturday, as is fairly common for Waitangi Day in Wellington (2011 proved the exception to the rule), when we packed up the car with our two bikes, lunch and water and headed off. The carpark was already busy when we got there at 10am, but we snagged a spot in the shade, got ourselves sorted out and headed off.

The track was a bit deceiving – it appeared to be almost completely flat but wasn’t. So I was riding with my bike in quite a heavy gear because anything less felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. Needless to say, I got most of the way to the end and was exhausted. I also was wearing my usual running shorts which had no extra padding, and wound up with an exceedingly sore bum – so I walked a lot of the last 1/2km.




The track is well formed and easy riding the whole way up to Summit. It was more than wide enough to ride two abreast most of the way, and still allow space for someone coming down the hill to go past. The biggest issue we found was getting our bikes around the barriers – considering its sold as a good walking track as well, you wouldn’t want to be taking a kid in a pushchair through there without help to get them over these!



Once at the top we dropped our bikes and ourselves in a nice spot of shade and thoroughly enjoyed the miniscule wisps of breeze that deigned to come through to cool us off. Apparently it’s an exceedingly rare occurance for it to be that still at the Summit. After a simple lunch of sandwiches and fruit, it was back on the bike – using my towel as extra cushioning on the bike seat so I could handle sitting! It was on the way downhill that I finally realised just how much of a climb I had completed on the way up, as I flew down the hill (a LOT of fun) at a pace that was also comfortable, not requiring extending pulls on the brakes as the incline was solid but not steep.



We didn’t stop much on the way down the hill, except to play with a long exposure photo in one of the tunnels. We did decide that at some stage in the future we really needed to come back and do the entire crossing, since I had been too sore to even walk down the Wairarapa side to the long tunnel and steep section.



Arriving back at the car we saw that oops, the shade we had parked in had vanished, the car was drenched in sunshine and about 40degrees inside.

So, final thoughts? All in all a good wee track. Definitely on the must do again at earliest possible convenience list.

A walk down memory lane

February 2004 with OUTC

Alabaster Hut, Hollyford Track, Fiordland National Park

Its been so long since I did this trip, that I completely forgot it when I was writing my hut book / trip list until I found a photo of Hidden Falls Hut on my Flickr stream.

Perhaps that’s not a bad thing, as now that I remember it, I wish I didn’t.

I’ve actually done this trip twice (and there is a good chance that some of my memories of the trip are compilations of the two), both times in late February / early March with the Otago University Tramping Club. Apart from a massive mission to the Abel Tasman Coastal Track and a couple of Bushballs, its about the only tramping I did with the club (that I can remember at least) as I was constantly either too financially poor or too time poor to get out much.

2002 was my first club trip, and I was a punter. I remember two bus loads of students stopping in Gore for dinner on Friday night, harassing the bogans, lots of rain, a seriously over-full hut with a leaking roof, sleeping on a spare mattress on the floor, and sleeping on the bus on the way home.

In 200, I was living in Te Anau, and got roped in with Jo F to lead Alabaster Hut again. Not having to spend all night on the bus, and avoiding stops in Gore were big plusses to doing this trip again. I started packing at about the time the rest were leaving dinner in Gore, and was ready and waiting in my room when the text came through at about 10.30pm that they were nearly there.

The Hollyford Road end has nothing to commend it as a sleeping location except a long drop. When you have a party of about 12 people, the tiny patch of grass that was there was woefully inadequate to fit everyone, so we pitched a fly off either side of the van, my groundsheet was commandeered by a couple of American exchange students (not best pleased), and we all settled down to an uncomfortable night not really sleeping on the sloped gravel of the carpark.

Distributing the group food in the morning proved difficult, as two members of the party had bought what could only be described as school bags, and by the time they had packed their sleeping bag, warm jersey and bottle of wine into it, they claimed they had no space for group gear or food. A thought was had of leaving them behind for the weekend with their food, but we decided it wasn’t that bad a track and the rest of us could just hack it.

The weather was iffy all day, interspurced with bouts of heavy rain, and the girls were soon complaining. We stopped for lunch at Hidden Falls Hut, which was seriously infested by sandflies (outside was worse), before motoring on. Some sections of track here seemed to take forever, and I was very glad to see the guided walk companies Pyke Lodge, which meant we only had about 20 minutes to go.



The weather wasn’t nice enough to swim in the lake, so we all just chilled with a drink and our books before we had dinner. On one of the trips (it may have been this one), I got really awful chafing from wet shorts, and spent the evening trying desperately not to itch it, wearing my long johns inside out so something was resting on it, but not moving. I wound up wearing boxer shorts to walk out the next day!





Track maintenance was underway while we were there, and one of the things they had been doing was gravelling the track. But not with little gravel. The stuff they were using was an awful middle size, everyone had wicked blisters from their boots, as really you would have been better off wearing sneakers. These blisters led us to take a longer than anticipated lunch stop in the sunshine at Hidden Falls Hut.



Eventually my blisters got so bad I could barely walk any more. We started running exceedingly late. A splinter group was sent on to the road end to tell them we were definitely coming and would be there soon, but by the time they got there (20 minutes after we thought our pickup time was, so within waiting limits), the van was already gone. Turns out that there had been a mixup as to whether the pickup was 3pm Daylight time, or 3pm Standard time (as daylight saving ended on Sunday morning) and the van had waited an hour for us before leaving. Thankfully Roy dumped his load of people on the bus and came back to save us.

Our last bit of entertainment for the weekend was also a feeling of relief – the bus broke down about 30 minutes out of Te Anau, so we were exceedingly glad not to be on it! After taking my van load to my local fish n chip shop (rather than going into town, they all wanted to eat quickly then get going), they dropped me home and it was the end of my weekend. I threw the boots out when I got home after realising that the reason they had given me such awful blisters was the damage I had done to them the previous September, leaving them too close to the fire on the Abel Tasman track! (they had given me nasty blisters the last day of that tramp too)


(You'll need to click through to see this at a decent resolution...)

Skiing, or attempting to anyway

Back in high school, I did PE as an optional subject, and one of our big assessments was a ski week in 6th form. It was about the only assessment I failed in two years.

We were at Temple Basin – in mid October. There was no snow on the learners slopes, and actually almost no snow on the entire field. After a day of doing nothing in the lodge there, we got some snow, and spent the rest of the week around the far end of the skifield in Downhill Basin.

The lessons were rudimentary. So rudimentary I don’t remember anything from them apart from using our poles to turn our skis from side on to the slope to facing down the slope. I remember fear, the knowledge that the runout at the bottom of the slope we were learning on was a fairly substantial bluff. Mainly I remember giving up after the one short lesson we were granted and spending most of the week hiding in the shed at the bottom of the hill, going out into the snow only when I had to.

By the end of the week the only thing I had achieved was more fear of skiing and a sense of utter failure. I was presented with an award from the group of “person most likely to never set foot on skis again”, and the tag really stuck.

It was easy to avoid skiing while at uni and immediately after. I very rarely was offered the opportunity, and could plead poverty when I was. Not many of my friends skied anyway.

Then I met Mark. Who had been skiing and loving it for a couple of years (on the plus side, at least it was only a couple, and not forever and a day), and wanted me to go with him to the mountain when he went away for weekends.

Our first year dating (2008), Mark paid for me to have a snowboarding lesson for my birthday. I was still adamant that I wasn’t going to ski, but I figured I could give snowboarding a go, so I didn’t have to sit at home alone for multiple weekends each winter.

Snowboarding was hard. After my two hour lesson and about another 20 minutes playing around, I needed a break, so went to the café. After that, I found it was just too hard to get going again. That night at the backpackers I was absolutely exhausted. I could hardly move, and was immensely glad I had a bottom bunk. I spent my Sunday miserable at the café at Turoa while Mark skied.

In 2009, I spent only one weekend up the mountain, and the weather was awful, so not much was open and no-one was really skiing anyway. In 2010, neither of us made it to the mountain, between starting new jobs and planning a wedding, we didn’t have the time or money to go.

This year, I had no more excuses, especially when the only weekend we had planned for the season was an absolute stunner. Staying in the lodge had bored me to tears (literally) on Saturday, and so I caved in to pressure on Sunday and went down to Happy Valley for a ski lesson.

I admit, I had a much better time than I anticipated, considering I had been nearly shitting myself with anxiety while waiting for the class to start. Our instructor was patient, well spoken and funny. We were corrected without being laughed at, cheered when we did things right and generally encouraged to keep trying even when we found things tough.

By the end of class, my big achievement was that I could stop myself, at least occasionally. It’s a skill that I barely managed to hold on to over my half hour lunch break with Mark. After that I decided I was sore, tired and to be honest a bit emotional at the fact of having faced my fear, and I didn’t feel the need to prove myself any more for the day. So we took my skis back to the hire shop and went up to Knoll Ridge on my sightseeing pass together.

I found that I was definitely less sore after skiing than I had been after snowboarding. I’m sure that the work I have done with various personal trainers over the last three years to increase my core strength, balance and fatigue point have all contributed to this. My sore bits were the fronts of my shins from the boots and my calf muscles.

Will I ski again? Probably. I suspect you will find me in a beginners lesson again next winter, and the winter after that until I get to the point of being able to turn and can move up a step. Its going to take a long time to be confident enough to get out of the learners area, but I’m ok with that.