Stories of the mountains… life imagined as memoir…
Of mountains and luck: how I got into outdoor guiding
Sometimes, coincidence and chance bring good fortune. Often, it is a matter of being in the right place at the right time with the right people and taking a chance opportunity offered.
THERE was a lake. There was a ridge. There was the map. There was us. The lake was where we were to navigate to. The ridge was in the way.
“Use your map and compass and plot a route from here to the lake”, the instructor said.
The trainees consulted their maps. Then they looked up at the ridge. It was steep and high and covered in what looked like low scrub, the type you get tangled in.
We were in the uplands of the Great Dividing Range inland of the NSW South Coast. I hadn’t been into this country before, so it was good that the instructor of the TAFE outdoor guiding course chose this region for the weekend bushwalk as part of the training necessary for the course. The idea was that over two days trainees would acquire or improve existing skills used on overnight excursions into the wild country — reading the landscape, route selection, the use of bushwalking equipment, safety in the mountains, setting up camp, making a small campfire, preparation of a simple meal, dealing with whatever the weather brought and, importantly, navigation with map and compass.
Most of those on the course had only a limited experience of bushwalking. A few, like me, had more. The instructor, a woman somewhere in her mid-to-late thirties and a person of a pleasant disposition, had walked with a bushwalking club for decades. That showed, or it did to me anyway, because I find there is some indefinable characteristics that denote such people. Okay, I’m making a sweeping generalisation here, but all the same there is something in their manner, the way they demonstrate a familiarity with the bush even though a particular area might be new to them, and also in the similarity of the equipment they carry.
Equipment. There is a pervasive belief among novice bushwalkers that it is the equipment they carry which will make them bushwalkers. The instructor had tried to dispell this belief, emphasising that skills based on knowledge is what will make you a bushwalker. That, skills acquisition, was the purpose of this weekend in the highlands.
The ridge
That ridge. I’ve said that it was steep, high and looked as though it was clad in that low, wiry shrubbery that can be so trying to force your way through. I watched as the trainees oriented their maps to the north so that map and terrain were in alignment. Some took a compass bearing to the destination lake where we were to camp that night. But… there was that ridge. And it was between us and the lake.
It was clear that those newer to travel in the wild country were a bit uncertain as to how to cross the ridge. The instructor asked for ideas from those less familiar with traversing rugged country, then she asked me how I would do it.
“Well”, I responded, “ …I’d avoid trying to ascend up the gullies because that’s where the scrub is going to be thicker. So I’d climb that ascending ridge because any scrub there is going to be lower and less dense. It might still be tough going but not as tangled as in the gully. Then turn east on reaching the main ridgeline and sidle along until we encounter this descending ridge” — here I held up my map pointing to a ridge that would allow us to descend close to our destination lake — “…then descend. Then move on a compass bearing towards the lake”.
Sometimes, you assume that vegetation will allow easy passage but you soon find that appearance is deceptive. I had that in mind as I described the course. I knew that the low scrubby vegetation on climbing ridges might be less dense than that in the gullies but could still be hard going.
The instructor agreed with my suggested route and we set off up the ridge. The low scrub was thankfully less dense than it looked from below. The summit ridge was narrow but not so narrow as to require extra care to avoid a fall. And although there was no track — there was no sign of people having come this way — we made our way without difficulty. The descending ridge was largely open and scrub-free.
The shore of the lake was our campsite that night. It was a shallow lake of moderate size, nothing grand, but an ideal place to camp. We set up tents, gathered wood, lit a small fire, cooked a simple meal and relaxed. The weather had been fine all day and it continued that way as night fell. It had been one of those good days you have in the mountains, days of fine, calm weather spent in good company.
I was standing near the lake when the instructor came up.
“I liked your route finding… across the ridge and get us here… map and compass,” she said. “Would you be interested in assisting on future training weekends for the course?”.
I thought plotting a route across the ridge to the lake a straightforward task unworthy of comment. Anyway, I said “yes” to her question. And that was how a map led to me becoming an assistant instructor in the outdoor guiding course.
A year passes…
My next journey with theAdvanced Certificate in Outdoor Guiding class was into the Wild Dog Mountains. They are a remote part of the Blue Mountains National Park, the extensive upland region to the west of Sydney. A vast sandstone plateau dissected by deep, river-cut ravines and valleys, the Blue Mountains has been a destination favoured by generations of bushwalkers as far back as the early Twentieth Century.
The mountains are forest-clad—warm temperate rainforest in the sheltered ravines, open eucalyptus forest on the higher reaches. Closer to the towns maintained tracks take visitors into the valleys where cold waterfalls spill over orange sandstone cliffs and creeks gurgle their way downwards. Away from the popular routes, rough trails made over the years by the passage of bushwalkers take the more adventurous into the rugged, wilder country.
We descend into the forest and head into the trackless country. Trackless country isn’t always that. Here and there you find the faint pads trampled by parties who venture into these places, but in other places there are none. So it is for us this weekend as we make our way up the steep slope and through the forest to the higher slopes above. It is another couple days in the wild country, a chance to use skills learned on earlier walks and in the classroom in the city, a change to socialise and share what we know.
Another time, another journey…
It is close to a year after that trek into the mountains inland of the NSW South Coast as we set out for another weekend in the Blue Mountains.
This is not to be an arduous walk as we head down, down through the forest to the river below where we will make camp. As usual, there is Todd, a tall, muscular guy, quietly spoken, friendly and competent who comes across as a reliable sort of person to have on a bushwalk, an activity he has some experience in. There is Anne whom Neville, another student, asked out only for her to inform him that she is gay. I can imagine how disappointed he must have been. Sarah is a middle aged woman who lives in Sydney’s Western Suburbs and who exudes the vibe of someone who has experienced much of life. Kim is a woman in her thirties, curly blonde hair cascading to her shoulders who works for the national broadcaster. Jenny is a slim and attractive New Zealand woman in her twenties who wears her long, black hair hanging loose below her shoulders. Later, she takes up with this English guy in the class, an eccentric character who after a few drinks becomes loud and ribald. They relationship doesn’t last long. There are others but they don’t stand out in memory.
We follow the track downwards. It is steep but not all that steep, the going easy as we follow the track. Finally, we reach the river. Time for a break. We drop packs and sit by the water.
What is happening with Kim? She is bent over as if in pain. That is because she is. A couple of us join the instructor who is talking with her. Jenny, the instructor, tells us that Kim is suffering from a severe migraine. She has taken her medication but it seems not to be having much of an effect.
It is clear that she cannot go on. The other guy and I say we will walk her out, back up through the forest. She knows people who live close by who would put her up for the night. We distribute the weight of her pack between us. She keeps her lighter things in her pack. Jenny cannot not walk Kim out as she has to stay with the group. It is for situations like this that the walks have an assistant instructor. As is the practice when evacuating a casualty, two of us accompany Kim out. If the condition of the casualty deteriorates, one stays with them while the other goes for help. Slowly, we make our way up the track. It is late afternoon when we reach the top. We planned to leave Kim with her friends and walk back down to the camp, however her friends in town put us up for the night too. We go back in the morning.
This is the only situation like this that occurs during our class hikes. What it shows is how we, to quote the cliche, should expect the unexpected. Being prepared through training to deal with such situations should be a part of any course for bush guides. If there is one criticism I could make of the course it is that there was not enough training in what to do when things go wrong.
I do not know why people enrolled in the outdoor guiding course. It was not a hard course for anyone who had some experience of rough travel in the outdoors, and over its three year duration I saw people more or less new to the bush acquire new skills. A vocationally-oriented course, it was useful to the parttime ranger/bush guide role I soon took up with the national parks service.
Some of my memories of the places we went have become sketchy over the years, but not so the people who I accompanied there. I don’t know what they did with the course when it ended but they are still there for me, in the valleys and peaks of my mind.
More PacificEdge…
