Tough Bits on tracks / brown trouser time?

[Liamy77]

Hey out there... ever been on a great walk then got to a hairy bit?
Did you get past it or what?
I'll start it off with a mild one...
Mt Anne in winter... nice EARLY drive and cold clear day.. walk up the hill was nice n warming though... still think it's a shame they lost the loo-view but it's still one of my favourite overnight summit walks, but thought we'd push on to the top.. "push on to the top" became my mental mantra if you like...Push on to the top... Bit of snow overnight... push on to the top... Step over that rock... push on to the top .. -well up to the "cliff top walk" right before the summit... just as a huge sheet of snow that had been warmin in the afternoon sun decided to shear off down the drop.... decided we'd do it in the morning instead with the rope. (still clear the next mornin?! made it fine and had a great time)
Just glad we didnt walk that little bit quicker that day...
I didnt think a lot of Climbing Precipitous bluff on a windy day either come to think of it ( from the water side going towards pindars eventually)...


How about you? ever thought ya outta have packed an extra pair of shorts?
( some might think these tame examples but i dont like heights much)

[Macca81]

I have not done it yet myself, but i am happy to get in first with a photo...


Federation Peak, and 600m straight down is Lake Geeves

[Azza]

We weren't on a track but I almost got mashed by a decent sized boulder on the weekend on a little trip we did out to Mt Helder.
We reckon it could have been pushing towards the 100kg mark. it was precariously positioned on a ledge and unfortuately a slight tug managed to bring
it loose unfortunately with 3 guys standing below it.. just one of those things.
Luckily one of us was able to hold it long enough for one of us to get out of the way and myself and another guy to move to the side.

I think it was more of a brown trouser moment for the guy next to me that saw the boulder almost land on my leg..
I couldn't see from my vantage point clinging to the bareau where we were scrub bashing up.
It was all over pretty quickly. In hindsight I should have probably gotten a bit further away, but the scrub was helping my cause.

I reckon that rock went most of the way down the mountain leaving a trail of destruction behind it.

[ollster]

I think it was more of a brown trouser moment for the guy next to me that saw the boulder almost land on my leg.

It was faaaar closer than it should have been... 100kg would be conservative, given the size of the thing.

Oh yeah, and coming from Captain Brown Trousers (me), PB is a cakewalk. I've chickened out of a few acents, including West Portal and Mt Anne (although I hope to rectify this soon).

[Liamy77]

that's an interesting fungus ya got there Ollster btw...

[ollster]

that's an interesting fungus ya got there Ollster btw...

Absolutely 100% natural.

[ILUVSWTAS]

How'd the picture of the green one come out??

[ollster]

How'd the picture of the green one come out??

Not bad. The best angle had the, ehem, longer section out of focus slightly. So I've had to settle for a slightly more side on profile.

[Liamy77]

Absolutely 100% natural.

Catholic maybe?

[north-north-west]

I think my worst moment was coming down from Egmont.
I went up on the inland side, from Stratford, just made the summit but had to scrap the plans for a more extensive exploration because of a band of thick cloud down below which was moving upwards steadily. There was one open section without markers of any sort that I wanted to be past before the fog hit me.
Did I mention there was a fair bit of snow up there? Nicely frozen on top?
Of course, I slipped on a big patch and tobogganned diagonally down it on my backside . . . speeding up . . . spinning . . . heading for either a drop-off or a large and solid outcropping of rock . . . just managed to control the skid in time to hit the rock feet first, hard enough to knock the wind out of me.

Had a few minor falls here and there, but that was the closest shave. So far. Although I was almost at the 'lie down and die' stage yesterday while completing one of only two remaining gaps on the AAWT. . .

[Bap]

I would have to say Mt Hyperion would have to be my hardest yet as I did it in gale force winds (or it seemed).

[tastrekker]

A solo walk in the middle of winter to Meader Falls. I climbed to the ledge halfway up the falls. There was heaps of snow, the river was running strongly and the top section of the falls were almost completely frozen. I was focussed on the best angle for photos so I crossed the torrent on the ledge where it was emerging from the icy cliff. As I was taking photos on the other side, several car sized chunks of ice fell onto the ledge where I had crossed only minutes before. Not my proudest moment. After waiting a few minutes to see if anything else would fall, I was extremely scared as I sheepishly crossed back counting my blessings all the way.

[stepbystep]

Bonds Craig
Blowing a gale, bushfires in the ranges all around, solo...
Tied a rope around my belly, straddled the summit rock and inched my way up - not at all elegant

[stu]

Hyperion (have to agree with Bap), you wouldn't want to slip up that 'climbing' corner, only fairly short & not really exposed but would be a very nasty fall.
Gog Range (north face) - a recent adventure via a direct line up the face which required sections of rock climbing with death fall potential.
Geryon South (with a dusting of snow) - thought if I fell at one point I'd slide down the gulley & off the east face of Geryon - a long drop to think about.
My first ascent of Anne - not for me but for a mate who scared the poo out of me just looking at the fear in his own eyes.
Probably my worst near miss was falling backwards on snow coming off Falling mountain towards Massif & nearly rattling down a 5m+ gap in the huge boulders.

Oh yeah, & Bonds Craig by myself (sans rope); I had the disco leg (leg shakes) on the reverse moves down that summit spire.

[ollster]

Come to think of it, the most scared I've been was heading down the West Coast below Strahan, along the coast itself. There were a lot of clifflines so we kept getting pushed higher and higher up the bluffs. There was one point where we were above 10-15 metre cliffs on a sandy headland clinging onto clumps of bracken with the sandy foothold falling out under our feet. It was VERY dodgy.

This was with packs containing supplies for around 2 weeks, so very heavy and cumbersome.

[NickD]

Ah my first accent of Federation, not knowing exactly which way to go, my friend up front, heading right when we should have headed left, standing on tiny ledges, whilst he attempted a difficult crack. Luckily I called him down and found the correct way!!

Mt Hyperion, my second visit. The first time I remember it being tricky but not scary, when I revisited with friends, reassuring them its nothing difficult - was suprised by the climbing crack.

Mt Thetis 2004 - First off-track climb aged 16 with my best mate aged 17. Middle of winter, lots of snow, gale force winds, we lost each other in the boulder field for about half an hour. Finally met him on the summit where we could not stand in the huge winds!! Stupidity.

Losing my water bottle on a scorching day between Lake Helios & Windy Ridge Hut! No water all day, getting a little dizzy!!!

Mt Lloyd scrambling through the scrub, got to a small cliff line. Saw what I thought was a big sturdy rock for a good jug hand hold to yank myself up on. Big *&%$#! came tumbling down and I just managed to push myself to the left of its fall line. Would have killed me most likely....death on Mt Lloyd, how undignified.

Leven Canyon. Big guidey pack!! The ground which supported me above a 25m drop to the rocky floor of the canyon & raging river gave way, a couple of hardy water ferns and fingernails into the mud saved me there!!!

Island Peak, Nepal also. Caught my crampon in my other boot and tumbled forward 3 metres. I was on a razorline ridge, had I fallen either to the left or right, it would have sent myself, my guide and one other person down a 150m face or 100m face. Roped would have stopped us falling far, but we'd be dangling on the face. Not fun.

God, all these and more.... I'm pretty sure I'm not clumsy!

[Liamy77]

gotta love the stories... all we need now is a campfire and marshmellows huh?
At least this ought to warn the next mob to be careful though!

[Azza]

My number one brown trouser moment was downclimbing the ramp on Mt Aspiring in New Zealand.
The ramp is a 800m long snow slope and pitched at 44 to 55 degrees that runs out over a cliff at the bottom, the scene of numerous fatalities in the past.
We're on our last attempted at the summit and were successful where everyone else had turned back.
Common sense said turn around, but hey we're a few hundred metres from the top and we're gonna make it. Summit Fever!
We'd left our descent till way too late in the day and the snowpack was becoming increasingly soft.
There was no point in setting any protection as the snow wasn't going to hold a fall anyway so we all agreed to solo in case someone fell we wouldn't kill the other.
So it was 3 hours of white knuckle intense concerntration downclimbing with ice axes in hand. Every step the snow would slip alittle and eventually pack down.
At the same time I was dodging ice bricks and rocks falling off the cliffs above me. I've read books since documenting cases where people with years of experience mountaineering have fallen and died in the same spot, which makes me think just how things could have ended up.

Any brown trouser moments since then have so far paled in comparison. So its tends to take a bit to get me going these days.

[tas-man]

I vividly remember my first attempt at climbing the eastern face "caves route" on Tibrogargan in Queensland's Glasshouse Mountains in 1969. My end of year exams had just finished, so with a few mates decided to celebrate by doing the front face climb to the caves THAT NIGHT with hand torches! I was tail end charlie when we got to the exposed crux below the cave entrance, and while waiting for my turn to proceed got a severe case of the "knee trembles" which made it decidedly difficult to remain steadily in contact with the rock face. Decided to retreat to a narrow ledge for the rest of the night where I sat with my belt extended around a tiny sapling (in case I dozed off), and watched the traffic on the Bruce Highway until the sun came up and my mates came down.