Making Peace With The Past - Finally Some Insight on My 2013 World Champs Experience

­­­­­­­­­­­­It's been months now since WEMBO 24 hour solo World Championships. I still haven't managed to sit down and write about it... My assumption that things would “quieten down” was completely unfounded and I found myself working on all those “responsible” things that adults do that I should have been doing and mixing that in with bouts of procrastination on the trails in the sunshine after work. In fact, I haven't really written about anything... And that has haunted me, day in and day out, like a monster lurking in the shadows of my mind. Without penning my thoughts, there appears to still be unfinished business with my most recent world championships experience, and I sincerely hope that in writing about it now, I can put it to rest and move onto the next thing (whatever that may be!) with energy and enthusiasm.

My training and preparation up to race day was good. In fact, generally, I had a blast... Climbing mountains and having wicked adventures on my bike with good people. I'll admit that the final month before the race, my training became a little disjointed as the pressures of work, training and life in general encroached on my rest time. The week before world champs, I became quite sick... In fact, sick enough that I had to take a couple of days off work. It was stressful, and the thought of missing out on the one event I had been training for all year was entirely unfathomable... I was 100% invested... But I felt good in my head, and I have always staunchly believed that your body is merely a vehicle for the mind to achieve what it so desires.

Finally arriving in Canberra was a relief, especially with my best buddy Sarah by my side as support crew. I felt nervous and excited, but surprisingly calm. I was intent to not let anything phase me, despite my patience being tested on a number of occasions. Such occasions included replacing my rear brake calliper the day before the race (achieved by bribing the mechanic with beer), darting from Stromlo to the airport to pick up my bro-in-law, then back to Stromlo again to pick up my bike, running out of money (I mean completely broke and maxed out credit card) on the second day we were there (thank God for my best buddy and prize money) and appeasing my parents, who (God bless them) just wanted to go out and boogey with their daughter the night before the race.

It would be remiss of me to not acknowledge that there are people who went a long way for me for this one race. Mum and Dad braved the long drive up from central Victoria to Canberra and then hung out in the cold and dark at the top of the hill to cheer for me each lap. My brother-in-law, Dan, was kindly volunteered for support duties by my sister and flew into Canberra especially for the race (Dan is a physio and gives excellent massages, by the way!). My good mate Sarah travelled all the way from NZ with me to take on the thankless task of supporting me for the race. Kashi at Yeti NZ had made arrangements for me to have a second bike for the year, pretty much identical to my race bike, which was a privilege few riders get without spending copious amounts of money. Andrew at AyUp lights had sent me out new lights which matched my bike. Mark at Adidas Eyewear had decked me out with new eyewear for the race (which was also put to good use by the support crew when I swapped out glasses!). And Bryce at Cycletech had sorted out sexy new wheels for my Ninja. I think it would be fair to say that I felt I was going into the race not only racing for myself, but also for those people who believed in me. I wanted to be able to write about the experience after and be proud of what I had achieved.

This is where I begin to struggle… I wasn’t necessarily proud of what I achieved that weekend… Not remotely… I didn’t enjoy it, I didn’t get a good result, and I felt nothing afterwards except a sense of relief that it was over.

When I arrived at the track on race day, my belly full of two breakfasts from the morning, I plugged my ears with some tunes and strolled casually to the pit that my crew had set up so lovingly. My bikes were lined up, and all my food laid out. It had been some time since I had been amongst this but it felt familiar, like a home I never left. I got on my bike and did some cruisy warm-up laps of the starting circuit. I bumped into people I hadn’t seen in years, including people I used to rock climb with who were also now bikers… But it occurred to me that I could count on one hand the number of people who had been doing this 24 hour solo gig for as long as me. I was part of the furniture here, and it made me feel kinda proud to be a “veteran” of sorts on the scene.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was there to stand on the podium… At a bare minimum, top 5. And the expectation I placed on myself was founded in my result from last year in Italy, when I came 3^rd. I’d been shy about broadcasting my own expectations of myself but the people who mattered knew where I wanted to be, and those who asked politely would be privy to the information, too. So there I stood on the start line, in my moment of truth.

The starters gun went off, we ran to our bikes and then thrashed ourselves up the first fire trail. My legs felt sluggish and my heart rate was running high. It was nothing unusual… Just nerves, I guessed… And I assumed my body would settle into a rhythm over the first lap or two… But that pace off the start line was super hot… In fact, hot enough that I couldn’t hold the front bunch, and they disappeared up the first bit of single track without me. It wasn’t how I imagined it would pan out. In fact, it wasn’t how anyone I knew imagined it, but they were the cards I was dealt at the start of this race and I was going to have to work with that. I remember years ago speaking to my mate Andy Fellows after I had a shit day on the bike at the Red Centre Enduro in Alice Springs… He said to me, “sometimes, you are having a shit day, and you just have to say to yourself “well, that’s what I have to work with today””… For some reason, that conversation comes into my head a lot, and it came into my head at the start of that day. I vividly remember thinking “it’s ok Megan. You have 24 hours to do this. You have the experience to do this. Just let them blow each other up and reel them in later”… But they didn’t, and I never did. All I could do was ride around in circles chasing 6^th or 7^th place.

I rode through the day and as I did, my interest waned with my realisation that I was a long, long way off the pointy end. My feet swelled in my shoes from the heat until the pain was unbearable. Swapping shoes did nothing, massage did nothing, loosening the shoes did nothing, and neither did the Panadol. It wasn’t until the coolness of the evening set in that the pressure subsided and the pain throbbing through my feet and up my legs stopped. It wasn’t all bad… The trails at Stromlo are fast and good fun… The dry environment sucked all the moisture out of the dirt leaving us with a pea gravel surface that threatened to be our undoing if we didn’t pay constant attention. Mum and Dad sat in camp chairs at the top of the hill, wrapped in blankets ready to jump up and cheer “GO MEG!”every time I rode past. My partner was back home in NZ checking her phone every thirty seconds while she was at dinner with her mates to see how I was doing. I felt like I was letting down everyone around me. As an intelligent person, I knew that wasn’t true… But often emotions override what we know to be genuinely correct.

The coolness of the evening was welcoming… I had just spent the entire winter training in the early morning in sub zero temperatures and the heat of the day had not treated me well at all… I’ve been living away from Australia long enough now that I have acclimatised to New Zealand’s cooler temperatures and the heat of the day enveloped me and sucked the energy from my body.

While I was riding I felt numb... And completely detached from the experience... This wasn't what I was used to. I just wanted it to be over pretty much from the end of the first lap. I wasn’t angry, nor did I gain immense joy out of the experience. I took each moment as it came and lived in that moment… The moment I rode past a snake… The moment Dan helped alleviate the pressure on my feet… The moment Sarah put hot pizza in my hand… The moment my mum would come running alongside me in the dark after midnight at the top of that arsehole hill… The moment the sun set and the moment it rose, spreading it’s arms like fingers through a blue sky perfectly spotted with identical fluffy white clouds and hot air balloons. They were a series of beautiful moments in their own right, but for some reason felt disjointed as a complete experience when I tried to link them together. The trail was great fun and I thought about a lot of stuff while I was riding. I wouldn’t say I had a bad ride… But certainly not an exceptional one.

By the time I crossed the finish line, I had pretty much decided that this was the last 24 hour solo race that I was going to do (admittedly, my view of that has softened over time since the race). I was heartbroken. And when I write about it now, it still brings tears to my eyes. I’m not sure what made it so. Probably a combination of things… The fact that I had trained so hard and being so far off the pace, the thought that I may not want to do this again and realising that I would miss it dearly and wondering what I would fill that void with… The fact that I felt like I had let down all those people who supported and believed in me (although I know they would all vehemently deny that this was the case).

I suppose when someone is disappointed with a result, the first thing people try to do is console you by assuring you that had you enjoyed a more trouble-free day on the bike, the result would have been vastly different. Sure, there were things that didn’t go right… I was sick the week before, I had massive issues with painful swelling of my feet, I had sleep monsters and food issues… But if I am being honest with myself, there wasn’t four laps worth in there… Maybe two at best… And that would have elevated me, best scenario, to 5^th place. I was well off the pace… And the even more heartbreaking thing was that I had no idea that would be the case.

I was glad that Jess Douglas won. If I couldn’t come up with the goods, then I’m glad she did. I have a huge amount of respect for that girl and I think in a lot of ways, we are very similar (she’s just a shitload faster than me), so I relate to Jess as a person. After the race, she wrote something on my facebook wall. It was a lovely gesture, and admittedly, made me cry (maybe I’m going soft in my old age); Megan - you are awesome. Results of this race today do not indicate your inner strength as you would hope. But everyone has their day in the sunshine. Yours will come with renewed purpose...and it need not be via racing....let’s talk soon! We love who you are and what you represent. It meant a lot coming from her.

I remember arriving home from the race and seeing my partner at the airport. I’d imagined, up until the end of the race, that I would arrive home full of smiles and stoked with my result but it wasn’t to be on this occasion. We’d only been seeing each other barely a month and I was so grateful to have a hug, someone to hold my hand and some gentle words waiting for me at the other end of my journey. I think one of the hardest things about my result was having "that conversation" with every single person when I came home. Explaining how I was disappointed and then having them say "but 7th in the world is still good!" I appreciated the sentiment, but it truly made me cringe every time. I didn't spend six months getting up at 4am to train in the freezing cold then spend all that money on traveling to the event to come seventh. Then there was the awkward conversations with people who knew I would be disappointed, but didn't know whether it was the right thing to console me or avoid the topic.

I’ve often said to people that there are two types of people who race at a high level… Those who work hard, and those who are naturally talented. I work exceptionally hard, but I wouldn’t call myself a naturally talented rider by any stretch of the imagination. I suppose where it gets really tough is when you come up against people who are both naturally talented and work hard, and it inevitably happens.

I find it difficult to articulate how I felt about my experience last year, and especially so because I really do love to put a positive spin on any challenges that are thrown my way. But to be blunt about it, I was disappointed with my result at World Champs. I returned home a broken soul. I analysed in my head everything I could have done differently, or should have done differently. And as time has worn on, nothing changes my disappointment. In fact, I don't think I have ever been so disappointed by a race result. In my mind, there was no provision for anything shy of 5th place, and I guess mentally, you have to do that to back yourself, but you set yourself up for a very hard fall... In reality, only one person can win... And unfortunately, someone has to come seventh. That's the brutal reality of racing... And despite the fact that I wasn't unhappy with how I rode, on that day, my best was only worth seventh place. In all truthfulness though, as much as it hurts, I think I would rather that than to not care about it at all.

I've been thinking hard about what I want to do moving forward. From a pragmatic perspective, I know in my heart I was well off the pace, and it was gutting for me that I was surprised by this... There were things that didn't go right, but if I'm being honest with myself, I doubt there was four laps worth in there. I rode 323km over the 24 hours, and a couple of years ago, that sort of distance would have bagged me a title... But riders have gotten faster and the competition more fierce and I feel like I have been caught unawares and unprepared for the change in pace. It shouldn't have come as a surprise when I remember three or four years ago, hearing my mate, Andy Fellows describe the pace of the men's field as "a 24 hour cross country race". It was only a matter of time until the same happened with the women's field, and I can't begrudge the competition of that. It's great for the sport to see such a high quality field. I just can't help but feel I am flailing behind and wondering if I have the energy and time to work harder than I did this year to bridge that gap. Furthermore, after 9 years of riding 24 hour races, it's becoming cost prohibitive to travel around the world racing bikes off my own back.

On the flip side of that, racing bikes for 24 hours is what has defined me on so many levels for such a long period of time and I am very wary of the gaping hole it would leave in my life if I decided not to continue. As sad as it may sound, I feel like riding my bike for 24 hours is the only thing that makes me an extraordinary person, and the only thing that makes me interesting. It has played a significant role in moulding who I am as a person today, and whilst I am sure some other adventure would come along and continue to condition my spirit in other ways, it's nearly unfathomable for me... Not to mention that I love doing it... I love that feeling at the end of being totally spent. I love seeing the sunset and the sunrise on the bike in the space of one day, I love the physical challenge, the mental challenge and the tactical side of it. I love the people I meet and the experiences it delivers to me.

So if I was to make a sensible, intellectual decision, in a pragmatic sense, I would stop participating in 24 hour races... But such decisions aren't so easily pigeon-holed when there is emotion and history involved. There has been a lot of talk recently about the next world champs in Scotland in October this year, and I have decided that I won’t be attending… Amongst other considerations, I simply just can’t afford it, and I know that come October, I will be watching everyone else’s progress and feeling my own heart ache, but it was a decision that had to be made for me to continue to enjoy living in the moment right now. For now, I have made the decision to compete in 24 Hours of NDuro in Rotorua in April (check it out here... It'll be wicked!). In the meantime, I’m enjoying hitting the trails for fun, heading out for crazy adventures, digging in the garden and playing with my dogs. It’s a relief to write again and share my experience so candidly with everyone who reads my blog. What I do know is that regardless of what I do, I can count on the fact that there will always be adventures to be had, and I can only trust that takes me to more wonderful places for more amazing experiences, whether it involves racing bikes for 24 hours or not.

New Years on Top of the Mountain - Alpine Camping on Ruapehu

I couldn’t believe I’d thought this was a good idea (to be fair though, that’s how most of the best adventures begin). My legs were nearly buckling under the weight of my pack and we had barely left the carpark. Putting my pack on to start with required massive feats of human strength combined with an awkwardness that made me looked like I had just done a great job of f**king up a complicated break-dance move. My pack was nearly half my weight at 24kg… I weigh 51kg… The laws of physics were lauging in my face. As we trudged up the mountain, the bulging pack on my tiny frame made it look from behind like there was a big red backpack that had grown legs and was walking up the mountain of it’s own accord. With every step, though, my body seemed to adapt to the incredible feats I was asking it to perform and felt more capable as we worked our way up the access road out of the Whakapapa skifield carpark. As I’ve said many times before, the body is merely a vehicle for accomplishing what the mind sets out to achieve. This was no different to enduring a 24 hour race. I just needed to keep moving.

 

 

I’ve been up Ruapehu countless times before, but this was to be my first alpine camping experience… On the summit… On new years eve. I couldn’t think of a more fitting way to end the year and see the new one in. So instead of my usual day pack, I was carrying provisions for what was originally planned as two nights up on the mountain. My mate Craig was nearly equally as crazy as me and we trudged up the hill, making slow but sure progress. When the access track ran out, we were greeted with the task of rock scrambling and rock hopping our way up our route. The weight of my pack threw me off balance constantly and I could feel my lower back bruising from where the weight was sitting on my hips. Climbing the mountain in Winter is definitely an easier task, when snow fills the crevices between the rocks and you can walk straight along your route without having to pick the line of least resistance. We had decided to take the route that entered the Whakapapa glacier at the end of the southernmost chairlift because the gradient was much more palatable than the direct route up to the plateau.

 

I had finished work at 2pm on New Years Eve and we made a break straight for the mountain, arriving about 4.30pm, so by the time we were popping over the edge of the climb and overlooking the crater lake, it was 8.30pm and sunset was upon us. The wind had just begun to pick up, I was soaked in sweat and as the sun lowered itself behind the peaks surrounding the crater, it began to get suddenly very cold. Craig was a little way behind me down the glacier and I weighed up the pros and cons of taking my pack off to get my jacket and be warm or leaving the pack on so I didn’t have to put it back on again. I dropped my pack on the snow and got my jacket out (a wise call). The low evening sun bathed the landscape in an eerie light. The sky was still bright blue, but everything surrounding me was covered in shadow. In hindsight, arriving on the plateau so late without a pre-planned campsite was a bit of a faux-paux. As Craig appeared over the top of the glacier, there was an immediate urgency to get the tent set up and camp made for the evening. It meant that we would not be climbing any high points to enjoy a sunset this evening.

 

Our initial thoughts to camp above the crater lake were thwarted by the wind that had begun blowing through the glacier and out onto the lake, so we set off around the corner to see what we could find on the summit plateau. The weather forecast had been for rather strong north-easterly winds, reaching about 65km/hr in the wee hours of the morning. In hindsight, I should have paid more attention to this, but the evening was otherwise completely clear and absolutely stunning. With a degree of desperation, we searched out a campsight that would give our tent some shelter from the wind and found a mound of scree poking up out of the snow. At the time, it seemed less than ideal, but a better option than to still be walking around the plateau in the cold when it got dark. I got my snow shovel out and we dug a flat platform out of the ice. The snow had already begun to harden with the cool of the evening. Both Craig and I were becoming uncontrollably cold, especially our hands, which was a distinct problem when trying to pitch a tent whilst darkness was descending upon us. The wind was catching the tent as we tried to pitch it, forcing us to change our method of construction. I’d had the foresight to bring extra long tent pegs, but the ice was so hard that we struggled to get them into the ground, and when we did, they pulled out with relative ease. Craig carried boulders from the scree pile and placed them over the top of the pegs, then placed more boulders out from the tent to attach the guy ropes to. We were pretty sure it was a futile attempt to secure the position of the tent.

It was about this time that my mind wandered to other options. Could we sleep in the Dome Hut, about a hundred metre climb from where we were? Not really… Not in this wind, and certainly not in the dark. Heading back down the mountain wasn’t an option. We had to make the tent work for us. I found the level of commitment we had made our way into in a rather nonchlant manner quite startling. I felt a little out of my depth for the first time in a long time. It was liberating and rather frightening all at the one time.

Finally, with our tent pitched, we watched the final rays of light from 2013  disappear over the Kaimanawa ranges in a brilliant display of colours that split the horizon. We pulled everything out of our bags that we thought we would need and put it in the tent before stashing our bags in the vestibule. Having just put on every item on clothing I had in my pack, I sat in the entrance to the tent with the door open while Craig fired up the stove to boil some water for dinner. I was wearing an Icebreaker singlet, then an Icebreaker long sleeve baselayer, then another Icebreaker jersey on top of that, then my puffer vest and my jacket. I was toasty warm now, but keeping my extremities from freezing was always a challenge for me.

 

I didn’t really feel all that hungry but knew I needed to eat, so I cracked out a freeze-dried meal to feast on. By the time we finished eating, the wind had really started to blow and we settled into the tent, pretty sure that the only thing keeping it in place was the weight of our bodies. Craig is a big, tall, solidly built dude and I took comfort in the fact that he was lying on the side of the tent that face the prevailing winds, anchoring the bottom of the tent down… Something I’m sure my midget body would have done a very poor job of! We settled in for a celebratory wine and some dark chocolate covered ginger pieces. It would have been remiss of us to now haul some wine up there to celebrate the new year! The wine made me sleepy (and a little bit drunk), so I decided to lie down and set my alarm to wake me up just before midnight so we could see the new year in. The alarm really wasn’t necessary. As the wind picked up, it buffeted the tent, causing the tent to bend and bow over us as we lay down. It became obvious that sleep was going to be a rare commodity on the mountain that evening.

After watching the clock strike midnight, neither of us could sleep. The wind was getting stronger and we both lay silent in our sleeping bags. I had my sleeping bag closed over my head and had cocooned myself in to stay warm and every time I dozed off, I would be rudely awoken either by the tent sounding like it was about to take flight, or by the Dutch Oven kindly brought to me by Backcountry Teriyaki Beef freeze-dried meal. We both lay there silent as the wind picked up. It gave the tent an absolute battering. On a couple of occasions, the tent bowed over so far that it nearly lay flat on top of us and I thought the tent poles would almost certainly break. I was convinced the tent wouldn’t make it through to the next morning. I was running through in my head what could possibly go wrong and how we could react to that if it happened. I figured that if the tent poles snapped, we would just stay in the tent anyway until the morning. The one thing that was haunting me was the thought that if the wind got strong enough, could it possibly pick us up, tent and all, and blow us down the icy slope. It may sound stupid, but it was definitely in the back of my mind.

About 2am, the wind seemed to be at it’s fiercest. I stuck my head out of my sleeping bag and said to Craig “should I bring one of the PLBs into the tent with us?”… At least if something happened it would be attached to me and I could raise the alarm. We decided that was a good idea. Neither of us were getting any sleep, so we sat up and started talking. Sitting there talking with Craig instead of lying in silence listening to the tent buckle, bow and flap in the wind made me feel infinitely better. Inevitably, I needed to go to the toilet, and after much debate within my own head, I decided that instead of venturing out into the cold and wind, I would do my number ones in the vestibule of the tent and then put my shoe over it so noone stood in it. Craig was an absolute gentleman about it! Not long after, Craig decided to brave the elements to do his business. When he got back in the tent, I was expecting stories of near death experiences and clouded skies. Instead, he told me to look outside the tent door…

Despite the howling winds, the night was completely clear. Trillions of stars blanketed the night sky. There were no cities or bright lights nearby to interfere with the galaxies above us. I had never seen anything quite like it. I had imagined that for this trip, we would be sitting outside our tent drinking wine and cups of teas under a sky exactly like the one I was looking at right now. In hindsight, I wish I had gotten out of the tent and walked around… Checked out the views a little better. I think that the noise of the tent in the wind exacerbated our concerns… Like a dog that was all bark and no bite (not that I would recommend camping up there in those strength winds again in the future). I wonder if I had removed myself from the tent, if I would have realised that it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

So it was two in the morning and we were wide awake. I think by this stage we had resigned ourselves to the fact that there would be no sleep for the night. For Christmas, Lisa had given me this cute little dinosaur matchy card game thingy (I think it’s called “Memory”, but I don’t remember). I had popped it in my pack and hauled it up the mountain with me with the vision that we would be sitting outside on the snow, having a drink and playing a game or two, but I daresay good-ol’ T-Rex would have been flying off the mountain this evening had I attempted to lay the cards outside. It was a great way to occupy our time with the wind battering our tent outside. For starters, dinosaurs are all kinds of cool, secondly, it kept us well occupied and last, but certainly not least, it made me think of Lisa. I wondered what she was doing for her new years eve in Vietnam.

The game degraded to the point where we were both randomly just picking up two cards with little regard for what had been turned over before. Nothing stuck in our heads longer than a few seconds. My brain was tired, and I said to Craig “I don’t think I’ll get any sleep, but I want to lay down and rest”. He agreed and we retired back into our cocoons to listen to the wind continue to give the tent a battering. It didn’t let up all night, probably getting the strongest around 4am. I think eventually we both got so tired that the wind became irrelevant and we started dozing in and out of consciousness until my alarm went off at 5am. I understand it sounds silly to set an alarm when you are barely sleeping anyway, but there was no way I wanted to miss the sunrise on New Years Day.

 

The tent was still blowing around but we could see it was starting to get light outside. “Do you mind if I open the tent door?” I said to Craig. He wearily agreed as I reached over, unzipped the tent, and then the fly. The sight in front of my eyes was indescribable. “Oh my God, look!” I said to Craig. Unbeknown to us, the position we had so hastily pitched our tent the evening before just happened to sit in the perfect spot to see our tent door frame the sunrise. Dawn had just come upon us, and the sky was completely clear. The surrounding peaks were silhouetted against a colourful early morning light display which danced off the horizon. It was stunning. All of a sudden, a night of no sleep seemed one hundred percent worth it. I strapped my crampons on to my boots and ventured out of the tent. It was so cold that exposed parts of my skin became numb in a matter of minutes. The wind had died down, and as I ventured away from the flapping of the tent, I could feel that serenity that I have always craved on the mountain. That completely silent void… Like a vacuum. It was so quiet that I had to click my fingers to convince myself there was nothing wrong with my hearing.

 

I strolled across the summit plateau, my crampons crunched in the ice and my breath created shapes in the air. I felt this connection with the mountain that I’d never noticed before. She was beautiful in the early morning light. As the sun tried desperately to break its way above the horizon, the peaks to the west of the plateau were bordered by a dramatic pink and blue sky, the pink washing from the sky and spilling down the perfectly white surface of the ice, making it glisten. As I strolled back towards the tent, no sooner had I rounded the corner of the Cathedral rocks than the first rays of sun began to border the clouds.

 

I stood and watched as the first rays of light on New Years Day spilled across the landscape in front of me. There was a blanket of low cloud that sat below us surrounding the mountain and the sun danced across it to meet me and fill me with warmth. As it rose higher, the cloud dissipated, allowing us to look across at the Kaimanawa Ranges. It really was an absolutely stunning sight. We went for a walk around the corner to the crater lake. In the early morning light, shadows elongated themselves across the steaming surface, cutting the definitive shapes of the peaks around it into the surface in different shades of blue. It always amazes me just how different everything looks under the light of the new morning… How fresh everything seems. As we hiked up to the top of the Dome, we could see shadows dancing across the whole plateau. It was 6am, which meant that right now, Lisa was in a completely different part of the world celebrating the New Year. I laughed at the absurdity of how vastly different our evenings would have been. Her in the middle of a city surrounded by people, noise and happenings… And me on top of a mountain with one good mate, completely isolated from the rest of the world.

 

The original plan had been to stay on the mountain for two nights, and complete the twelve peaks on New Years Day, but after the definite lack of sleep the evening before, we decided to go for a bit of an explore and then make our way back down the mountain in search of bacon and eggs. The last time we visited Dome hut, it was completely iced over. This time it wasn’t, so we cracked open the door and had a look inside. There’s a reason they say this thing is only for emergency shelter. Most of the hut is locked off, and from what I understand, houses volcanic surveillance equipment. So there is a tiny space inside the door where you could maybe lie on the floor if you really had to. There was also a geocache hidden above the doorframe and a waterproof bible (pretty much, if you’re stuck in here for the night, you’re gonna need it!).

 

We made our way back towards the tent as the wind picked up again. We knew that packing up the tent in the wind was going to be a logistical nightmare, but it had to be done. Craig had the stove out and was melting some snow for a cuppa and I was looking at this tent, bowing and flapping about in the wind, wondering what we were going to do about it. I was super impressed that the tent had lasted the night in those winds. I really thought that a snapped pole or a rip in the fly was inevitable, but it was still standing there, flexing about under the force of the wind. Overnight, the tent pegs, which we hadn’t been able to secure the evening before, had frozen themselves into the ground, so they had, in fact, ended up being very good anchors. I figured that if we left the tent pegged in and removed the poles first, we could then unsecure the tent from the ground bit by bit and just shove it straight into my pack… I’d worry about drying and rolling it when I got home. Bags packed and water boiled, we sat down on the snow for a cup of tea and then hauled our packs onto our packs and started working our way back down the mountain. Asides from the wind, which seemed to have picked up again, it was a glorious morning, and I was kinda sad we weren’t staying up there a little longer. Our decision was confirmed a good one though, when a couple of hours after we arrived back at the car, we looked up at the mountain to see it encased in a dark cloud.

As we worked our way back down towards the Whakapapa ski field, we found pools of frozen water in between the rocks. Probably about 400m below the level we had camped at, we found several pools covered in ice that was about half an inch thick. My mind boggled at the thought of how cold it must have been up where we were if it was cold enough 400m lower to create ice that was half an inch thick overnight… My guess is that we spent the night in temperatures sitting around minus 10 degrees. The chairlift running up and down the mountain was a welcome sight for our weary legs with our big packs and as we took the “cheats” way down from the top of the skifield, you could tell that people were wondering what the hell we were doing coming OFF the mountain at that time of morning.

A bacon and egg breakfast was nowhere to be found in Whakapapa, so we had to settle for bacon and egg pie (bummer huh?!). As we drank coffee and hot chocolate and ate pie, we mused over our first alpine camping experience and how tough it must be for the guys that climb big mountains and have to sleep in those conditions day-in, day-out. I’m obviously nowhere near hardcore enough for that just yet!

When I look back at that night now, really everything was fine, but the lack of familiarity with the situation made me feel a bit out of my depth, and at the time, made it harder to relax into the experience somewhat. It was funny seeing the reaction that people had to our photos after we returned from the trip. The sheer beauty of what was captured, especially in the early morning during dawn and sunrise, was overwhelming. Craig and I had done a stellar job of hiding the complete terror we had felt at moments during the evening and the morning. There are some experiences you just can’t share in unless you are present in that moment. I can’t wait to head back up there again for my next summit camping trip with what I learned from this one… It really is just another world up there… And something that very few get to enjoy or experience. I feel so very privileged to have seen the New Year in under the watchful eye of the mountain… I have a feeling that this year is going to be a great one!