Winter started early with the cold already encroaching by early May - that been said it doesn’t seem much colder when I write this in late July. Winter can be a time of reflection and looking back on the last 12 months I find they were certainly very interesting if not necessarily always for the best reasons. A time of changes for myself perhaps? - or just small blips in ongoing continuity. That I’m not sure of but interest is something that adds or makes life what it is. With a mixture of excitement and trepidation I’m planning to head back for another short stint up on the Tibetan Plateau in China - once again out in that vastness I have so much enjoyed in the past. Last years trip seemed like I was just dipping my feet once again in the rivers of adventure after those years of enforced lassitude and the plans for this year were initially much more ambitious. Unable to find any partner for the mountaineering sections of the trip it looks once again it will be more of a reconnaissance mission then anything else although as usual I hope maybe to climb off the bike on occasion and trek up hill on foot. My main hesitancy there has been glacier travel and crevasse risks with solo travel but maybe if I keep ambitions down to slightly lower peaks I can avoid much of this.

Despite the early winter its been dry and a dearth of snow locally but fortunately have still got out fairly regularly with friends having a good time the only real handicap has been the short daylight hours. Knowing I’ll be going flat out as usual in China for several weeks also means local trips are more just “training” then missions themselves which makes them paradoxically, rather easier both mentally and physically.

Going out with friends always fun times , with Jake above in the Raglan ranges and Carl below on Iron Hill.

An interesting year and some interesting metrological and celestial phenomena - above Tom under an ice halo which is a rainbow formed from ice crystals and white in hue and below we were treated in Motueka where I live to the Aurora Australis due to powerful sun storms and for several night hours the sky turned into a magnificent heavenly spectacle.

Room with a view - Sylvester hut

That eerie sound as Carl skips a stone on an icy mountain lake

Not black and white but mist blending light on lakes into frozen duality.

This is a filtered image though!

Selfie !!

Mount Hopeless in the foreground of this early summer view of the Travers range

Its been 6 months today since I broke my leg and over 7 months since returning from China. It’s hard to say which event has had more effect on me in the last 7 months although perhaps they are one and the same. Throughout so many years in the past travelling I always found the hardest thing to do was to return - somehow your soul is somewhere else , your body back in New Zealand and the spirit flitting backwards and forwards , waiting restlessly for the next voyage. Finding meaning(fulness) in what one could term normality in the Western World is rather difficult for one like myself - far more easy for ones spirit to soar with the soul on the vast empty(of humans anyway) spaces of the High Plateau. One thing that has been meaningful has been recovering from breaking that leg - rather then been a negative its almost the most inspiring circumstance I could have been placed in. The first 3 months are the most exciting and for awhile progress is on an almost daily basis. When one is so involved in a single ambition - to recover its so easy to focus and get on with it and most else is pushed into the background.

As I lay in a hospital bed with a fractured tibia I set out a plan of action and the first goal on a path to recovery would be to climb Mt Hopeless within 3 months , the name alone giving inspiration! Hopeless for the hopeful! Along the way various other objectives were involved - just walking for a start and then my first trip up Mount Arthur which was a mission in itself as I had trouble balancing and going downhill. Just a few weeks later with friends helping I managed to get up a rather harder objective, Mount Chittenden - one of my favorite’s . Although I found it difficult especially the balance and descending the improvement in just 3 weeks from my first hike up Arthur was phenomenal. Also I knew that Hopeless , although a tough climb physically, it was no more demanding than Chittenden otherwise and it was to be just a mental game of pushing on regardless. Hopeless was a good trip and although I was still slow the climb was achieved a week inside 3 months so the first part of the recovery plan was over. Since then life has moved to normal activities , like a job and housework but physical recovery has been ongoing - largely due to lots of bike riding and a bit of tramping with my guiding work locally. Last weekend I went up Chittenden again with some friends and the difference was amazing - I could now run where just three and a half months ago I was only crawling. Time was perhaps more the essence here rather than ambition and training.

Now the soul is calling that its time and the spirit and body grow restless.

Kadin and I had already toyed with the idea of “Hopeless” in a day fast one day alpine trips being in vogue at the moment and the thought alone of the Travers valley twice in a day making it a formidable mental undertaking. So I hit Kadin up – no longer Hopeless in a day but rater over 2 days. We made it easy as possible for ourselves- bivvying high the night before at 1950m with the only weight concussions being a pair of crampons each.. Why we didn’t use these in perfect crampon conditions early Sunday morning is beyond me as I opted to follow a rock hopping Kadin to the top of the standard route. There’s no real difficulty in that but for the fact that this route lends itself admirably to the sport of “rock tossing” which we – Kadin in particular are leading exponents of- enough said. Daunted by the displays of high speed rock flying down cliffs and with the descent in view Kadin suggested we try the NW ridge as a descent route. Now, I was rather skeptical that this was an easy route that the guide book maintained but for once the guide book was correct and the horrors of the descent were confined to the lower slopes – sliding on tussock, lacerating ones hands on spear grass and crawling like a pig through dense bush.

Mount Chittenden - just short of 6 months. Beginning to run again.

Above , kids Leo and Val visit me in hospital

Movement is the key

Indulging in a bit of lunacy I could put down it being Friday the 13th as the reason behind the breaking my leg, However its far more likely in this modern age to over think and over rationalize leading to the most moronic conclusions – one can formulate the reasoning but one can’t make out the sense of it all. In away its kind of Deja Vu , all laid up after a rather mundane accident as I was 31 years ago, rather fortunately a much smaller accident this time. Rather then lunacy or overthinking on why I slipped and hit my tibia or shin bone in such a fashion as to fracture it time would be better spent thinking of all those very close miss’s over the last 31 years , a hairsbreadth from the final breath in many instances – this was a case of been hit by a stray bullet in the leg after having dodged so many bullets aimed at the head. Two of the best reactions were friend Tony saying “I thought at least you had fallen on a mountain” and daughter Val’s comment “You must feel really stupid”!

Stupidity and mundaneness aside its sometimes good to go down - as long as it’s not too hard - just to remind one self that the universe is far bigger then one self or mere humanity and it’s incredible complexity means no matter what our prowess are the fate remains the same - we as humans ride that wild tiger of fate perhaps if we are talented or lucky enough controlling it very minutely and briefly during our wild ride through life.

Sleep and more sleep. i wouldn’t call it fatigue or tiredness - its just this wish to constantly snooze like a cat. I put it down to the bodies desire to recovery - rest in the form of sleep been the most abundant form of natural recovery. Some friends, more skeptical than myself put it down to me showing my own real ability to apply laziness to its fullest extent when I have that opportunity. In any case , the constant desire to sleep has made it far easier mentally to be laid up as the enthusiasm to get out there and do it has been low. It gets even lower when one attempts to walk around the block on crutch’s and one realizes just how incapacitated one is!

Recovery has been good though and now 6 weeks after the accident there is enough movement in the leg to ride the home trainer and do some exercises. 31 years ago the surgeon who did a rather remarkable job on fixing up my leg last words to me were - “I can fix it up but I can’t tell you anything about how to recover from an injury like this and I’m not sure anyone can but i know movement is the key” That is life itself in a nutshell - movement is the key!

above - My last trip before breaking my leg. The constant favorite in Nelson lakes Chittenden with Jake.

Above and below. All the time off gave me the opportunity of making better videos about the recent trip on the Tibetan plateau.

Alfee the cat takes me for a walk morning and night.