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Climber hit by Lightning - Pierces Pass


gordoste

6-Jan-2011
11:11:03 AM

Totally agree with climberman - turn your phone off while not using it. Battery drains pretty quickly if you only have 1 or 2 bars of reception, and are you really gonna answer a call in the middle of a pitch?


ajfclark

6-Jan-2011
11:19:34 AM

Turn off all the wi-fi crap too. Even when you're only turning the phone on intermittently, that stuff chews quite a lot of power.


wombly

6-Jan-2011
11:50:57 AM

> Just sounding an idea. If caught in bad weather or dark would maybe descending
> right down to the river where there is a well used track and back up the main
> Pieces Pass track be a better option.

Definitely the safest option, and the one I opted for during a similar afternoon drenching.

> Once you hit the Grose you'd be walking easily, able to navigate
> easily and probably be able to be found easily if that was need be.

For reference, in the dark it wasn't entirely straightfoward to find the track back up to the carpark from the Grose. It's a small footpad leading out from a small campground, rather than the superhighway that you might expect from the track further up the pass.

mikllaw

6-Jan-2011
12:00:56 PM

I was rebolting Hot Cal yesterday and the river was roaring, I wondered if you could cross it in those conditions to get to the track at the valley floor?

mikllaw

6-Jan-2011
12:02:50 PM

On 6/01/2011 jezlevett wrote:

>We rapped from the belay points (2 ring bolts) for the start of pitch
>7/end of pitch 6. I did not know about the new rap anchors 12m to the left.

I left a sign on those belay bolts, but later thought it might be difficulty to understand

widewetandslippery

6-Jan-2011
12:04:18 PM

Wombly, I haven't been to the junction of Pierces and the Grose for quite a while. Is where the creek hits the river obvious? or is it a campsite type thing people should look for?


ambyeok

6-Jan-2011
1:04:27 PM

On 6/01/2011 ajfclark wrote:
>Turn off all the wi-fi crap too. Even when you're only turning the phone
>on intermittently, that stuff chews quite a lot of power.

My best advice is to stop playing angry birds while on belay. Firstly it drains battery power and secondly your not really paying attention.


ajfclark

6-Jan-2011
1:13:50 PM

Surely there's an app to pay attention to the gri gri for you?

Wollemi

6-Jan-2011
1:34:21 PM

On 6/01/2011 mikllaw wrote:
>I was rebolting Hot Cal yesterday and the river was roaring

BOM does not really reflect that, although it seems to show excess flow for Monday and Tuesday;
http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDN60233/IDN60233.563024.plt.shtml

kieranl

6-Jan-2011
1:52:14 PM

On 6/01/2011 ajfclark wrote:
>Surely there's an app to pay attention to the gri gri for you?
Or an app to simulate a GriGri


wombly

6-Jan-2011
2:49:45 PM

>I was rebolting Hot Cal yesterday and the river was roaring, I wondered if you could cross >it in those conditions to get to the track at the valley floor?

When we walked directly down the ridge from the mirrorball pinnacle, we popped out at the river pretty close to where the track comes down (1-200m), so you wouldn't really need to.

>Wombly, I haven't been to the junction of Pierces and the Grose for quite a while. Is where >the creek hits the river obvious? or is it a campsite type thing people should look for?

If you mean the creek that comes down to the river directly east of the track, then it is reasonably obvious now that I think about it. We didn't have a topo map with us (i.e. like the one in the 2007/2010 guides), hadn't been down that far down the track previously, so it wasn't clear at the time. The campsite is a small (30 m wide) patch of flat floodplain next to the Grose.

dmnz

9-Jan-2011
7:56:32 PM

On 6/01/2011 gordoste wrote:
>Totally agree with climberman - turn your phone off while not using it.
>Battery drains pretty quickly if you only have 1 or 2 bars of reception,
>and are you really gonna answer a call in the middle of a pitch?

yes you can actually esp if you're overdue, even by a few hours. it's just harder getting it under your helmet to answer the call while you're hundreds of metres above the ground while fumbling around with gloves on to put your ice tool away. even if they can't hear you properly, having you answer can at least let them know you're alive enough to open your pocket, get your phone out and press the answer button!

edit: though I wouldn't answer mid pitch if I were belaying.

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