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Climber hit by Lightning - Pierces Pass |
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6-Jan-2011 10:16:49 AM
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On 6/01/2011 mikllaw wrote:
>On 5/01/2011 Jezlevett wrote:
>>1. Awesome retreat abseil from pitch 6 very exposed and amazing with
>the
>> lighting around.
>
> --Did you rap straight from the belay to the halfway ledge (and how
>long were your ropes?), or traverse 12m left to the new rap anchors and
>rap from there?
>
>> I don’t know if they had a guide book im
>>not sure.
> --They have a number of copies and had grid references also
>
>> I thank them for their efforts as it is an epic walk in from
>>the base jumpers track at night.
> --Bad enough in the daylight.
>
Hey Mike.
I didnt ask the rescuers at the time that they were going off the guide book but for future rescues its nice to know that they did and they also had grid reference.
The walk was pretty brutal on the way out. One of the rescuers hurt his knee near the end, theres heaps of loose rock and soil alot of it gives way. I still cant believe how they did it in the dark.
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 rapped first clipping the rope into pitch 6 as i went down. i then saw that our 60m ropes reached the half way ledge(end of pitch 4/start of pitch 5) with a few metres to spare. My mate unclipped and i connected him to the anchor on the end of pitch 4.
Also on another note: There for some reason was some confusion on what was said over the phone around 6-8pm after the rap from pitch 6. I still dont really understand exactly but some one we called thought my mate could go into shock from the lightning and we were stuck on pitch 4 (although this was not the case). This is what the rescuers told me they thought when they arrived, so i assume chinese whispers may have been responsible.
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6-Jan-2011 11:11:03 AM
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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?
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6-Jan-2011 11:19:34 AM
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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.
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6-Jan-2011 11:50:57 AM
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> 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.
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6-Jan-2011 12:00:56 PM
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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?
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6-Jan-2011 12:02:50 PM
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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
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6-Jan-2011 12:04:18 PM
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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?
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6-Jan-2011 1:04:27 PM
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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.
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6-Jan-2011 1:13:50 PM
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Surely there's an app to pay attention to the gri gri for you?
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6-Jan-2011 1:34:21 PM
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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
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6-Jan-2011 1:52:14 PM
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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
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6-Jan-2011 2:49:45 PM
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>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.
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9-Jan-2011 7:56:32 PM
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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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