Keeping Calm and Carrying On

The first sign that you're starting to panic is you hear yourself say:
"OK, man, don't panic." 

One of my favourite things to do in the woods is to visit places no one else does. Places where there are no mapped tracks, and where most people don't even consider going.

But sometimes things don't go to plan.

The Hike (Planned)

The Megalong Valley is a gorgeous area of the Blue Mountains near Sydney that has the shallow meandering Coxs River flowing through it, lots of grazing farms, and hills and mountains on all sides. It's very peaceful, and teeming with interesting wildlife - lyrebirds and goannas in particular.

Years ago, I'd done a short hike in part of it with the Sydney Bushwalkers Club, which involved some off-track walking and some stunning views. We also passed through part of the valley while doing the Six Foot Track last year.

This weekend I thought I'd go back again and look at a different section - the plan was to follow a track part way up to Ironpot Mountain, then pick my way down a spur into a little-known track along a waterway called Breakfast Creek. Follow that to Coxs River for lunch, wander the river a bit, then climb back up over Goolara Peak to Tinpot Mountain and take the ridges back to my car (Clockwise around the blue track, roughly).

The planned track (in blue), and the actual track detours (in red)

The Hike (Reality)

Everything went smoothly until lunch. The descent was steep but largely manageable. Breakfast Creek was mostly dry but a nice place to walk and seems to be where all the lyrebirds go. I think I counted eight, which is seven more than I had seen in my entire life to that point (no photos - the little buggers are very shy). Shortly after lunch I startled a good size Lace Monitor up a tree, and got a nice pic of it camouflaged while it hissed and growled at me in irritation.

This creature was very hissy about me
mucking about with my camera

Danger, Will Robinson

Then came time to go back off-track and explore Goolara Peak and the saddle to Tinpot. After doing the very hard climb from Coxs River, I discovered that Goolara Peak is not so much a mountain as it is a pile of extremely large rocks on top of a hill surrounded on all sides by cliff face. From where I was sitting, I couldn't see a way up or around without some very risky exposure. Worse, I had no idea what the peak looked like on the other side. Even if I could pick my way up to the top, I might not be able to get down.

The alternative wasn't much better. It's always less scary to go up than down, and as I looked back over my route I did not relish climbing back down this incredibly steep hill full of loose dirt and rock. On the other hand, I at least knew that there was an alternate route back to my car that was passable since it was the one we'd used in 2014 (Red track in the image).

Besides the difficult descent, also arguing against that option was that the day was getting on and sunset was coming. Since I would be well off-track for my backup option, this could mean that I would be navigating by map and compass.

Alone.
After dark.

Navigating by map and compass during the day takes a fair amount of brain power, but at least you can see the ground while you walk and make out features of the terrain around you. Doing it in darkness, while exhausted and alone is a bad mix.

In the best case scenario, the wrong decision could lead to a helicopter ride from search and rescue. The worst case scenario is disappearing in the Blue Mountains, never to be seen or heard from again.

So my choices were a) try and climb the rocks and hope there was a way down the other side, or b) race the sun and hope not to get lost in the forest at night.

"OK, man. Don't panic."

My main goal was not to end up like this ex-cow
from the walk several years ago.

Racing the Sun

I figured I'd rather chance a night in the forest than find myself falling off a rock and ending up in a truly bad place. There was still some daylight, so I had a good chance of getting close to the car. I had some extra clothes and food. The river could give me water. It wouldn't be pleasant, but I could get through the night if it came to that. So I started the climb downhill. Or the slide down the hill. It was just as hard as I expected it would be. For the last few hundred metres I was clinging to trees to lower myself without tumbling.

When I finally hit the river, my adrenaline was pumping and I race-hiked to the entry point for my alternate climb to Tinpot Mountain. Before setting out on the climb, I filtered a litre of water into my Camelbak and packed out another 3/4L of dirty water in case I needed it later. At this point, between the mental stress and the massive amount of off-track climbing and descending I'd already done, my body was exhausted.

Every moment of the climb to Tinpot was accompanied by an inner monologue of "Just get to the top of the mountain before sunset, so that we're only navigating ridges." The reply from my body with every step: "You will pay for this."  The bribe came next: "We'll eat the leftover tomato from lunch when we get to the top. I promise."

I made the mountain top with daylight to spare. This was when my brain reneged on the deal.

Brain: "I know I said we'd rest now, but we can't waste daylight. Keep walking until dark, then we'll eat and rest."
Body: "I hate you. So much."
Brain: "I hear you, and I acknowledge your feelings. Shut up and walk."

Each hill was excruciating, and I would decide I had to rest at the top. Then the terrain would ease up and I'd check my bearing for the next saddle and walk on until I hit the next climb. It would be excruciating. It felt like I repeated this a thousand times, but my map tells me it couldn't have been more than two or three.

Then I couldn't anymore. I just couldn't.

The Mind Body Dichotomy

I don't think there was a single one of the 140 days of hiking the AT where I was this tired. As I was climbing the peak to Ironpot Mountain I hit a small track. A small track that was contouring around the peak instead of climbing up to it. My legs stayed on the track. No matter what my brain said, I could not get my body to do what was clearly the smarter choice.

Brain: "We need to climb. This track may not be going to the right place."
Body: "This is flat. It may be going to the right place."
Brain: "It's getting dark, we don't have a choice, we have to climb and be sure."
Body: "If you make me climb now, I am going to kill you."
Brain: "I hear you, and I acknow..."
Body: "#!?$@ you."

We - my brain and body are separate entities now - contoured until we hit what looked like it might be a saddle! Or a spur. But maybe a saddle?

Brain: "I think that's a spur. Turn back and climb to the peak."
Body: "It might be the saddle!"
Brain: "I really think that's a spur. Stop so we don't go too far!"
Body: "Did you say Stop?!?! Done."

A quick check of the GPS coordinates confirmed that Brain was right. It was a spur. I was moments from darkness and instead of heading to the car I had circled around to a track that was heading downhill back to the valley. I'd gone out of my way at a bad time, but there was a silver lining: I was done with map and compass! In the uphill direction, this track is easily followed back over Ironpot mountain and leads directly to my car where a large bottle of sparkling water and two apples were sitting in a cooler. I was still going to be hiking out by headlamp in darkness, but at least I wouldn't need to navigate while I did it.

Other than startling a few kangaroos with my headlamp, I finished my hike with no other excitement.  I gleefully dumped the extra dirty water I'd packed out and drank a litre of cold sparkling mineral water. My plan for around 18-20km in a relatively leisurely 6-8hours, ended up as 29km in a much less relaxed 9.5 hrs.

Some things I learned.

1. Don't panic, even if you're panicking.
2. Exhaustion really does lead to bad decision-making.
3. Even when your brain is making good decisions, you need your body on the same team.
4. Always pack a jumper and rain jacket for warmth. No matter how nice the day is. Just in case.
5. A compass that allows you to fix the correction for declination and saves you having to do arithmetic is worth every extra penny.

In the end, I didn't need search and rescue (or worse). One day I'll head to Goolara Peak from the Tinpot Mountain side, and see what it looks like just for fun. Also I'm really happy to finally get a good shot of a goanna, so it was worth it.

And I discovered a neat "Make Your Own Gear" trick:

I made a tripod out of my
(adapted) poles and a stick