Club nights are at Turnbull House, on the first unimpeded Monday of every month. New and prospective members are welcome. Meet for dinner at the Backbencher public bar at 6.30 and on to Turnbull House at 7.30 pm for a catch up. Meetings and talks start at 8.00 pm with club business and tea and coffee afterwards.

Terry Crippen on Whanaoko

Climbing Gardeners

Whanokao Peak (Raukumara Range) otherwise known as Honokawa, was recently climbed by Palmerston North gardeners Terry Crippen, Tony Gates, Peter Van Essen, and Craig Allerby. This peak, at 1618 metres, is a bulky neighbour of the more well known Hikurangi Peak, and is very seldom climbed. We thought it was the most northerly and easterly area of alpine vegetation in New Zealand (and there was certainly plenty of sub alpine scrub- hence the gardening). However, peak Raukumara, at 1413 metres, is a fraction further north and east. This Whanokao Peak has numerous very steep rocky outcrops much like the Tararua Peaks, or Sawtooth Ridge (Ruahines). Vast areas of the Raukumara and East cape Wilderness were clearly visible from Whanokao.

Tony Gates
LEATHERWOOD LENZ
New Zealand Wilderness Photography

Lost Glove

Lost between Delta Ridge Hut, Mt Ruapehu, and Whakapapa car park on Monday 31/10/05
1 Colombia "Titanium" glove - blue, grey and black.
Please contact Gus Hazel on 021 738 212 or via gus.hazel@baldwins.com

More fun on Brewster

I am going on a second trip to Brewster Glacier in February for my masters thesis on its drainage system, for the whole month, and again I need help from experienced people so that I'm not there on my own at all.

I do not have much alpine experience at all and am looking for experienced people to join me for some of the time, just out of interest, or fun, or the goodness of their hearts! Maybe someone might be interested in experiencing scientific field work and/or who are planning to be in the mountains down there around that time anyway ...

If you're interested, please contact me. My telephone numbers are 04 463-9463 (work) and 04 385-4171 (home), and my email address is winteralex@student.vuw.ac.nz.

Thanks, Alex Winter-Billington

NZAC PAKISTAN EARTHQUAKE APPEAL

Wellington Section Donation

At the November 2005 CCM last weekend the NZAC agreed to set up a fund to help mountain communities in Pakistan who are affected by the recent earthquakes. Since the meeting, Judy Reid, NZAC President, has been in touch with Bob McKerrow, an NZAC member who is coordinating relief work in Pakistan. The extract below from his diary shows just how bad the situation is there. An appeal was also received from the Pakistan Alpine Club, this is on the website, under 'Current News'..

The Wellington Section is donating the door takings from the November and December 2005 Section Nights towards this appeal, all funds will be coordinated through the National Office. If you would like to make a donation please do so at the door in December or through the Section or National Office.

From Bob McKerrow's diary

"Here is a small note from my diary on 22 Oct which will give you a feel of the devastation.
Entered Balakot Valley. Saw landslide scars on the steep valley walls. Road blocked by landslide triggered by the 8 a.m. aftershock
It is the valley of death.
I'm in the middle of Balakot. The whole city is flattened. Three story building crushed like an elephant stepping on a beer can. Cracks you could trap you foot in, splinter across the road. Standing on a school building that 1200 children were in. 500 escaped. 700 decomposing bodies join thousands of others and the stench of death is pungent. People wear face masks. An old man with a hena-dyed beard tightly holds a red handkerchief over his nose and mouth to keep out the smell.

Children sit lifelessly under the sky. I spoke to one man who said he was the only survivor out of a family of five. Other men chimed in saying, " many people here are the only survivor from their families." Children are orphaned. Many people still digging in collapsed building know that if the are lucky enough, they will find the body of love ones. No one can be alive now. Virtually every building in the valley has been flattened. Occasional you come across a one story building looking cracked, but in tact. Then you realize it is the top floor of a 3 or 4 storied building, sitting at street level. It is eerie. I look to the hills or better, mountainsides, and they are littered with houses that have toppled from their perches. Before they were so beautiful, now dangerous as the slides of rock and mud have engulfed villages and blocked roads, tracks and river valleys.

Visited Spanish Red Cross Emergency health ERU, PRCS/Malaysian Red Cross clinic, then up the hill to where the Swedes and the Austrians are setting up a mass-water unit. The work they are doing is impressive. But like me, had difficulty breathing in the stench of death."

NZAC Wellington Committee

Waikato Rock News

For details on new route development, and routes and crags that are not in the most common North Island guides, visit www.freeclimb.co.nz. Crags featured here include
Maungaotaki, Waitomo, and Piarere Rock.

Quiz Number 22

Inspired by an August weekend in California, Nigel Roberts noted that Josiah Whitney, a former director of the California State Geological Survey and the man after whom Mt Whitney was named, once famously called someone "an ignoramus" and "mere sheepherder." Nigel's 22nd quiz question was who was that someone, and why did Whitney disagree with him?

The answer is that Josiah Whitney called John Muir "an ignoramus” and "a mere shepherder" because they disagreed about the geology of Yosemite. Whitney thought that the valley had been created by a catyclismic earthquake. Muir thought the cause was glaciation, and was largely correct.

Seven correct answers were submitted, and Pete de Joux -- back from Antarctica -- had the honour of randomly drawing one. The lucky winner was our over-worked Deputy-Chairperson, Garth London, who won a bottle of white wine.

Quiz Number 23

Chairperson Nigel Roberts pointed out that the original Monopoly board game was set in New Jersey and that its red properties were Kentucky Avenue, Indiana Avenue, and Illinois Avenue. The Monopoly set most of us probably grew up with was based in London and its red properties are Trafalgar Square, Fleet Street, and the Strand.

Quiz number 23 wants to know what are the red properties on the Mountaineering Monopoly board?

Email your answers by no later than 12 noon on Sunday, 4 December 2005, to <NR@nzalpine.wellington.net.nz>. Be sure to include the words QUIZ NUMBER 23 in the subject line or else your email will probably destroyed as spam. The first correct entry drawn at the 5 December meeting will win a bottle of (appropriately) red wine.

National Climbing Camp 2006

This is a reminder: register for the camp prior to the 1st December; you will save a few $.

We have a fantastic camp site this year about 1.5km up the Rees Valley from the road end. The camp runs from 31Dec 2005 until 7 Jan 2006. The camp is a great opportunity for climbers young and old and their families to gather in the mountains to climb, tramp and have fun. You get to celebrate New Years Eve in the hills with fellow mountain lovers which is a great way to start the year.

The fee for NZAC members attending the camp is $40 for an individual and $60 for a family. A family consists of a couple and all their children under 18 years old. Non members can attend the camp if they are friends of a member attending the camp, but will be required to pay an additional $20. Members of overseas Climbing Clubs can attend at member rates. Late registrations after the 1st of Dec will cost an additional $10.

Further information and a registration form can be obtained from the NZAC web site www.alpineclub.org.nz or you can get it posted to you by contacting the NZAC Office at ph (03) 3777598 during normal business hours.

Wellington Section Trips

Trips are a key part of the section, so if anyone has an idea about a trip, no matter how vague, come and chat to Merewyn Ellis (trips @nzalpine.wellington.net.nz). Trips can be of any length, any level of difficulty, and any size. Simply email us, or approach us at the monthly meeting, and we can help you get going.

Rope Failure

The following is an extract from a document produced by Mark Sedon, a renowned alpine guide based in wanaka. The entire document can be found at : http://www.verticalresources.org/ in the “downloads” section.

The fear of rope failure comes from the time when hemp ropes were used, until the end of the fifties. If hemp ropes were wet and later dried, they dried only at the surface. Because of the capillary effect, the dampness stayed for a long time in the rope, and because hemp is a natural product, the hemp rotted. At that time it was possible to tear a used 15 mm rope by hand force.
Our ropes nowadays, are much stronger than we believe (more correctly: our ropes have higher energy absorbing capacity). Within the last 19 years there were only two rope failures amongst German and Austrian mountaineers and climbers, which can’t be associated with misuse or damaged ropes. The damaged ropes were due to contaminants such as acid.

One reason why rope failures have reduced in Austria and Germany is because since 1983 climbers used twin ropes more and more. Twin ropes have an energy absorbing capacity over sharp edges which is, depending on the sharpness of the edge, up to double that of a normal single rope. All rope failures happened with single ropes and in the alps while alpineclimbing. But, there were another eight rope failures since 1983 not included. The causes were either a misuse of the rope or the rope was already damaged by some kind of polyamide contaminant, such as acid. Five fatalities were due to using a half rope or a twin rope in a single strand and the others were due to rope contamination.

All rope failures since 1979 were because of a sharp rock edge, nothing else. He [Pit Schubert-President UIAA Safety Commission -Ed] also damaged one third of the cross section of a single climbing rope, as
if it had been cut by rock fall, and sent it to a UIAA-approved test laboratory. The result: The rope withstood 8 falls. Then he loaded one test sample of a such damaged rope on a static load test machine as shown. The breaking strength was 15 kN. When abseiling there is only a load of about 2 kN.

When a rope is saturated, core-sheath lubrication is greatly increased and the rope can over-stretch, beyond the point of no return. Water also dramatically weakens nylon, and if it’s refrozen the situation is worsened because the ice crystals have a ‘slicing’ effect during a fall. A rope immersed in sea water and dried out is also in a similar dangerous state.

Thanks to Mark Sedon for giving the permission to reproduce some of his document.

Michele Domaneschi
Editor