Rocking Cradle 3: Bone Clocks

Lying down above Crater Lake, I am wishing that time would stand still. Of course it’s a forlorn hope. Bushwalking might have some ability to bend the fundamental laws of time and space, but in the end even the bushwalker must admit to being just another member of the human race.

[Cradle Mt from Marions Lookout: Who would want to leave this?] 

I’ve been reminded of this all day by the clicking of my left knee, ticking with every stride like a bone clock*. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s a little disconcerting, not only because it tells me all isn’t well with that part of me, but also because it’s a reminder of my mortality per se.

In this mood, I have the sudden desire to prolong my exposure to the plateau’s white wonders; to turn around and go further into the mountains; even to walk the whole 65km Overland Track. But winter days are short, and nights at 1400m in snow, without a tent and food and a sleeping bag, are not advisable. A keenness to prolong my mortal life wins out.

[Merran tests an ice-covered pool near Cradle Mt] 

To break the spell I simply stand up, and suggest it’s time we headed down. Yet even then we make as if we’re just wandering over to Marions Lookout; simply taking a few more photos; only moseying down a little to “see what we can see”, even though we all know we’re on our way back to the hut.

Fortunately the steepness of the descent focusses the mind, and the stunning views of Crater Lake keep the beauty levels topped up. Still, we’re back on the “main drag” now. It’s both part of the Overland Track, and one of the key day walks for short-term visitors. We start meeting other walkers for the first time all day, and the contrast is jarring.

[On the descent from Marions Lookout to Crater Lake] 

Some are dressed for a stroll through an urban picnic ground. One young woman is crunching through snow in high heels, with matching fashion dress and hand bag. More sensibly, one of her companions is wearing a day-pack. But as he approaches we hear loud music coming from a device hidden in the pack.

Yes, we’re undoubtedly in the transition zone between the wild and the tamed. But we’re in the mood to keep celebrating the wild. We slide and shoe-ski down some of the snowier sections, sharing a laugh with groups struggling their slippery way up the same icy sections.

[Buttongrass through snow near Ronny Creek] 

We keep up the celebratory mood back in the hut, with shared food and wine, and animated discussion about everything from pilgrimages to cuisine. And when Tim reads us some of Michael Ende’s rather chilling novel “Momo”, we exchange thoughts on how we use time. We wonder at the metaphors we use, such as spending time and saving time.

I read later that Norway’s then Prime Minister, Thorbjorn Jagland, referred to “Momo” in his 1997 New Year’s speech. He reflected that to many people, time had become the scarcest resource of all. In the story, he reminds us:

People are persuaded to save time by eliminating everything not useful. One of the people … cuts out his girlfriend, sells his pet, stops singing, reading and visiting friends. In this way he will supposedly become an efficient man getting something out of life. What is strange is that he is in a greater hurry than ever. The saved-up time disappears - and he never sees it again.

We drift off to sleep with deep timey-wimey thoughts going through our minds. And in the morning, it seems we’re unhurried as we prepare to go our separate ways. Tim and Merran have more time to spend on the plateau, while Lynne and I will have some time with our daughter and family in Launceston.

[Tim and Merran departing the hut] 

Whatever we’re planning, our stay at Cradle has been a good reminder that hurrying won’t slow the passage of time. Yet somehow being deliberate, being present to others and to the moments we share with them, noticing and celebrating wonder, opening ourselves to silliness and the wasting of time: those ARE things that seem capable of changing the flow of time.

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* The title of David Mitchell’s 2014 novel “The Bone Clocks”, derives from the contemptuous name given to mere mortals by some of the book’s immortal characters.

Just Add Snow: Part 2

Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness. 

- Mary Oliver

Ah, snow and imagination! Such powerful and persistent allies, even in the face of our actual experience of snow’s discomforts and dangers.

[Fiercely beautiful: summer snow in the Swiss Alps] 

We are traversing a little-walked route at the back of the Cradle Plateau. We are defying a “woolly” weather forecast, which has now taken a turn for the worse. Just after our point-of-no-return we enter a snowy, whooshing white-out.

The snow presents us with two problems. One is way finding, as our route has become disguised and there are no snow poles. We walk on into the white anyway: a little apprehensive, but keen to try ourselves out.

[The point-of-no-return? Heading into snow on the Cradle Plateau.] 

Snow’s second problem soon arises, and that is movement per se. Post-holing isn’t something most walkers in Tasmania get to practise. We usually only have brief skirmishes with snow, and its odd amnesiac properties wipe former difficulties from our memory. Right now we have to re-learn what an apt term post-holing is for what happens when you to try to cross fresh, soft snow.

We’ve started with visions of softly traversing the snow’s surface a la Legolas the elf. This is punctured as quickly as the snow, as first one leg then the other sinks thigh-deep into the snow. Only with a shuddering and inelegant heave do we extricate a back leg, scissor it up and across our front leg, and then plunge into a new hole.

We do this over and over again, wondering why we thought walking in snow would be fun. Even breathing is a challenge, as snow lashes our faces and the cold wind swipes the air from us. After a relatively short amount of this energy-sapping exercise we are exhausted, even a little demoralised. A little voice tells me it’d be wise to lurk behind the lead walker and use his steps as mine. But it’s a variety of slipstreaming that is usually noticed by the leader. It will soon end with one or other of them “allowing” me my turn; if my pride doesn’t make me take it first.

[Back on track: the Horse Track, Cradle Mountain] 

That day on the Cradle Plateau was only a brief taste of hard snow walking. We soon found the better marked Horse Track and dropped down out of the worst of the snow, and back to a warm hut.

And now, despite all that I have just written about the difficulties of those few hours, I look back on that day with overwhelming fondness. In asking myself why, I have begun to think that there’s something deeper at work than just the aesthetics, the prettiness, of snow.

As I write this I am looking out on a snowy kunanyi/Mt Wellington. It is cold here at 200m, but up there it is way below zero, and winds of 40kmh are blowing from the south-west. The snow up there is deadly as well as beautiful. And perhaps those two sides of snow have always been deeply embedded within us.

There is a fierce beauty to snow. It can kill, but it can uplift: like death, like love. Was that what Danish writer Peter Hoeg was getting at in Miss Smilla’s Feeling For Snow when he wrote these words?

Maybe falling in love, the piercing knowledge that we ourselves will someday die, and the love of snow are in reality not some sudden events; maybe they were always present.

A Rite of Spring

When you live on an island that straddles the Roaring Forties, you know that spring weather is going to be “interesting”.

There are complex meteorological reasons for this, but let’s simplify. When the huge land mass to our north is warming far faster than the vast oceans that totally surround us, that differential is going to mean volatile weather. At the whim of those two geographical bullies, our spring isobars tighten, as though tensing themselves for a pounding from the wind, snow, rain and sun.

[Good weather for sitting by the hut fire] 

And so it proved again for this year’s Show Day weekend. With cold fronts and cloud bands lining up for their turn, we wisely included a hut in our “boys’” Cradle Mountain bushwalking plans. It’s not that we object to a bit of whooshing weather; we know it helps make the place what it is. It’s more that we enjoy retreating to a hut after we’ve braved those elements: somewhere to warm up, dry off, sag down, have a few drinks. The perfect setting to remind ourselves how courageous and adventurous we’ve been going into the mountains in such conditions!

That was the theory at least, and it fed our email banter in the days before the trip. As we drove into Cradle Valley it was snowing and blowing, and the short walk to the hut was through six inch deep snow. But we dismissed the scene as merely “atmospheric”, especially when the wood heater was cranked up, and the first wine and cheese were liberated.

Ah but there’s always cabin fever. Reading, eating, snoozing, talking are all very well, but they need to be broken up by a little physical activity. And somehow the “12 Minute Indoor Physical Fitness” program that Tim O had thoughtfully printed out for us was never going to be a total success. No … come Saturday we were well and truly ready for some actual bushwalking.

When the weather was looking vaguely less threatening, Tim D suggested a 2 to 2 1/2 hour walk via some seldom-walked tracks and routes that he knew. With naïve trust in our friend, and a “what-could-possibly-go-wrong?” attitude, we kitted up and headed off.

[What lay ahead for us on the Cradle Plateau] 

The plan was to climb up to Cradle Plateau gradually – a kind of long sneak attack by way of Riggs Pass – before looping back towards the hut via the Horse Track. We’d be back for lunch.

Two hours later the fun really began – and we weren’t even on the plateau yet. We’d left a well-marked but unmaintained track and joined an occasionally-marked but overgrown route. As we climbed higher, tripping and slipping through ankle-tapping scrub, the weather wavered a little. Was it going to offer us some views or would the rain and snow grow worse? Frankly we expected both.

We weren’t disappointed, although it wasn’t until we reached the highest parts that the snow and wind really kicked in. Horizontal snow and sleet lashed us, biting into the exposed parts of our faces, relenting only when we found rock outcrops to shelter behind. Yet any stop quickly chilled us, regardless of the quality of our wet/cold weather gear.

[A chilly stop on the Cradle Plateau] 

We walked on, despite the Antarctic conditions, finally cresting the plateau. Visibility was poor, route markers very sparse. Tim D tried to look confident – and occasionally failed – as he searched for the cryptic route. It should be intersecting with the Horse Track, a well-marked alternative section of the highway-like Overland Track, somewhere up ahead.

Nearly four hours after starting our walk, we at last spotted the markers of the Horse Track. A couple of us whooped; Tim D looked relieved. A surprisingly high cornice of snow separated us from the track, so in a close simulation of youthful exuberance, we body-tobogganed our way down to the track.

[The Horse Track at last, with Crater Peak behind] 

An hour later we were back in our warm hut and pouring some wine. But then, as if to make us question what the fuss and fear had been about, two things happened simultaneously. The sun shone, and a wedding party turned up at our hut for a photo shoot. All dressed in the usual gear, they had made only one concession to the conditions. The bride wore floral gumboots. Ah spring!

[And the bride wore gumboots!]