Add Category
Updated
Climbing team leader Andy Szollosi knows the meaning of the phrase "a logistical nightmare".
He led the team that put the first climbers up the north-west face of Federation Peak in south-west Tasmania in winter via the notorious Blade Ridge, in the depth of Tasmania's wettest winter, in 2016.
Less-dangerous routes in better conditions have ended with injuries and even deaths.
A nurse fell about 50 metres to her death while attempting to summit Federation Peak in March 2016.
Mountaineering legend has it that Sir Edmund Hillary declared Federation Peak as Australia's only real mountain.
And the Blade Ridge is one of the hardest routes up to the north-west face, and never successfully climbed until 1968, and that was in the summer.
The winter in which this attempt was being made found Tasmania treading water as the state recorded its highest-recorded rainfall ever.
As well as getting the climbing team together and leading it, Andy also had to get supplies and equipment in place to make sure the achievement was recorded by camera and drone for a now-completed documentary.
It was so wet, the vision shot for the documentary Winter on the Blade shows little evidence of the snow that usually settles heavily in the area in June and July. The snow had been washed away.
One of the two team members marked to actually do the ridge climb was Mark Savage, who had failed previously in winter 24 years ago, and gave this bid a 1 per cent chance of success.
He and Mickolas Wright took 12 hours to reach the summit.
The bid to be first in winter by this route involved sending in the seven-member climbing team with volunteers on a five-day provisioning trip in April 2016, to take in 120 kilograms of food, fuel, climbing gear and some camera supplies.
The supplies were dumped in bushland along a track of sorts to the base of the peak, in good weather conditions.
"There were 12 of us all up. The objective was to carry in the 120kg of provisions and stash it at the base of what is Federation Peak," Andy said.
"That included enough food for seven people for about two weeks, packed so it would keep for a couple of months up to the expedition.
"We had about 10 litres of fuel to do all the cooking while we there."
Filmmaker Simon Bischoff took the opportunity to move in some of his gear too in that provisioning phase.
"We took a large tripod, and we also had 200 metres of static rope, enough climbing gear for two parties, and that climbing gear was used to rappel down the north-west face to film Mark Savage and Mick Wright climbing it," he said.
"We had to carry in these big, plastic 70-litre tubs to store the food in, because the rodents would chew through any kind bags.
"The tubs were tied to the outside of one of the volunteer's backpacks, and his nickname became 'turtle'.
"There are fallen-down logs, you are not walking, you are crawling more than walking, through this entwined, viny mass, and the fact that he didn't get those tubs cracked for us is pretty remarkable."
Simon said the tubs were sealed with duct tape to keep out the weather and the rats, just for a start.
"You can get these dead-dog bags from the vet - that's what they call them - so I think we got the 'German Shepherd' size, and we duct-taped those as well, and inside those were individually sealed dehydrated meals that were prepared for the trip," he said.
Two months after the equipment drop, Andy assembled his team for the ascent for the 17-day expedition.
The expedition was due to leave on June 22, the day after winter solstice, but the departure was delayed for two days as the rain bucketed down.
"We left on June 24, and there was no break in the weather in sight, and our weatherman Nigel questioned with great reason why were we going there in the first place," Andy said.
The walk is not long. It can take two days.
"The thing that makes it exceptionally difficult is the weight you carry ... as soon as you get into the 30kg range, it becomes absolutely crippling walking there, crawling, staggering," Simon said.
"The rain was persistent and it barely stopped, in fact I don't recall it not raining."
The expeditioners were constantly rubbing up against vegetation, and dealing with the water, the damp, the cold and leaches.
One of the many leaches crawling over the team managed to attach itself to Andy's gum.
Simon said the "tent was basically a bathtub" and he emptied litres of water out of it everyday.
Not all of the food made it into stomachs. Simon had to protect the camera gear from the rain and humidity, with most of the gear malfunctioning, including lenses and the LCD screens.
"Everyday I'd sit in the tent and dismantle everything, all the camera gear, and store it individually in the rice bags, I just commandeered all the rice from all of our rice meals," Simon said.
"We would sleep holding those bags to put a bit of warmth in there, and try to dry [the gear] out.
"It was exceptionally frustrating."
Both climbers said it was a very special feeling to be provisioned to stay out in the state's south-west despite the conditions, and had even discussed whether they would accept an offer of a helicopter to do some shooting if it came through, rather than enjoy the isolation and instead rely on the drone.
"You never know what you are going to get in the south-west, it was a rare opportunity to be out there. You get what you get and you just have to accept it," Andy said.
Once set up in the rain, the team marked out the route in a reconnaissance trip from the bottom of the north-west face, and the film crew headed up the kinder route used by bushwalkers, to set up filming.
"On the day it was simple; two people go to the bottom of the blade, and they climb up. It took them 12 hours," Andy said.
Simon has completed the editing of the 45-minute documentary of the ascent, and will enter Winter on the Blade in the BANFF world media festival awards, with plans to show it in September in cinemas.
The project is looking for crowd funding support.
Topics: documentary, community-and-society, tas, geeveston-7116
First posted