HARD AS ICE

The thing about being up so high on Taranaki Mounga is that it’s very difficult to have a decent rest break. No matter how comfortable you try to make yourself, the gradient means anything not nailed to the mountain will simply slide off, including you.

You don’t sit so much as lean into the mountain. In doing so you’re able to – with some difficulty and care – extract the essentials from your pack. In my case, this was a two-way radio.

My mission was the summit, but to get there would mean leaving the relatively stable footing of loose rock (and I do mean relatively) and traversing an expanse of ice guarding the entrance to the crater. I had to make a decision: cross the ice and risk slipping and becoming a statistic (more than 80 people have died on the mountain, making it New Zealand’s second most deadly after Aoraki/Mt Cook) or turn around and climb back down to the safety of Syme Hut. I decided swiftly, perhaps too swiftly, and radioed my intentions down below.

A small