Mount Indefatigable

Mount Indefatigable (north to south summit traverse) – July 4, 2005

Mountain height:                          2,670 m (8,758 ft)
Elevation gain:                             1,000 m
Ascent time to north summit:     2:15
Traverse time to south summit: 0:35
Descent time:                              1:05

Scrambling with Kevin.

The ultimate mountain “dufus” strikes again! No, I didn’t upclimb something I couldn’t downclimb, or get stranded on an exposed ledge, or pull the wrong end of the rappel rope, or make a horrendous navigational error that put us on the wrong mountain, or do an involuntary glissade while trying to shortcut down a mountain in the middle of winter by myself….let’s just say that if the folks who make bear-spray ever need a testimonial for the effectiveness of the spray on humans, I will certainly be qualified to give one!

This was a planned trip to summit Mount James Walker. About 3 km along the trail we heard some rustling in the bushes and I immediately took the bear-spray off my belt and removed the safety catch. We continued hiking and although the rustling stopped, I neglected to place the safety catch back on. Shortly after, while crawling under a fallen tree, I accidentally hit the trigger and released a full load of pepper-spray near my face. Fortunately, the blast did not hit me square on, as from point-blank range, it would have wreaked havoc on my eyes. At first I just coughed a little and thought “that wasn’t too bad”. However, within a couple of minutes, my entire face started to burn unimaginably. It was if my head had been doused with kerosene and set on fire – most painful. Minutes later, it started to affect my eyes, as my vision blurred and I became disoriented and dizzy. I really started to panic at this point thinking I would suffer permanent eye damage. Thankfully, Kevin was there to calm me down and help me clean off the remaining spray in a nearby stream.

After 10 or so minutes, the pain had not subsided and my vision continued to go in and out of focus. I believed that I needed medical treatment right away and so we picked our stuff and started back. I actually had to hold Kevin’s hand for a short distance, as I couldn’t see the ground below. As we slowly hiked back, my vision started to improve and within 30 minutes all vision problems had cleared up. My face continued to burn, but I could tolerate that. Again, Kevin was a godsend and even when I suggested we turn around again to try James Walker, he insisted we return to the car to make sure I was okay first.

Back at the car, I was feeling much better and after some debate we decided to try the north and slightly higher summit of Mount Indefatigable. I had already done the south peak and Kevin had completed neither, so this was a good choice for us both. As soon as I started hiking again, the pain returned to my face – I imagine it had something to do with sweating and heat. Fortunately, there were no vision issues and so we pressed on at a pretty good pace to the outlier east of the north peak. At the higher elevations, the air temperature was significantly cooler and again my face stopped burning.

The ascent from the outlier col to the north summit was quite easy and short. We topped out at the summit with a very respectable ascent time of 2:15. Not too bad, considering 3 hours earlier I thought I’d be on my way to a hospital.

The traverse to the south summit was definitely the most enjoyable part of the trip, combining easy hiking with several sections of fairly exposed ridgewalking/crawling. We hoped that the completely overcast skies would clear a little, giving us the spectacular views of Joffre and King George that would be granted on a clear day, but the cloud ceiling remained at about 3,000 metres.

After a short break on the south summit, we followed a large, grassy gully down, to eventually meet up with the popular trail that returned us quickly to the parking lot. Again, considering the earlier events of the day, we were both quite happy, not only to have hit all three major peaks of the mountain (outlier, north and south summits), but to have completed the trip in under 4 hours. Maybe I should pepper-spray myself in the face more often????

P.S. Thanks for getting me through that Kevin – you’re The Man!