A new mixed route is added to the speckled history of winter climbing at Stacks Bluff, and not without a shitload of drama

As a kid living in Kuna, Idaho, I played in the snow a lot. After a big dump, my cousins and I would hold onto the rear bumper of my stepdad’s truck and he would tow us – skiing in our cowboy boots until we couldn’t hold on any longer. We called it hooky-bobbing. Kuna was the last time I had ever “played” in the snow and I’ve spent 13 years living in Australia avoiding the cold whenever possible. So last month when I found myself abseiling a frozen waterfall on the southern escarpment of Ben Lomond, I had to keep reminding myself that I really was in Australia and not back in Kuna. Thank god I wasn’t still wearing cowboy boots.

I was at Stacks Bluff to film the first ascent of an amazing frozen waterfall. Kim Ladiges – who with Nick Grant would climb it – had fixed the abseil line and was on his last rappel. I was waiting for him to get off the rope so I could rap down and start filming. So there I was slipping around on the ice wearing a ridiculous amount of clothing, my fingers and legs already numb. But as uncomfortable as I should have been, the experience was so alien and exciting that I never noticed how much the conditions sucked. I had never seen a frozen waterfall before and it was absolutely gorgeous. Looking closer, I could see a little trickle of water deep behind the ice and I was wondering if the whole thing would just melt off and detach with Kim still on it screaming on the way down when I heard some actual yelling and a crash down below. I screamed out to the guys and got an unintelligible scream in return. Oh shit.

The crash was Kim hitting the ground after rapping off the end of the abseil line. He fell about seven metres onto the angled scree and rolled another 10m through scoparia. I rapped as far as I could and downclimbed the rest. Kim was not in bad shape, really. We assumed broken wrist and possibly ribs but the threat of a broken back loomed. He could not walk. It took about three minutes of discussion before I called 000.

The rescue was efficient. I sent GPS coordinates to the police and in between snow showers a helicopter dropped off a cop and paramedic. I also called local Garry Phillips who was climbing at Fingal, which is quite close by. Garry drove straight to Stacks Bluff with fellow climber Adam Bogus, the pair beating the police ground crew by several hours. Gaz and Adam were an immense help and together we were able to move Kim to a platform from where the helicopter could extract him just before sunset. The police are to be commended as well, especially the helicopter pilot who made the call to extract Kim with about 30 minutes of daylight left. Very tight and very professional. It is amazing that there are so many people waiting in the wings to sort us idiots out when we twat ourselves.

After thinking about the accident, I believe I never put a knot in the end of the rope because in my mind it was a 90m route and a 125m rope. The week before Kim had done a reconnaissance trip to suss out the top of the route, then rapped to the ground on the 125m static using the same abseil points, and then rope-soloed out. After summiting he hastily shoved the rope in a bag where it stayed so that when I got it, it was was a bit of a mess. I flaked the rope into my big haul bag not thinking to tie a knot in the end. What was not clear to me was the extra 30m of scrambling not detailed in the described route length that was part of the abseil. Kim also made one additional redirection near the bottom of the route to facilitate me videoing, which sucked up another few metres when factoring lost rope stretch. We may have been less efficient than Kim’s first mission and somehow used more rope for the three fixed rappel sections. All of this added up, but the sneaky factor is shrinkage. Yes, all guys have had shrinkage, but this particular type is a potential killer. Many climbers are unaware (and I count myself and everyone else I have spoken with among the ignorant) that ropes that are soaked and then dried will shrink five to ten per cent. Meaning Kim’s static rope had shrunk six or seven metres after drying out.

Not having a knot in the end of the rope was the big F up. There was no good reason for me to leave the knot off and Kim should have made sure it had a knot. Both Kim and I have done a lot of climbing over a lot of different terrain, but I was out of my depth winter climbing at Stacks Bluff. I was barely able to keep up with Kim and all my subconscious safety checks were pushed down into my lizard brain. My thoughts were, “I am on Pluto. This is not Australia. Where the fuck am I again?”, as we marched across the Ben Lomond plateau in a near blizzard. Accidents do happen to good climbers and Kim is a good climber. Lynn Hill fell lowering off a climb because she forgot to tie in, Dave MacLeod got lowered off the end of his rope, Todd Skinner, etc. All accidents provide an opportunity to learn something and in this case it is shrinkage.

The following week, after things had settled down, I had a really bad taste in my mouth. I hate getting shut down. Who doesn’t? Kim had been training like a machine and was three weeks away from a two-month trip to Kyrgyzstan. I don’t know many climbers that have Kim’s overall fitness. He would have had a great trip. This gnawed on me and regardless of his protestations I still felt a measure of responsibility for the accident. I kept checking the weather at Ben Lomond like playing with a bad tooth thinking of the upcoming weekend. It was all subzero days. No one to climb this one-of-a-kind waterfall. Kim injured and it was my fault. What a failure! But after dwelling and dwelling, I suddenly realised Owen Davis had moved down from Sydney to Hobart over the weekend. He had done some alpine stuff with Kim, been on first ascents in Alaska and Patagonia and was probably just as keen. A quick series of phone calls confirmed the route was probably in condition and that Kim wished Owen best of luck with it. So it was on again!

This time we drove in on Friday and slept in the car park. After an alpine start, I followed Nick (again) and Owen out to near the start of the route. The plan was to hike to the top so Owen could rap down the abandoned rope and suss the route out. Unfortunately for us, this was the day a ten-year record snowstorm hammered Tasmania. The weather on the Ben Lomond plateau was horrendous. At times zero visibility and over 70kph winds. We were getting blown around like paper toys. My big A5 haulbag kept threatening to balloon open and take me off the cliff like a frozen zeppelin. After several miserable hours inspecting every snow-choked gully for a fixed white rope, we gave up and scrambled back down the gully we had hiked up.

When we arrived at the base it was instantly clear the whole mission was doomed before it began – the abandoned abseil rope had frozen several inches into the waterfall. On top of that the cracks on the route were covered in a half inch of verglass, making protecting it near impossible. Owen briefly thought about going for the ground-up but decided against it. Back to Hobart.

The following days we obsessed over the weather. The forecast was good and getting better. Owen was psyched. Kim was frothing about the best conditions in ten years. Nick had to bail due to family commitments but fortunately Garry Phillips was in the loop. Garry is one of the most prolific and talented climbers in Tasmania. Being around as long he has, he was able to fill us in on some of the history of ice climbing at Ben Lomond. The origins are vague but probably started with an ascent somewhere in Stacks Bluff in 1978 by Mansfield and Penner. From 1984 onwards, Peter Booth with various partners, including Tony Mckenney and Bill Baxter, established much of the proper mixed climbing on the Ben. With Gary Khuen climbing most of the lines at the Knuckle from around 1994 and the odd activist such as Peter Steane and Roxanne Wells establishing routes with little written detail survivng. The history follows a pattern of long lulls between excited activity dictated by the interest of climbers more than conditions.

When we got up to Stacks Bluff the following weekend it was hard to distinguish the snow from the froth coming out of Gaz’s mouth. He was, as he always is, barely able to contain himself and yammering on like a madman. And this time, finally, we had a pearler of a day. Temps were crisp. All the puddles on the hike up were frozen solid and the ice was thick on the route. The boys ran up the gully and found the top of the route no worries. This time they brought a 100m rope courtesy of Climbing Anchors and had a good look at the route on the way down. A few hours later Owen and Gaz were at the top of the cliff having established what they reckon is one of the best mixed routes around. I was lucky enough to video the whole thing and that process was a sort of a hooky-bob from my Idaho youth. Trying to keep up with these ice-climber types as I found myself getting dragged along faster and faster but unable and unwilling to let go. Days later, after looking at the photos and video, it seems a strange and intriguing experience to have done none of the climbing but somehow to have been a part of it. It was an event that may have inspired me to become a professional observer.

John fischer