Video Choose 2005-07-07 (20109kb)

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Expedition Redemption

Mt. Kosciuszko, or Kozzie as the Australians like to call it, at 2229 meters tall marks the highest point on the otherwise relatively flat Australian continent, about halfway between Sydney and Melbourne, as part of the Snowy Mountains in the Great Dividing Range. Not withstanding Australia’s warm climate, the plateau surrounding Kosciuszko, incidentally also Australia’s alpine centre, can boast offering snow at least three months a year. A fact for which we are very thankful, as we sharpen our edges and strap on our skis. This expedition also saw the longest approach in the history of mountaineering, through 200 days of sailing, 20 000 nautical miles from Sweden to Australia, a two week detour to New Guinea and finally 6 000 kilometres of driving our faithful 4.2 litre ‘81 Ford Falcon from Darwin to Thredbo. The four days we eventually spent skiing in the area might seem trivial in comparison. For us, however, this is a bit of a moot point. We travel for travel’s sake. The great thing is to move.

We had two choices. One was reasonable well balanced and responsible. The other was not. After having sailed a 28 ft sailing yacht from Sweden to Australia, we now had 7 000 km of desert ahead of us. Almost a quarter of the way around the globe, in order to get from Darwin to the highest point in Australia. And we were going to drive. Alternative number one was a blue Volvo 240. A Swedish classic, well built, regularly serviced, driven by an old lady and a tool box and spare tire thrown in for free. A sensible choice. Blue. The other was a yellow Ford Falcon from the seventies. A monstrosity with poor suspension, thirsty 4.2l V6 engine and big wheels. Poor quality, covered in rust and burning oil to the point where it could probably be isolated as an individual cause of global warming. A stupid choice. We didn’t even have to discuss the matter. After a few minutes of haggling over the price, we drove out from the car park as proud owners of an American classic, stopped to buy spray on chrome for the rims, attached eye lids to the front and painted flames on the sides. Great minds think alike.

After 2 000 km, two dead kangaroos, one unfortunate canary bird, unspeakable amounts of coffee and 43 liters of diet coke we reached the natural center of the continent. Ayers Rock. Warming up for “Kozzie”, we decided on the unclimbed “East Face” instead of the traditional tourist route. As always it turned out to be a lot steeper than we had thought and the loose rock effectively persuaded us from placing any form of protection. When will we ever learn?

Through Adelaide we made our way to Melbourne picking up our good friend Emily on the way, increasing the morale, intelligence and good looks of our team. Our old class mate graced us with her presence during the road trip along “the Great Ocean Road”. Partly very beautiful. Partly very strange. “Build it and they will come” as Martin aptly put it, when we found ourselves looking at the “exquisite” world renowned Twelve Apostles, together with about 270 Japanese tourists. At first we couldn’t see it. Then we realizes that everyone seemed to be admiring eleven sorry excuses for wannabe Swedish “raukar” sitting pretty a few meters off the coastline. One had apparently just collapsed. The local tourism consultants had earned every last dollar. A typical road sign would read: “Famous Tree” (a tree some local hero had once tied a horse to); “Historical Building” (anything build before 1973); “War Monument” (Soviet inspired concrete monument with engraved names of the town’s soldiers that failed to come back from Turkey, Europe, the Pacific, Korea or Vietnam). Tragic. There’s one in every single village.

Two weeks later, the car was still rolling, albeit with a run down engine (will all of four cylinders still firing), broken door handles (yes, all four of them), enormous oil and coolant consumption, front breaks gone, an ignition consisting of two naked starter cables drawn through the dashboard and blue smoke bellowing out of the exhaust pipe. Feeling good about ourselves we cruised into Thredbo, Australia’s alpine centre.

I once had dinner at one of Stockholm’s better restaurants dressed in a wetsuit. Parking our wreck of a car in central Thredbo, I only felt slightly less “malplacé”. The town is very much upmarket, and the people who frequent its blue slopes are more likely to be wearing designer one-piece ski wear from Italy than anything having ever even been seen in the same store as gore-tex or some other functional garment. Wearing not only that but also carrying camping gear, ice tools, climbing gear and crampons we could not have aroused more suspicion had we walked through town with no pants.

Those of you who have visited the Snowy Mountains in general and Mt. Kosciuszko in particular might wonder why we would bring technical climbing gear when the mountain, even in winter, offers no technical difficulties what so ever, whichever side you choose climb it from. Rumour had it however that the continent’s only ice climbing was nearby at Blue Lake, and having brought the rack halfway around the world we were not to be denied. In the end we spent three wonderful days climbing, skiing and touring around Australia’s entire alpine region.

But first we had a mountain to climb. The weather had as always chosen to conspire against us. It was windy, cloudy, snowing and a dense white out had laid siege to the area. And as always we didn’t have time to wait things out. Emily was due back in Sydney in a day’s time. We thus headed off uphill guided not so much by our eyes as by our best guesses and “fingerspitzgefühl”. After a few hours and some more or less optimistic route finding the slope finally flattened out and a small monument appeared out of the clouds. We’d reached the top of Australia.

Olof and Martin ski down while Emily does something utterly unique, in becoming the first person to ever ski down from the summit on an avalanche shovel. Her will is as strong as the friction and when the gradient dissipates she gets additional help from Martin. We reach the bottom of the valley minutes before nightfall. The expedition is a success. We’ve climbed and skied the fourth of the seven summits.