Not Alan’s Diary: ‘How deep do you reckon that is?’ – Exercise 24 January 2010
Only the stretcher stopped Adi falling even deeper into the snow
Dave surveys the kit
What could be lovelier than waking up at 7am for a day out in the hills? Well there’s always waking up at 7am for the team’s Sunday exercise of course. ‘Very good visibility’ the forecast cheerily promised and then added ‘but briefly poor in snow’. Hmmm.
Today’s exercise was a search exercise. The scenario was that two trainee mountain leaders and their instructor had had a mishap on Kinder and had managed to relay a partial grid reference before their mobile signal was lost. There were thirteen of us going on the hill and we were divided into three search parties. I was in Kinder Three and we were given the task of taking up the heavy equipment with us. So for the uninitiated that is: full winter hill kit each, party kit (tent, sleeping bag, mat, party leader kit), cas bag (a really big waterproof sleeping bag ) and the stretcher. We were to take this up the Three Knolls path which proved to be somewhat snowier than anticipated back at base. It took us two hours to trudge up to Redbrook carefully crossing huge swathes of snow which would give way beneath us from time to time. The sight of another team member with a leg sunk in snow gave rise to responses of laughter, mockery and assistance. In that order. At Redbrook we stopped for some butties. Adi who had carried half the stretcher all the way up and (who would seem to strangely enjoy hauling it about for the rest of the day) revealed his passion for Spam. Dave raised the tone with some ciabatta. These culinary delights were interrupted with the news of a possible location for the casualties.
Steve on the Three Knolls
The grid reference we’d been given was located in the plateau towards the Northern Edges. Given how hard the going way up to Redbrook, when asked by Kinder Base to give an estimated time of arrival at the case site, we concluded that it would take us at least an hour and forty-five minutes. So we trudged on, meeting Kinder Two at the Downfall. They’d been asked to assist us with carrying the heavy equipment to the (now confirmed) casualty location.
Mike trying to get a clear radio signal
From the Downfall, our route took us across the plateau. The labyrinthine groughs of Kinder were filled with snow occasioning another round of ‘How deep do you reckon that is?’ I was thinking about how much I love being on Kinder when it is like this – snow twisting round peat hags, the wilderness eerie beautiful in the half-light of a sleet shower – and then fell up to my hips in the snow. That’ll teach me.
Luckily I was wearing fluorescent yellow waterproof gloves which were seen by Kinder One from across the plateau (and possibly from space) and we quickly met up with them and the casualties. As it was getting rather late in the afternoon, the decision was made to pack up and head for Sandy Heyes, via the Sandy Heyes trig point. Again intermittent snow patches on Sandy Heyes made the going difficult especially for those carrying heavy equipment.
An hour or so later, we were all back at base enjoying a hot cup of tea. This exercise demonstrated how time-consuming it can be to take heavy gear up onto the plateau through deep snow and ice. The poor visibility coupled with snowfall giving new contours to familiar features means that its easy to get disorientated and once on the plateau, the barriers of deep snow in steep-sided groughs force you to take circuitous routes, away from the direction you want to go in which can tire you out very quickly. But this is Kinder at it’s wildest, and its best.
AJ (Kinder Alan is away)
