Ontour lines warn you of dangerous cliffs.

ONTOUR LINES WARN YOU OF DANGEROUS CLIFFS. PATCH
ONTOUR LINES WARN YOU OF DANGEROUS CLIFFS. SERIES
ONTOUR LINES WARN YOU OF DANGEROUS CLIFFS. CRACK

Jason's pinned boat, right before we decided to exit the river. It was nearly an hour before we were reunited and following faint goat tracks along the steep left side of the gorge. Neville and I deflated and packed up the boats while Jason fought his way along the right bank, looking for an opportunity to cross and finally finding it in a hefty log strainer bridging a narrow chute between boulders. Scouting would eat up lots of time and it looked as if providing safety with only three of us would be difficult or impossible. We were now on opposite sides of a nasty-looking river with undercut boulders, strainers and continuous rapids. I ran the drop where Jason began his swim, eddied out left and joined Neville. Neville, having stopped to warn of some dangerous rock sieves downstream, waited below. After a brutal 30 metre swim, Jason managed to climb out on some rocks in the middle of the river and escape to the right bank of the gorge. One of the blades of his five hundred dollar paddle had snapped in half but otherwise the equipment was intact. Bringing up the rear, I caught an eddy just upstream of his raft, freeing it after a few minutes. After a few desperate moments he managed to release the velcro of his spray skirt and get out of the boat, taking a beating on his way downriver.

The force of the water piling into his now vertical boat pinned it between the boulder and his paddle, rendering it immovable.

ONTOUR LINES WARN YOU OF DANGEROUS CLIFFS. CRACK

Pushed into a boulder at the top of a metre drop, he braced right, unknowingly jamming his paddle into a crack between submerged rocks. We successfully negotiated several short, technical rapids before Jason ended our lucky streak. Neville, on the other hand, showed no signs of nervousness and charged ahead. It was pushier now and I was tense as we headed into the beginning of a gorge extending more than five kilometres. The river had risen noticeably throughout the afternoon, but the water was still running clear. At NevilleвЂ™s insistence we pressed on, even though the next hut would be out of reach in daylight if we had to do any significant portaging. We took shelter briefly in the dry half of the hut and considered our options. According to Graham Charles, we were 14 kilometres and four hours from the lake, with the crux gorge still ahead. Although weвЂ™d been on the move for nearly 10 hours, we were only now at the start of the river section as described in the guidebook. We were cold, getting tired, and still had a long way to go. We stopped after a couple of hours at a dilapidated hut made of corrugated metal and perched behind a house-sized chunk of rock right at the rivers edge. Neville - a proficient kayaker - was in his element and led the way, picking good lines through the rocks and successfully avoiding most of the shallows. A few class III boulder gardens made things interesting, as did the strong headwind and stinging hail. The next 10 kilometres were pretty mellow mainly class I and II white-water. In half an hour weвЂ™d blown up our boats, repacked our gear, donned our dry jackets, and launched into the quick moving current. The valley was broad and flat here and the river looked more manageable. The wind was picking up now and we could see that weather would be moving in within a couple of hours.

ONTOUR LINES WARN YOU OF DANGEROUS CLIFFS. SERIES

Beyond, the ridge continued in a series of spires for several kilometres before it eased off. Another huge rock tower 50 metres tall blocked our way. We continued climbing more moderately until we crested a small rise and could see the way ahead. Jason followed and then returned to Neville with my crampons (which were much more suited to the task) and guided him across.

ONTOUR LINES WARN YOU OF DANGEROUS CLIFFS. PATCH

I scouted ahead, crossing another snow patch and then narrow tussock- covered ledges perched above a precipitous gully. He was even less thrilled upon regaining the ridge and seeing another gendarme with steeper slopes to negotiate. Neville, with almost no prior mountaineering experience, was a bit uncomfortable in his instep crampons. However, a sheer wall blocked our progress, forcing us to don crampons and skirt the gendarme on 35 degree snow slopes. A short, delicate scramble through a rock band led to a notch in the ridge that we meant to traverse all the way to the river. As the slope got steeper our energetic pace slowed вЂ“ the frost covered tussocks were slick under our tennis-shoe clad feet вЂ“ and we picked our way up a gully on the true right of the shoulder. The forecast suggested our luck would not last we grabbed our packs without delay, bid farewell to our shuttle driver, and headed east towards the broad, tussock-covered shoulder that led to the ridge proper. We were dropped off at 7:30 am under fair skies and a light wind.

Ontour lines warn you of dangerous cliffs.