In The Cradle of God (7 of 8)
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Stumble It!Bizarrely, I removed my camera from under my shirt and took a photo of the track in front me. The track ahead opened out into a highly exposed plateau known as Cradle Cirque before branching left and down towards Waterfall Hut or right and up onto Barn Bluff. Barn Bluff is a gigantic lonely looking obelisk poking out higher than any other point around. It is 1549 metres high, fourteen metres higher than Cradle Mountain. I think my reasoning was simply that if I was going to die here, I wanted something for my parents back home. I truly believed at this point that our chances of survival were in the hands of God. I was freezing cold, the wind was blowing a gale and from the look of the clouds approaching it there was every possibility that another blizzard may hit.
From my conversation the previous night with Gary I knew that things would not get easier from here as Cradle Cirque is the most dangerous part of the whole Overland Track. I also realised that the high winds would add to that danger. The danger is caused by it's totally exposed nature and the fact that there is a substantial drop only a few metres to your left as you walk towards Waterfall Hut.
As Hiro reached me, I looked at him and he looked back. Fortunately my sunglasses covered my eyes so he couldn't see just how scared I was. I could certainly see how scared he was. Without a word we forged on to Cradle Cirque.
After perhaps ten minutes walking, I was pelted with a blizzard of snow. I thought that's it, here comes the weather. This wasn't true in the way I thought it was. A blizzard had not arrived, it was the gale force winds picking up settled snow and throwing it across the cirque.
Hiro was dropping rapidly behind me now and though I'm not proud to admit it my thoughts turned solely to my own survival and I simply ploughed on. As if to punish me for my selfish thinking the wind picked me up and dumped me on my backside. I was utterly terrified, I am over eighty kilograms in weight and my pack around twenty-five and I had been thrown over like a child's rag doll. I looked back and saw Hiro pulling himself wearily to his feet as well.
Our only option was against to put our heads down and continue walking. After being thrown for a second time even more violently than the first my morale hit rock bottom. I was almost convinced now that my time was up and was not going to make it past this ridge. I mentally made my peace with God and hoped that I didn't owe anybody except the British Government money. I again looked back and saw Hiro thrown over. It was almost funny to see his attempts at getting up. I started to walk back to help him but before I could get halfway back he made it to his feet and started walking again.
I turned and began my own way again. After five minutes I was again picked up and thrown over. This time I ended up face down in the snow. Lying there, an image began to form in my mind. It was a picture that was taken of my parents perhaps twelve years previously. That picture was a present for my now deceased great Grandmother and now adorns my Grandmother's sitting room. I don't know why that particular picture came into my mind, perhaps because it is the easiest image of my dear parents to recall during the months I've been away from home. My father certainly has a lot more grey hair now and my mother hasn't had her hair in the way she has it in that picture for many years but it is an image that represents them perfectly.
Resolve began to fill me again and I pulled myself to my feet. It has always amazed me when reading about other people's struggles that they are always filled with an inner strength in their most difficult times, but it is true. I not sure if it was genuine resolve or just irrationality caused by the onset of hyperthermia (which I now know I had symptoms of), but either way I decided that I was not going to die away from my family on some lonely mountain.
Fuck that, was my clear thought.
Hiro soon caught me up. I turned and questioned him.
"Hiro, how you going?"
"Oh, very bad."
I looked at his face. His lips were slightly swollen and turning blue. This may have been a sign of the beginnings of hyperthermia. Medical practice now recommends that you stop there, pitch your tent and get the person gently warmed up. This would have been the right thing to do if we could have pitched the tent anywhere. If we had even removed the tent from it's bag it would have taken off in the wind and never been seen again. We simply had no choice but to get off the cirque.
Read Part 8
