Survival - 11. Surv Chapter 11

“You both take care now, we both worry about you doing these dangerous climbs, but I must admit, you have trained our son well, and I wish you the best of luck to get to the peak” Mum responded, Will do, we will call you again when we reach the peak” Uncle Nat said and he ended the call.

Although we only had about 500 metres in height to climb, this was the most difficult and dangerous stage of the whole ascent, we would be attached to each other with ropes, and we estimated that it would take us another two days to reach the summit, approaching it from the Eastern side, as the Western side was too difficult to try.

The next morning, I took some video footage of the mountain, and our campsite. “We are at 22000 metres above sea level, half way up the highest mountain in the North Western Territory of Canada, known as Thunder Mountain, it is 2773 metres high, and we have already spent a total of 5 days just reaching this point, including flying into the community of Tungsten, where we stayed overnight.

Today is day 5 and we hope to reach the peak, sometime tomorrow, depending on how difficult the climb is today. We are on rope lines now, and it will be difficult rock climbing for most of it” I said as I videoed the surrounds and had a close up of the mountain itself.

If you give me your phone, I can connect it up to the sat phone and send it via email to your Mum” Uncle Nat said to me, as he finished packing up camp. Once the email was sent, we put on our backpacks, secured the ropes to our harnesses, and we began the long hard climb.

It was a lot harder than I expected, with Uncle Nat having to go ahead, and hammering spikes into the rock, then secure a carabiner to the spike, and then putting the rope through and locking it off. Once Uncle Nat was far enough ahead, I would start climbing behind him, always searching for the ideal hand and foot hold, to keep going up, but it took time, and patience, which I was learning to do.

We stopped every hour for a snack, and at around noon, we stopped for some lunch and a bit of a rest. During lunch, while secured to the rope, hanging from a cliff face, with the bottom being a good 130 metres straight down, I carefully retrieved my phone and took some photos and video footage, and Uncle Nat did the same with his phone.

“130 metres up this cliff face, stopping for lunch and a rest, the views from here are amazing, and I can feel a change in temperature, not sure if that is because of our altitude, or if there is a change in the weather, from where we are, it is impossible to see any approaching storms, so we just have to hope for the best, that it stays clear” I said as I recorded.

When we stopped for the night, after an exhausting 9 hours of climbing, we would be sleeping in our bivvy sacks tonight, as there is nowhere flat to set up our tents, the bivvy sacks are like a cocoon like sleeping bag, that keeps us warm and dry, that is attached to our ropes, as we are perched on a very small ledge.

When we woke in the morning, it was very overcast, which threatened to bring our climb to the summit, to an immediate halt, and after some discussions, we decided that we would keep going, as we were less than 65 metres from the summit, climbing along a very narrow edge of the mountain, which we estimated would take us about 3 hours to complete.

Not taking any chances, Uncle Nat advised me to take it nice and slow, and not rush it, even thou the summit was now in clear view, and, I took some more video footage of what we can see from our current position.After nearly five hours, we had done it, we had reached the summit of Thunder Mountain, which was the most difficult climb that I had achieved so far, and we took heaps of photos and video footage, of which we sent some of it to Mum, before we made the call.

“1.20 pm local time, we have reached the summit of Mt Nirvana, or Thunder Mountain, it is very overcast, but we have a complete 360 degree view, and there is no sign of any storms approaching” I said to Mum, “Well done son, I am very proud of you, I have received the emails from you, and some of it looks very scary, especially when you were having your lunch yesterday” Mum replied.

“Hello son, Dad here, congratulations to both of you, I have heard fromwork mates, that Thunder Mountain is a very difficult climb and that is why it had not been climbed very much, but you both have done it” Dad said.

After the phone call, we took a few more photos, before we began the decent down the mountain, which will be just as difficult as climbing up, and it we were able to get a fair bit lower than last night’s camp, where we found a sort of cave ledge, that gave us some room, to set up camp, and stretch out a little.

On day 7, we continued our descent, and we reached the heavy snow line by lunch time, and it was while eating, that we heard the nerve wrecking roar of an avalanche. From then on, we tried to stay away from the centre of open snow areas, so we wouldn’t get caught up in any more avalanches, and it was late in the afternoon, when it began to rain, and we managed to find a cave for shelter, and the rain triggered yet another avalanche.

Deciding to spend the night at his location, Uncle Nat rang my Mum to assure her that we were both fine, and that we were well out of the way, when two avalanches started, which had Mum very worried, but Uncle Nat assured her that we were taking all precautions to avoid potential avalanche locations.

It was day 11, when we finally reached the mining track at the bottom of the mountains, 3 days behind our estimated time, and we were happy that we had safely reached the bottom, and all we had to do now was to walk to Tungsten. We also called Mum, to let her know that we were safely down off the mountain.

I asked Mum to call my school, to let them know that I would be late getting back, also to called the airline, to arrange a flyout of Tungsten, back to Yellowknife, and to change my flight from Canada to Australia,from tomorrow, to two days later, so I have time to adjust to the change in altitude, and to rest.

The next morning, the small plane arrived to fly us out of Tungsten, and the pilot showed us the front page of the NTW newspaper. “17-year-old Australian teenager, and his uncle, concours Thunder Mountain” was the headlines. “After just 6 days of hiking and mountain rock climbing, 17-year-old mountaineer, Jacob Blackwood, and his Uncle Nathan Blackwood, reached the summit of Thunder Mountain at 1.20pm local time on Thursday.

It is by pure luck that the pair had no bad weather for their 2773-metre high assent to the summit, but they did have some light rain later that day, which triggered an avalanche, while they were having lunch in a sheltered location. Being the 11th successful assent to the summit of this mountain, Jacob is the youngest mountaineer to climb any of the Canadian mountains over 1500 metres, with 21-year-old Canadian women, being the youngest before Jacob.

Australian Doctor, Anita Blackwood, who is on a two-year work contract in Yellowknife, was in regular contact with her son via Sat phone, and she said that she was very proud of her son’s achievements, with this being Jacob’s 10th successful summit climb, and he has also successfully reached Everest Base Camp, which is a staggering 5,600 metres high in Nepal”

“Well, I guess I will have to avoid the media somehow” I commented as we climbed into the plane, “No chance of that, there is a huge greeting party waiting for you, when we get back to Yellowknife” the pilot commented. “Forget that, change of plan, we are going to Fort Providence instead” Uncle Nat said to the pilot, “As you wish, but there will be a lot of people who will be disappointed” the pilot replied.

“That maybe so, but my nephew’s welfare is my main concern, so take us to Fort Providence, and not a word to anyone in regard to where we went” Uncle Nat said sternly to the pilot, who nodded his understanding. Once we arrived in Fort Providence, I called Mum on the sat phone to let her know what was happening, and where we are, and she agreed to pack our luggage, and she would drive down to Fort Providence to deliver it, which is a 4-hour drive.

While we waited, we checked into a motel, and showered and changed into the last change of fresh clothes that we had, and while Uncle Nat organised for a flight for us for tomorrow, from Fort Providence to Vancouver, via Edmonton, which is a 4 ½ hour flight, and booking us into a hotel for a night, till we catch our flight home, via Tokyo, Japan, leaving at 1.45pm the next day, I did the laundry of all of our hikingclothes.

Mum stayed overnight in Fort Providence with us, and we had an enjoyable dinner together, and I told mum all about the climb up Thunder Mountain, and showed her all of the video footage and photos that we had taken, and Mum explained that she was overheard at work, when we called the second time, from the summit, and that is how the news got out about us climbing Thunder Mountain.

When we said goodbye at the small airport, I had tears in my eyes, knowing that I wouldn’t see my Mum for over a year, and we hugged for a long time, before we had to show our tickets and board our plane, for a return journey home.

When we were in Tokyo, I did some shopping in the Duty-Free stores, buying some hair dye, hair gel plus a jacket and tie, to try and disguise myself some more, and in the bathroom, I changed my hair from dark brown, to blond, and borrowing my uncle’s hair clippers, I shaved the sides of my head, and with gel, I had my hair standing up straight, almost in a mohawk style.

When I sat down next to my uncle, he started to tell me that the seat was taken, when he realised it was me. “Well, I am not sure if you needed to get that drastic with your disguise, but it fooled me” Uncle Nat whispered, before he went back to reading the magazine that he had bought and collecting my luggage.

I moved over to another row of seats, where Uncle Nat could still see me, and I pulled out my phone and took a photo of my new look, and sent it to Mum, with a short message, “New disguise to avoid the media in Australia”, and a few moments later I received a reply, “I nearly didn’t recognise you, good luck”.

When we were lined up to board the plane, Uncle Nat was standing just behind me, “I purposely booked seats where we are apart, I will text you once we are through customs in Sydney, see in when we arrive” he whispered, before stepping out of the line and pretended to struggle to find his ticket.

When I was seated in the plane, I could see Uncle Nat two rows forward of me, and I was pleased that I could still see him, in such a big plane, and I was seated in an aisle seat, with a mother and two children, with one child at the window, and the other between her and me, and although she was reluctant to speak to me at first, we ended up chatting a fair bit during the journey.

She is a single mother, with her son’s being 8 and 6, and she had travelled to Japan, to allow her sons to visit their father, who lived and worked in Tokyo. I learnt, that they too come from Adelaide, and that they are on the same flight from Sydney to Adelaide, the following day.

I told Brenda very little about myself, only saying that my parents were living and working in Eastern Canada for two years, and that I had gone to visit them during the school holidays, and that my name is Scott Blackwood, hoping that would be enough to stop her asking too much and her learning who I really am, as when in Vancouver and Tokyo, I had seen news articles on the papers, with my name mentioned, and a picture of Thunder Mountain, but thankfully no photo of my face.

Brenda was thankful for the assistance, with helping to get the boys off the plane and through customs, and I offered to pay for a taxi to share to the motel where she is staying, which wasn’t far from the hotel, that Uncle Nat had booked us into. Sticking with Brenda and her boys andthe disguise, was enough to pass by the crowd of media that had gathered at the arrival’s hall in Sydney International airport, and during the taxi ride, I received a text from Uncle Nat.

“Well done with fooling the media, see you at the hotel when you have seen the family settled, Nat” and I just smiled as I put the phone in my pocket. When we arrived at the motel, the boys, Shane and Patrick wanted me to have dinner with them, but reluctantly I declined, and told them that I would see them tomorrow at the airport, or on the plane to Adelaide.

When I arrived at the hotel, Uncle Nat suggested that I change my looks once more, just in case the media caught on that you were the blond teenager, with the spiky hair, and I agree, and Uncle Nat organised for a hairdresser to come to our suite, where I had my hair recoloured to light brown, properly cut and styled, and afterwards, were went shopping and bought a new business suit, with a selection of shirts and ties, plus, new black shoes.

The next day, as we boarded our final flight home, which I was very glad of, as I was so tired, even though it had now been a whole week since reaching the summit of Thunder Mountain, I was surprising directed to business class, and as I looked back at Uncle Nat he smiled and nodded, so I just went forward to the business class, leaving Uncle Nat in Economy, and as a result, I didn’t get to see Brenda or the boys again.

Arriving in Adelaide domestic airport, I received a text from Uncle Nat, “I will get all of our luggage, just get a taxi straight to the Army base, and I will see you there”.

As I entered the arrivals hall, amongst other business class passengers, there was a small crowd of media there, no doubt looking for a young blond teenager, with spiky hair, and I chuckled to myself, as I pass by them, and none of them recognised me, as I quickly made my way to the front entrance and caught a taxi.