Mount Tyrwhitt IV

Mountain height:    2875 m
Elevation gain:       650 m
Round-trip time:     8:10

To quote a far too often used cliche, “expecting the unexpected” in the mountains is part of the experience. Nature is unpredictable - period - despite humanities best efforts to forecast the future.

Armed with a near perfect weather forecast and all kinds of climbing gear, we set out to the Highwood area to pick an objective. Upon arriving, the east face of Mount Pocaterra sounded like a great idea, however, I had not brought a route description with me. A good friend told me this route was possible and I recalled that Sonny Bou had done the ascent. We therefore decided if the specific route became obvious we would try it; if not then Tyrwhitt was a guaranteed alternative.

The hike into Pocaterra Cirque was absolutely magnificent, courtesy of an immaculate blue sky, lots of remaining pure white spring snow, the rejuvenated green of the foliage and trees, and the pleasant contrast of Mount Pocaterra’s light gray limestone with the brown shale of Pocaterra Ridge. Mountain scenery simply doesn’t get much better than that!

Close inspection of Pocaterra’s east face failed to reveal an easy route up, perhaps because of the large amount of snow remaining on the face, and so we opted for Tyrwhitt, reserving the possibility of the high level traverse to Pocaterra.

Although I had completed this ascent three times previously, the scenery was as utterly breath-taking as I had ever seen it and continued to impress as we gained the col below Tyrwhitt’s east ridge. Only the slight build-up of clouds to the west put a damper on things.

As we started up, a lone (and very speedy) scrambler passed us. The ascent to the famous arch was fairly straightforward on loose rubble and scree.

Again, the unexpected cloudy conditions warranted a few grunts of displeasure. By the time we reached the arch, the lone scrambler had already visited the summit and was on his way down. He informed us the ascent was easy, but ice axes were definitely required. Rarely to be one concerned about overkill, we strapped on the crampons too, as an extra precaution and I’m very glad we did. Terrain from the arch to near the summit was snow covered and considerably more challenging than on my previous three ascents. Holland handled the axe and crampons very well.

The view from the summit was not what we were expecting (given the near perfect forecast, that is!). Trouble was definitely brewing to the west and north, in the forms of some major precipitation and/or thunderstorms. It took only a few minutes for nature’s decision to be made perfectly clear to us. At first our axes started buzzing and Mark’s longish hair became sufficiently electrically charged to diverge significantly from his head. Having experienced this phenomena several times, Mark and I were a little concerned, but not exactly panicked (yet!). Holland, unfamiliar with thrill of becoming a human lightning rod, had a far more serious look on his face. He was right to have that look!

Upon standing up to evaluate the status of the storm, I received several electrical shocks to my head. As well as being somewhat painful, this was terribly unnerving and I hit the deck immediately.

Mark, busy making an interesting movie where his hand would start buzzing when he raised it, then stood up and experienced the same thing – he also hit the deck pretty darn fast. Now it was time to panic!

We immediately started crab-crawling down the mountain (standing up was obviously out of the question), leaving everything at the summit. That was our second mistake (the first being, not retreating as soon as we heard our axes buzzing). Instead of leaving everything, we should have taken our ice axes, since they were absolutely essential in getting us down the mountain, and contrary to popular belief small, metal objects do not attract lightning – they simply conduct it.

Down at a slightly safer elevation, we really had no choice but to wait out the storm. Descending the snow slopes without axes would have been very dangerous. Luckily, we didn’t have to wait long. Like most storms it quickly blew over, whereupon we rushed back up to the summit, retrieved our backpacks and equipment and started down again.

Although the thunderstorm went on its merry way, the unpredictable weather continued throughout the descent. White-out conditions reduced visibility to around 50 m, making for some interesting route-finding. We took a slightly different route down, staying on the snow until level with the col. With axes and crampons it was the easiest and fastest way down. The remainder of the descent went fairly smoothly, save for a slight unplanned detour near the end, where we ended up following someone else’s tracks that went the wrong way.