False start on Foggy
Shaz reports…
Mirjam and I headed out for an early start on Foggy Peak with Scruff and Shanti. The goal was to get in some more snow practice. The car park was in the shade with a ligth breeze blowing and I was freezing by the time we were geared up with packs on and ready to walk.
We made slow uphill plodding progress for about 15 to 20 minutes, until Mirjam said she wasn’t feeling well. A quick rest and a few sips of a hot drink did nothing to ease the symptoms, so down we went.
Mirjam felt well enough to try coffee at Porters Lodge, so we drove the the ski field. It was a Friday and their opening day for the season. We enjoyed a tasty, but not very warm drink (there was a glitch with the payment machine and once that had been sorted out the drinks were luke warm if lucky).
Typical border collie focus - one of their human pack members was inside and they were keeping an eye out.
Feeling more revived Mirjam said she felt well enough for a second assualt on Foggy. I could feel a headache coming on, but decided on a tablet and the walk.
It wasn’t long before we back in the freezing shade at the start up Foggy Peak.
Overturned snow with hoar frost below it (now showing on top).
Although my head was no longer sore, I had seriously low motivation, and found plugging through the snow much harder (I have an inkling as to the reason but won’t go into that here). Mentally I had wanted to turn several times, long before we reached the false summit - but the false summit and the warmer sunshine was our first goal - which we achieved.
It was bitterly windy at the false summit where we stopped for lunch and the lunch break did not instill energy in either of us for a summit push, so we turned tail, looking forward to warming up at the car. If we had both not been to the summit at least once before I think we might have been more determined, but given we were both not feeling 100% it was the right decision.
This trip was one of funny coincidences. On our way up we bumped into someone I knew online but not in person - and subesequently found out that we missed some amazing ice formations on the summit.
On the way down Scruff was getting snow balls on his feet, so I popped Shanti’s boots on his front paws. One got lost in the snow.
Just before the car we bumped into another border collie lover and swapped favourite Facebook groups (there is a cool NZ Border Collie group I didn’t know about).
And a few days later there was a post on a trail running group and the Further Faster mountain dog challange group about a lost dog boot on Foggy - and Mirjam was able to pick it up from Christchurch for me.
