My Adventure: August 2007

Since the last update, my 3^rd term started with avalanche, search and rescue course. We have to base on the weather data given to us, go up to the mountain, look at the snow and wind condition to assess how likely an avalanche would be. We have to do test on the snow pack stability, locate lost victim who are “buried” in the avalanche. According to statistics, the survival rate can dip from 92% to 27% after the first 15 min. This means if we cannot locate the victim within the first 15 min, the chance of them surviving would be 27% . This course was refreshing as it opened up new aspect of mountains. Now I realized how dangerous it was not to bring a transceiver when I went up snow mountain. Transceiver is a device attached to our body and it transmits signal to the rescuer/s who can detect us with another transceiver. So “moral” behind the story, no transceiver, no snow mountain.. haha.

During one of the search and rescue exercise, we were supposed to pick up 25 clues/ items of the lost victim in the bush. I only managed to retrieve 6! That shows how observant I am. Ummm…

In another scenerio, we managed to locate the injured person. When I was administering first aid to the patient, I did all the primary survey and vital signs, but neglected the most important sign of dropping pulse rate! He went from semi-conscious to unconscious. Though we are aware of the condition, we forgot to check the most basic : ABC ! After the scenerio, my instructor [who pretend to be the injured patient] told us if that is the real situation, we would be carrying a dead body back to the base already.

All in all, failure is always the stepping stone towards success. We learnt from mistakes and that’s essential for our growth.

The 2 weeks mountain skills course was exciting. We went to the eastern part of Mt Ruapehu, Tukino. OPC has a lodge up at Tukino, well - facilitated with generator, gas cooker and water heater. The first week, we have to shovel the snow to clear the path before the 4WD can go up the mountain, we can hear the wind howling every night as we slept. The second week : road condition was better but we were still “grounded” on the second day. To make things worse, the generator broke down on the second week, luckily it was repaired. When mother nature was “angry”, we just have to stay indoor to play our sudoku game, read books and watch tapes. But on the whole, God has been good to us. We managed to complete the syllabus for the mountain. We learnt how to use crampon, set up snow anchor, multi-pitch, glacier travel, oh yes! most important of all : self arrest in case you fall off from the snow. The only regret is : we can’t dig our snow cave and camp there because the snow is quite soft and the avalanche condition is moderate. This means : natural avalanche unlikely to occur, but human - triggered avalanche is likely.

Do I sound like an “expert” ? There’s still so many things that I’m trying to grasp, that it really helps me to appreciate one of our school values : Learning our Pursuit. We are learning all the time.

All in all, mountain skill course is very much weather dependent and we just have to be patient.

I started yoga 3 weeks back with Bev and Bryan [my host] in Turangi. 10 sessions for $25, worth going for it. I want to make myself more “flexible”, hopefully.

My free time during the weekends have been occupied with church activities and dining with friends. I started coaching one of my church friend Mandarin as she wanted to equip herself more to do mission work in China. She has been in Sze Chuan for the past 14 years doing mission work with her husband.

There are many lovely people around here. I managed to learn how to “ ski forward, turn and brake” during my first ski session under the guidance of my friend. But I’m not too keen to ski often. I’m scared to fall. There goes my “season pass”.