The other morning I woke up with the word "plunge" hovering overhead, like a sort of earworm.
So much more fatal somehow than "Man falls ...".
An hour later, I was at the bottom of Wanaka’s via ferrata operation.
I had searched the term via ferrata on the internet several times and my advice now, for anyone who would rather eat broccoli than climb a ladder, is don’t.
Stay away from those pictures of people on precipices.
So there we were, three via ferrata novices and former mountain guide Wildwire Wanaka boss Mark Morrison, beneath a serious bit of scenery known as twin falls, just short of Treble Cone Skifield off Mt Aspiring Rd, west of Wanaka.
It was Mr Morrison who imported the via ferrata idea from Europe.
It was he who worked out the route, drilled the holes in the rock, inserted and glued sturdy metal rungs into the holes, and strung wire rope alongside.
It was he who got all the ticks in all the boxes required by the regulatory authorities to enable him, and wife Laurel, to offer a scary tourist activity with all the actual danger removed.
We discussed the tests done on the rungs to see how much weight each could bear.
Mr Morrison calculated they could each hold 50 adult chimpanzees, which is more than sufficient to cope with one shaky human at a time.
So this is how it goes.
Strap on plastic helmet.
Climb into harness.
Note three dangling carabiners, mountaineer talk for hooks that go around wire rope or metal rungs.
Pull on gloves so white knuckles do not show.
Climb short vertical practice face.
Consider going home.
Continue to real deal via ferrata.
Attach one carabiner to wire rope.
Attach second carabiner to same wire rope.
Put one foot on metal rung and reach for a higher rung.
More steps, more rungs.
Stop where the wire rope is firmly pegged to the rock.
Clip the third carabiner — "shorty" — to the nearest metal rung.
Shift one carabiner from below where the wire rope is pegged to the rock to above it.
Repeat with second carabiner.
Don’t forget to unclip "shorty".
Continue climbing.
Mr Morrison remarks that some new via ferrata climbers see little more than rock, rungs and knuckles.
He urges us to take a look around.
Looking down there is a vertical rock face.
Looking up there is another vertical rock face.
To the left is a torrent of white water plunging past at arm’s reach.
Mr Morrison mentions the reporter from the Sydney Morning Herald was in tears at this point.
There are no tears on the Otago Daily Times climb, just the occasional minor expletive.
Relief comes at a small canyon containing a shady pool, at the top of one waterfall and the bottom of the next.
Some people take their togs so they can swim, Mr Morrison says.
The water is very cool, and safe to drink although, unfortunately, there is didymo.
More climbing follows.It is physically not difficult.
If you can walk up Mt Iron, you can climb the via ferrata without puffing.
Rock climbing seems to be a methodical thing that requires constant concentration.
But on the via ferrata, even when your mind wanders and the method goes out the window, the consequences do not seem to be immediately fatal.
At all times, climbers are attached by two devices, not to mention their own pair of hands.
In two places, there are bridges hanging out over waterfalls.
Sometime prior to our climb, a possum had obviously stopped in the centre of one bridge to casually do its business.
Mr Morrison says the traps are being ordered.
He points out the via ferrata goes only halfway up the face of the mountain, and he has plans to add further stages, with those people reaching the very top being helicoptered back to the bottom.
But even with just two stages complete, you would have to say, for someone who does not like heights, it is a pretty big mind-over-matter challenge already.
We stop for lunch in a rock amphitheatre hundreds of metres above my comfort zone.
The sun beats in, the waterfall thunders over the cliff, the falcons circle, there’s cheese and crackers.
I think I said I would like to do it again.
- Mark Price was a guest of Wildwire Wanaka.
The detail
• Via ferrata is Italian for iron road.
• They have been used for centuries to access grazing land in the Alps.
• Italian and Austrian troops used them in the Dolomite Mountains during World War 1 to access high gun emplacements.
• There are now 1000 around the world, mostly in the Italian and Austrian Alps.
• Difficulty ranges from "easy", with plenty of climbing aids, to "extremely difficult", with vertical and overhanging climbs.
