A Close Call on Wolfang Peak

After a few scrambles, again nothing heart stopping, I passed a couple of cairns and reached the top. I admired the 360-degree views of scrub, stunted trees, other peaks, a few farms, all below the wonderful blue sky. In one direction the highway formed a straight line across my field of vision. It was a gorgeous late winter day, completely still. But I didn’t linger because, I have to admit, I was a touch nervous about the descent.

I came down the higher steep part without difficulty, but then came to a confusing marker. I didn’t know what to do. I remembered the marker from my ascent and was convinced I had approached it from below, so I decided to continue descending. In hindsight, I don’t think I tried hard enough to understand the ambiguous painted marker; it’s troubled me ever since, because I can’t see why I made the decision to go the way I did. I don’t think I’ve ever been hiking somewhere like this where a detour off the curriculum could have such devastating consequences.

And then I reached a tricky place on the rocky mountainside, where I had to repeatedly manoeuvre my feet to get into a good position for the next part, a short but almost vertical descent. Do I face into the rock? Or face out? I couldn’t decide. I momentarily considered taking off my running vest (backpack) as I feared the bulging pockets would push me away from the cliff face; thank goodness I didn’t do that. What was clear was, however, was that a mistake here would be serious.

And that’s when I slipped and fell.

A lot went through my head as I tumbled. But my mind has rendered the full details of the fall somewhat hazy, no doubt as part of my coping mechanism. For example, I thought at the time I had banged my head as I fell; now I’m not sure. I’m fairly certain, though, that I tried to grab a bush as I passed it.

I still, even now, don’t know how far I fell. I do know, however, that I’d landed past the point I had just been looking down on. When I finally came to a stop, my first thought was simply this: ‘I am alive.’ Then I looked at my right ankle. I expected to see a bone sticking out of it; it hurt a lot. But no bone was showing.  My left leg, however, was bleeding. It had a dramatic gash from knee to ankle, and there were several grazes.  Surprisingly, however, I had no pain on that leg.

My body seemingly okay after my brief examination, I continued back to my car. Walking wasn’t pleasant, but it was possible, and I had to do it, so I did it. I looked at the trail I’d created with the GPS on my watch on my outward route to see how far I currently was from that line; it didn’t seem far. I decided to try to continue in that direction. (That’s what I always do when I’ve gone off course and usually this delivers me back to the correct trail.)

After walking across a small scree slope and scrambling along the edge of another cliff (which I really shouldn’t have done in my injured state) I reached, after maybe only 30m, a metre wide ledge; I could see no possible way forward. I could not get back to my outward GPS trail. Ahead horizontally was a big gap in the rockface and below was a seriously big drop, pretty much down to the paddock. Almost instantly I became terribly scared. I saw I was in a life-threatening predicament. On this cliff edge, going back would have been dangerous. And continuing onward was impossible.

I turned on my phone. Happiness washed over me; I had a strong signal. I called my husband in Melbourne to alert him.  And then I called 000. It was 2:22PM.

The police answered immediately. They and had some trouble working out what part of Queensland I was in, but once they located me the rescue was under way. I felt overwhelming relief. From now on my fate was in the hands of experts and I knew I was completely safe where I was on this ledge. The sun blazed down on me, but I had my sunblock.

The paramedics, SES and police were soon in constant contact by phone. A paramedic asked several routine questions, including my COVID status. She asked my age and I said I was 63, which I sensed surprised her; this surprised me too because I am only 62, so I guess my mental state wasn’t great at that moment.

After about 30 minutes I saw the first signs of rescue activity: a police car, an ambulance and one other vehicle. They entered the dirt access road, but to my dismay they drove past the point where they’d be nearest to me, and almost out of my sight. Then they phoned to say they couldn’t see me. At the time, I was convinced I was easily visible from the highway. It was only 400m away, but I was halfway up a pink-tinged mountain wearing pink, and 400m is a big distance when it comes to spotting a speck on a mountainside. Clearly this notion was ridiculous.

Soon I saw a group of people walk from the vehicles towards the base of the mountain and then continue towards the backside until I could no longer see them. This was a feature of my entire rescue: I would carefully explain how I was facing the highway; the rescuers, however, would act as though I was on the backside of the peak. In hindsight, there is a reason for this: that’s where the walking trail is.

I now have to question whether I was ever on the correct trail. No trail is shown on the map automatically downloaded to my GPS watch or on the map I downloaded to my phone so I will never know for sure. But I have now concluded that had I not been injured, my best option would have been to return to the top and try to descend again staying with the markers.

At 3PM, the helicopter pilot from RACQ Central Queensland Rescue phoned; his chopper was an hour away. That felt good to hear. I could easily sit there for an hour, although even moving slightly to prevent going numb from sitting in the same position for too long scared me. There was a drop to the foot of the mountain right in front of me.

In my running backpack I had two muesli bars, half a litre of water, sunblock, phone, a purse and that’s all. I had lost my sunnies in the fall, but I’d retrieved my pink cap. Sitting in the full sun, with no shade whatsoever, I was becoming quite dehydrated. I hadn’t eaten or drunk since Clermont apart from the water at midday at the car. Or had a wee. The paramedics told me not to eat or drink, which seemed odd on a hot day, but I did as I was told.

I gazed mindlessly at the other peaks dotted around the plains and wondered what was growing in one rather distinctively bright green field across the highway. Occasionally, a vehicle would cross my view along the highway.