Experience: I was stuck up a mountain on Christmas Day

Pre-course tasks

You must complete both Task 1 and Task 2.

Submission of tasks

· Please put your answers on Dropbox Pre-course folder to both tasks by 12^th September at the latest.

· Please put your name at the top of your answers to the tasks and give your name and your surname to the file.

· Please submit both tasks together rather than separately.

Task 1 Vocabulary

Read the article below and complete the following tasks.

1) Translate ‘ramble’ from the first sentence into Russian. Write two sentences which illustrate other meanings of ‘ramble’.

2) Translate the phrase A day and a half in.

3) Define ‘scree’.

4) Translate all the underlined phrasal verbs and write your own sentences to illustrate their meanings.

5) Translate the other sentences containing the underlined vocabulary into Russian.

Experience: I was stuck up a mountain on Christmas Day

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/dec/21/experience-mountain-christmas-day

'There was no way I was going to risk our lives on wet rocks, but I knew that rain can last for weeks in the mountains'

· Marni Sheppeard

· The Guardian, Friday 21 December 2012 22.58 GMT

'As long as we were outdoors, we could not allow ourselves to sleep.' Photograph: Jessie Casson for the Guardian

I had been a climber for a number of years when I agreed to go on a three-day ramble with my friend Sonja. I'd recently moved to Christchurch, New Zealand, to go to university. Sonja was in my year, though she was 10 years younger than me – I was in my mid-30s. It was a few days before Christmas and we set off on what should have been a three-day ramble across the nearby Arthur's Pass National Park. We planned to stay in hikers' huts along the way, meeting up with friends and family at the end of our trek.

A day and a half in, we found our route up a narrow valley blocked by an unseasonal slab of snow and ice. It looked impossible to get over without climbing equipment, so our only options were to climb around it by heading up the cliffs to our left, or to give up on the hike. But it was a lovely day and we decided to risk the climb.

At first, the going wasn't too bad – I expected to reach the path within an hour – but the rocks turned to scree, the climb became an exhausting scramble, and as morning wore into afternoon, we became tired and uncertain. At 3pm we reached a rocky ledge not much bigger than a tabletop. It was uncomfortable but flat, and Sonja was just relieved to sit down. We decided to stay there overnight and set off again in the morning – I estimated we were half an hour from the trail, and we'd still have the option of turning back.

But by morning a persistent rain had set in, and there was no way I was going to risk our lives on wet rocks. We just had to make ourselves as comfortable as we could and wait for the weather to clear. I knew that rain can last for weeks in the mountains, but didn't want to tell Sonja. At first, she seemed happy to accept my assurances that the rain would pass. After a few days, though, her optimism dwindled.

Huddling together in our sleeping bags kept out some of the cold and wet, but there was no escaping the profound discomfort of sitting on sharp rocks hour after hour. Our legs were always bent – there was no room to stretch. Most of the provisions we had were Christmas gifts, including expensive biscuits, cheese and salami. I had some tinned oysters, but Sonja was intolerant to fish. I'd planned to drop in on some friends on the west coast on Christmas Day, and was carrying a bottle of wine. Instead, I spent the day on the ledge and drank it with Sonja, but that was as festive as things got.

I also had to persuade Sonja that as long as we were outdoors, we could not allow ourselves to sleep – when you're asleep, your coretemperature drops, which could have resulted in hypothermia. I'd keep Sonja awake with stupid, made-up songs, designed to irritate. As the days wore on, we had to resort to more extreme methods. I not sure which of us slapped the other first, but I know we discussed it beforehand. Eventually, we were punching one another in the face to keep the adrenaline pumping.

After a week, we knew Sonja's family would have raised the alarm when she hadn't turned up on Christmas Day. We kept the faith even as our dwindling rations ran out and we were forced to eat snow to quench our thirst. I knew we couldn't survive much longer.

On the ninth day, though, the weather cleared and we made a desperate decision. If help didn't arrive that morning, we'd attempt to climb back down the canyon, despite our fatigue, hunger and trench foot – we'd had to abandon our boots. Then we heard a helicopter approaching and were able to lay out signals, stand up and wave.

My sister and Sonja's sister were on board, and couldn't believe what they saw – they'd given up hope of finding us alive and had been searching for our bodies. It's about the longest two people have survived in those conditions.

I've never celebrated Christmas, particularly, but that's definitely the most memorable way I've spent it. Sonja and I remained on good terms afterwards and she never blamed me for what happened, but I've always felt responsible – I was the experienced climber, and should have insisted on turning back when we had the chance. I'll never lead anyone else into a situation like that again, however tempting the adventure.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14