We climbed Moosilauke on New Year’s day, once again.
A group of us climbed Mt. Moosilauke on January 1, 2000. We were some of the last to summit on this otherwise busy day on the summit.
Nearing the summit of Moosilauke on New Year’s Day, 2000.
Although the traditional chubber alum group did not hole up in a Y2K-compliant cabin for New Year’s eve, opting instead for the house of Ken and Karen Kaliski in the sprawling metropolis of East Thetford, we still headed out on New Year’s morning for a hike up Moosilauke.
While there was some discussion of summiting at Midnight, or even at dawn, most groups seemed to get a later start than that ;-). Our group (David Metsky ’85 and Brenda Conaway, Ken Kaliski ’85, Ed Lowney ’85, Kathy Gelhar ’87, myself ’86, and two friends Andrew and Ching) got a crack-o-dawn start at 10am, at the base of the Carriage Road. There was maybe 2″ of snow at the base, high clouds, and temps in the 20s predicted.
Boy, that Carriage road is a long slog, when on foot rather than on skis. We were especially gratified, then, when we reached the viewpoint near the turnaround. Just then, the clouds cleared and the sun came out, illuminating the brilliant white Moosilauke and Washington. At about 2pm we were in the middle of the ridge crossing over toward the north peak when we met David Hooke ’84 and Kathy Roy ’85 coming down. David told us of the crowds on the summit, larger than ever seen on New Year’s Day. Many chubbers were sighted, including Put Blodgett ’53 hiking with Sam Adams (son of Sherm Adams ’20) and Jim Hardigg ’44 (!).
While we were chatting, down came Jack Noon ’68 and Bob Averill ’72. On the summit Jack had been signing copies of his new book “Up Moosilauke”, and proceeded to hand out copies.
While we were skimming the books, who should appear behind us but Bernie ’74 and Mary Waugh….
On the way up we had met Dick Birnie ’66 coming down, as well as a backpacker who said he had spent the night on South Peak because “the North Peak was too crowded with other people.”
The summit itself was as windy and icy as ever, although warm (20 degrees or so) and given the late hour we turned around and headed down fast, racing the darkness. No luck. We walked out by starlight to the howl of distant coyotes, satisfied with a great hike and a wonderful way to welcome the new century.
This post was transferred from MobileMe to WordPress in 2020, with an effort to retain the content as close to the original as possible; I recognize that some comments may now seem dated or some links may now be broken.
A group of friends have gathered at a Dartmouth Outing Club cabin every New Years for since the mid-80’s, when we were undergraduates. This years incarnation took place at John Rand Cabin, near the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge on the east side of Mt Moosilauke. There was a group of 10 of us at the cabin for a thrilling evening of entertainment before going to sleep just after midnight.
The next day we planned a hike up the mountain, via the Gorge Brook trail. The group consisted of Dave M (your scribe), Dave and Kathy Hooke, Dave Kotz, Brenda, Ed, and Ken. We got a late start because we had to pack up the cabin and get all our gear down to MRL, so we didn’t get on the trail until 11:00AM. There were helicopters flying overhead looking for a missing Lear Jet that had disappeared on Christmas Eve.
The lower part of the hike went uneventfully, and we stopped at Last Water, where I told Brenda to leave one of her ski poles because we were coming back down this way. Turns out we didn’t, so if anyone finds a 135CM ski pole at Last Water, contact me. There was a real hard pack of snow on the ground, no need for snowshoes or crampons. Our gear consisted of Sorel pak boots, leather hiking boots, and plastic mountaineering boots. It was cold (2F at the summit) but little wind and good visibility most of the day.
We got to the first views, on the logging road section of the trail where we did a layer break and drank water. Then we pressed on to the second set of views where we took a longer break. There we had some food and water, and geared up a bit more. Then we pushed on to the summit.
Just before treeline we ducked into the woods to put on our final layers. Then we headed out for the summit. It was pretty calm in the wind shadow of the summit and not bad on the summit itself. Here are pictures of people on the summit:
After a pleasant stay on the summit, we started down the Carriage Road, headed for the Snapper trail back to Gorge Brook and the Lodge. We met a few people headed to the summit via Glencliff, but none headed down Gorge from the summit. This meant that Brenda’s ski pole would remain at Last Water. We stopped at the Glencliff junction to de-layer and rest. Then it was down the Carriage Road, too icy for skiing, past the Moosilauke Permitted Use sign and down to our final stop at the junction of Snapper and Gorge Brook. The icy formations in Gorge Brook kept us occupied in our tired state. Then a final uphill section before reaching the Ravine Lodge. We gathered out collected stuff and hiked/skied out to the cars on Rt 118.
Pictures for this report were provided by Brenda Conaway, Dave Kotz, and Dave Metsky.
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Nordic skiing near the town of Saint Cergue, Switzerland.
On December 8, 1998 I was near Geneva on some business, and passing through the town where Alex de Sherbinin ’84 lives and works these days, so I stopped in for a brief visit. Just hours after landing, complete with jet lag, he picked me up at the Nyon train station and whisked me up into the hills. Geneva and Nyon are low altitude, along Lac Leman, but the land rises rapidly up to a ridge known as the Jura, perhaps 3000 feet elevation. As we drove up a windy road, the snow became deeper, and the views more spectacular, back across the lake to the Alps and Mont Blanc. We stopped in the little town of Saint Cergue for a little picnic lunch and to wait for the shopkeeper to reopen so I could rent some XC skis. When she finally returned, the neighboring shopkeeper scolded her, in reference to us, “These are the seventh people to come into my shop to ask when you will reopen, won’t you please put up a sign saying when you plan to return.” Even in my limited French I caught the gist of her resultant muttering about how she has the right to close when she wants, if she wants to close, she closes, etc etc etc.
A few francs later and we were off to ski on an amazing network of set tracks, in gorgeous conditions. It was a beautiful sunny day, temps just a little below freezing, and fresh snow. The trails rolled over gentle hills, in and out of the woods. The bright sunshine and the exercise pretty well eliminated my jet lag. There were few others out that day, being midweek, and most who were out were retirees about twice our age. I can only hope to be that active at that age.
Alex later took me by his office at the World Conservation Union (IUCN), across the street from his apartment where it seemed every window had a view onto the Alps, and around the corner from the WWF international headquarters. At the IUCN everyone seemed to be working on momentous projects in faraway places. Really neat place.
Thanks Alex!
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Wow. My wife Pam and I just returned from a spectacular two-week safari in the national parks of Tanzania, east Africa. It was a “family safari” with six other family (and friends of the family), organized through Thomson Safaris. Thomson is just one of many companies operating safaris in Tanzania, which is a booming industry now that the safari market in neighboring Kenya has pretty well saturated, and people are discovering Tanzania to be a safer, cheaper alternative.
We flew through Amsterdam, which gave us the opportunity for a 1-night stopover and a long jet-lagged day touring the museums and canals of that beautiful city. Probably the most important feature of the stopover was cleaning out the duty-free shops in Shipol airport, buying enough bottles of wine so our group had one for each night on safari.
The flight from there to Arusha, Tanzania is even longer, about 9 hours to span endless miles of the deserts of north-central Africa. It really gives you a sense of just how huge Africa really is when you fly for hours across so much “empty” space.
Kilimanjaro International Airport in Arusha is a small one-gate sort of place, primarily serving safari tourists, and diplomats attending the U.N.’s Rwandan war-crime tribunals being held in Arusha. The town of Arusha, with about 200,000 people, is closer to the major national parks, including Mt. Kilimanjaro just a few miles to the northeast, than is the coastal capital city of Dar es Salaam.
Both English and Swahili are official languages, although with a population from 120 different tribes there are another 120 other languages that can be heard around the country. Our guides were thus trilingual, speaking English, Swahili and their tribal language.
For our group of eight, Thomson supplied two guides and one guide-in-training, and two specially modified LandRovers. The guides, John and Gebra, are all native Tanzanians and had been guiding for 10-15 years, so they knew an incredible amount about the parks and wildlife. Indeed, Gebra was somewhat of a birding specialist, and could not only identify a passing bird by name, but could also instantly tell you the page and plate number where its picture could be found in the bird book. Our guides were clearly more experienced than many of the other guides we encountered; often they would stop to talk with our guides along the road. There seemed to be a friendly fraternity among the guides of various companies, and they all seemed to cooperate to give each other tips about the location of the best wildlife.
We spent the first day in Arusha national park, a relatively small park near Arusha and on the slopes of Mt. Meru. Like Kilimanjaro (at 19000+ feet the tallest in Africa), Meru is a tall volcano with a lush tropical rainforest on its lower slopes. Here we established the basic daily pattern: slowly driving along very bumpy dirt roads, watching for wildlife and stopping whenever there was something interesting to watch. The roof the LandRover popped up so that we could stand and look in all directions, yet still be shaded from the equatorial sunshine. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and misty that day, so we had no views of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Almost inches after crossing the park boundary, where the banana and coffee plantations gave way to the rainforest, we came across a set of giraffes next to the road. A little further along a troop of baboons were lolling about in the road in front of us. Ponds were filled with thousands of flamingoes, and visited by herds of cape buffalo, waterbuck, and the tiny dik-dik antelope. What amazed me is that most of these animals barely noticed our presence, even when we pulled up only a few yards away from them. In general, most of the animals in the parks have no reason to fear humans, particularly humans in LandRovers.
We hired a park ranger to join us for a hike along one of the forest roads. He carried a rifle and was a required part of any hiking party in the park. Apparently, cape buffalo (when alone) are easily startled and can become quite dangerous. One look at their horns convinced me that I did not really want to test that hypothesis. Although we did startle a pair of buffalo on the walk (and the ranger’s rifle was rapidly in position for action) they ran off into the woods, so the real excitement was spotting a bunch of black and white colobus monkeys high in the trees.
The next day we spent in Tarangire National Park, which is further to the west and is a completely different experience. Set in rolling savannah country, this dry and sparsely vegetated area is teeming with elephants. Well, let’s just say that we saw over 100 elephants in our first 3 hours. Many had (very cute) little baby elephants along with them, and many were right next to the road. One teenage male was quite blustered by our presence, flapping his ears and trumpeting, and making small false charges. Unfortunately, the elephants love to eat Baobob trees, to the point that the baobobs are likely to disappear from the park.
While some of our group saw lions there, indeed, a mating lion couple, the real lion action would come later in the Serengeti.
From Tarangire to Serengeti is a long long poke over some unbelievably bumpy and dusty dirt roads. The worst roads of New Hampshire were smooth super highways compared to some of these roads. We broke up the trip with an overnight at a lodge perched on the edge of the great Rift, overlooking a huge valley with Lake Manyara and its flocks of flamingoes, and in the distance, our only view of Mt. Kilimanjaro. This was an agricultural area, and we stopped in the market in the bustling village of Mto Wa Mbu, where there were piles of bananas, rice, beans, spices, mangoes, and so forth. And a section for tourists with lots of crafts, mostly wood carvings of ebony and rosewood. Bartering was the rule here, and I managed to get a very nice carving in trade for a pair of old sneakers, a water bottle, and some cash. The hot commodity appeared to be socks (yes, socks), and anything with Michael Jordan, particularly sports magazines.
We spent three days in Serengeti National Park, a huge seemingly endless plain of grass that stretches for hundreds of miles, connecting to game reserves and to some parks in Kenya. Huge herds of animals roam these plains, following the rains. Although the largest herds had already migrated north (the rains ended in May), we nonetheless were often surrounded (quite literally) by hundreds of zebra, wildebeest, gazelle, topi, and others. Giraffes could be found wherever there was a clump of acacia trees, and hippos and crocodiles hung out in the pools along the river. We found troops of hyena, including one with babies, as well as jackals and foxes. But the most amazing were the lions and cheetah. We could pull right up next to snoozing lions, only 20 yards away. The cubs would tussle and play, and the adults would keep right on snoozing. We were very lucky with the one cheetah we saw, who we found in her den with 5 cubs. When we were the only folks there, she came out to look around and the cubs played in the grass.
Unfortunately, later, there were other tour operators who insisted on driving within about 3 feet of the cheetah in her den, way too close; our drivers reported those drivers to the park rangers. Apparently the parks have severe penalties for driving off road where not permitted, or for disturbing the wildlife. In Tarangire, a driver can be banned from the park for one year, which effectively puts them out of the business.
Early one morning, before dawn, we drove out for a pre-breakfast peek at the wildlife. Right outside of camp, only 100 yards from our tents, we spotted a lioness as she sprang after a herd of wildebeest. She chased them for a while, to no avail. Nearby a pack of hyenas waited patiently.
Perhaps one of the most striking things about the Serengeti, with its endless plains, roamed by herds of 1.8 million wildebeest and zebra, is that I could see what the North American west used to be like only 150 years ago. It’s sad what we have lost, and impressive what they have managed to protect.
After the Serengeti it seemed that it could not get any better. But then we moved on to Ngorongoro crater, the largest perfect caldera in the world that is habitable. Long ago it was a huge volcano, taller than Kilimanjaro. The lava that filled the core of the volcano drained away, leaving a hollow shell that collapsed to form a caldera, i.e., a crater. [My apologies to the geologists in the crowd, who I am sure see right through my simplistic understanding.] The thousand-foot high rim around the crater is 12 miles in diameter, and is high enough that it catches clouds and thus receives rain all year. Thus there is a rainforest on the rim, and the streams flow down into the relatively dry crater to form a shallow lake. With no outlet, the water evaporates to leave a highly alkaline environment. This shallow, alkaline lake is prime territory for thousands of pink flamingoes. The sight of that much pink feather and blue water is stunning, as is the smell of droppings from thousands of flamingoes (whew!).
Over 22,000 large mammals live in the crater; huge herds of resident zebra, wildebeest, gazelle, etc. These make easy targets for a fat and happy population of lions and hyenas. We spent an hour one day watching a lioness, barely crouched behind a tiny hillock, tense and waiting to spring as unsuspecting wildebeest strolled by. Neither the wildebeest nor the lioness seemed to notice that we were only about 25 yards away the whole time. Several times we were *sure* that she would spring out to catch a wildebeest that was only about 15 yards from her, but she decided to wait. Apparently she was waiting for a particularly stupid wildebeest (and they are pretty stupid) to stumble right over her. Ultimately we tired of watching before the lioness tired of waiting for her lunch; we later heard that she never did chase anything that day.
The confined space makes for wonderful wildlife viewing, but it also means that there is a very high density of LandRovers. At one stop we counted 14 LandRovers stopped to watch a rhino family. The black rhino are dwindling in number– only 22 left– despite intense protection from poaching. The Japanese market for rhino horn means that poachers can make a lot of money for killing one rhino, leaving it to rot while they take only the horn.
We took a side trip here to hike up to the rim of neighboring Olmoti crater. The 10,000′ altitude plus two weeks of sitting on our butts in a LandRover made this climb somewhat strenuous, though short. From the rim we could look over another beautiful crater, this one filled with cows. Here we met a young mother of three; she was just one of several wives of her husband, who apparently owned many cows and thus could afford several wives and many children. They carry their children on their backs, wrapped in the long blankets they all wear.
Yes, this is Maasai country, and the area is managed as a conservation area in which the Maasai tribe is allowed to live and graze their cows as they have done for centuries. Indeed, the Maasai have done an amazing job of maintaining their traditional culture and living style, in small villages of round stick-and-dung huts, living off their cows. They are a tall, proud people with very colorful dress: men wear a red blanket, somewhat like a toga, and carry a wooden staff and a spear, women wear gorgeous silver and bead jewelry.
We stopped by one village, where (for a price) they let us look around, visit their homes, and take pictures. They offered some of their crafts for sale, particularly the gorgeous beadwork of the women and the carved staffs and spears of the men. I don’t want to romanticize it– the area between the huts was strewn with cow manure, there were flies everywhere, and the huts were filled with smoke. They have a hard life, and I am really impressed that they have managed to maintain the traditional lifestyle despite the modernization of the rest of their country.
So Tanzania is a fascinating and diverse country, with many kinds of people and many lifestyles. There is a lot of poverty, which is particularly obvious in contrast with the tourists and their fancy hotels, Gore-tex rainwear, and video cameras. It made me very thankful for the things that I have.
We had three types of accomodations: fancy lodges, tented lodges, and tented camp. They all had spectacular locations, such as the lodge on the rim of Ngorongoro crater. Tented lodges were permanent installations where each “room” was an independent canvas tent, albeit with a concrete floor and shower/toilet attachment. The tented camp was a temporary setup run by Thomson folks, although none of us have ever camped in such luxury. Each couple had their own large canvas tent, with attached toilet tent; little shower tents; a dining tent; beer and wine on hand; great food; campfire made for you; warm water and a basin prepared for you at bedtime and at wake-up time. They even baked and decorated a birthday cake for me on my birthday.
Overall I found the Tanzanians to be a very friendly people, and the country to be absolutely gorgeous place. Definitely worth a visit if you ever have a chance. Although excessive tourism often ruins many places, the country seems (for now anyway) to have a fairly good conservationist attitude, as did our tour company. One quarter of Tanzania is already set aside in parks and game reserves. Thus it seems likely that the wildlife, scenery, and culture will survive reasonably well.
Sorry I did not include many photos here. I scanned the best of the prints, but most of the really good pictures are on slides. The photographic opportunities were phenomenal, given the amount and proximity of wildlife, and stunning scenery.
P.S. Our son John, 9 months old at the time, spent one week with his grandparents and another week with his cousins, and by all accounts had a blast without mom and dad around. Mom and dad missed him, on the other hand, quite a bit. At one refueling stop we met a local woman and her baby; Pam was so taken with her baby that she pulled out a photo of John to show her. In this picture of her you can just see her holding John’s photo, which she kept.
This post was transferred from MobileMe to WordPress in 2020, with an effort to retain the content as close to the original as possible; I recognize that some comments may now seem dated or some links may now be broken.
We skiied into the deep, deep blue sky over the summit of Moosilauke on Sunday morning. We had just skiied up the Carriage Road and across the summit ridge to the summit, in the snowiest conditions any of us could remember. The entire east slope of the summit cone was a smooth snowfield, and there was 4-6′ of snow on trail across the ridge. Although some clouds danced around the summits of the other major Whites summits, Moosilauke and Washington shone clear and white in the deep blue sky.
David Kotz and the summit of Moosilauke, from Carriage Road.
The weather was very warm, about 20-25 degrees, although there was a very strong west wind that made the ridge-crossing bitter cold. Out of the wind and in the sun, sitting on the slope east of the summit, though, we enjoyed a comfortable early lunch. Early because we had made it to the summit by 11am, after a 7am (yawn) start encouraged by Dan Nelson.
Although snowmachines we passed on the way down had packed the trail into a slick gully, the snow was deep and fluffy, which was good considering how fast we were going when we flew off the trail and into the trees. Despite our best efforts at snowplow and tele turns, we all took some spectacular face plants.
The crew consisted of Dave Hooke, Ed Lowney, myself, Dan Nelson and his friends Leo and York, a young DOC chubber named Bart, and two excited dogs. The “Best Shades” award goes to Ed and Dave Hooke. What a blast. Thanks for pushing us to get up early, Dan.
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On August 24, 1996, I finally finished hiking all 48 of the peaks over 4000′ in the Whites, on Wildcat A.
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With my friends David Hooke, David Metsky, and Ed Lowney, we skied up and down Moosilauke.
One day in March, a bunch of us Daves and one Ed decided to ski Moosilauke, since the snow was supposed to be good and we hadn’t skied the mountain since December. So, we parked just off 118 at the Access Road and skied up to the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge, where we put on skins. We chose to ski up the Gorge Brook trail, since it’s a more challanging route than the new Snapper trail.
Down low, the conditions were perfect, with nice sunshine on fresh snow. We crossed Gorge Brook and started climbing for real. At the upper views, the clouds were coming in, but we could still see the Blue Ridge poking through.
Above there, the trail is much more exposed, here crossing the Balcony. The first views of the summit ended our hopes of getting any views, but that wasn’t about to stop us. At treeline, we removed our skis and pushed on into the 40 MPH winds after gearing up.
The summit was windy, cold, and wonderful. We took a few summit shots (#1,#2), looked around and headed back to our skis for the descent. We were warming ourselves up on the upper stretches, occasionally stopping for views of the ridge before starting the fast and furious descent. The snow was excellent, and for me I finally had a skill level that was up to the task. We made it back down in about 1/5th the time it took to make it up and we only kissed a few trees.
– by David Metsky
This post was transferred from MobileMe to WordPress in 2020, with an effort to retain the content as close to the original as possible; I recognize that some comments may now seem dated or some links may now be broken. – David Kotz
The trip to the hut is pretty straightforward, just up the Crawford Path and take a right onto the Mizpah cut-off, total distance is only about 3 miles. People had hiked in front of us, but in places the light snow had drifted in and completely covered the tracks.
When we got to the closed hut the weather seemed to be turning worse. The snow was falling heavier as we stopped for lunch. There were lots of folks tenting near the hut (much too close, actually) and one group set up their tents under a huge huge cornice on the far end of the hut. I hope they made it through the night.
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The summer was starting and a bunch of friends decided to do a one-day Presidential Traverse around the summer solstice. It’s a very seasonal thing to do, don’t you know. Most of us had done a Traverse, although I think I was the only one to who’d done a one-day trip before.
A family vacation that ends with a horrible accident.
This story was written by my father (Jack Kotz) shortly after the trip. The story of my broken neck occupies the last third of the story; you can read the 2009 blog entry describing my trip back to Fiji (twenty years to the day after my accident). See also the gallery of my photos.– dave
In the winter of 1988-1989 we decided to take a family trip in the summer of 1989. We wanted to celebrate the fact that Pete had graduated from college and Dave had completed his Ph.D. exams. We also realized that this may be the last chance for the whole family to travel somewhere together. After a great deal of thought and planning we decided to go to Fiji, a group of islands in the South Pacific, on the other side of the date line and north of New Zealand.
Family vacation in Fiji, 1989
Dave was giving a paper at a computer science meeting in Los Angeles on June 7, so we flew there and met him for the flight to Fiji on Thursday, June 8. Our Qantas flight, about 13 hours in duration, was six hours late in leaving. Since we finally left about 4 AM on Friday, June 9, this meant that we flew almost all the way in day light. After about 8 hours we landed for refueling in Tahiti. It certainly is a beautiful place, with steep volcanic hills dropping into the ocean. Someday we’ll go back.
The flight from Tahiti to Fiji was about 4 1/2 hours, and we landed there at about 2 on Saturday afternoon, six hours late. Of course we had missed our connection to the island of Taveuni where we were to pick up our chartered sailboat on Sunday. But things in Fiji get done in their own time if you are patient. The little airline that was to fly us to Taveuni, Sunflower Airlines, rolled out a plane, found a pilot, and without telling us very much, put us on the plane.
Taveuni
After flying for well over 90 minutes, and seeing beautiful islands, coral reefs, and atolls, we started our descent into Taveuni, the so- called “Garden Island” of Fiji. As we lined up on a grass landing field, we looked out the window and saw, anchored in a beautiful bay, the lovely white yacht that we had chartered. What a sight!
Fiji 1989.
After landing we walked over to the terminal – a small wooden building – where we were met by a fellow from the hotel where we to spend the night. He took us to the Maravu Plantation, a very nice small hotel near the airport. The rooms are small cottages in the Fijian style (called bure’s), and a beautiful beach was just a few feet away. The resort is owned by Ormond Eyre, a Fijian with European blood. He had been a Qantas steward for some years before returning to start his resort. His main interest is food, so we had marvelous gourmet meals in a beautiful open-air dining room every day during our stay. (Just outside the dining area were banana and papaya trees where they could get the fruit for meals and hibiscus and frangiapani flowers for the tables.)
Jack Kotz sailing in Fiji 1989 – with Peter Kotz on the bow.
Sailing the islands
After a good dinner and a good sleep, we had a big breakfast and then were driven to meet the people who owned the boat we had chartered. They were Warwick and Dianne Bains; he is English and she is from New Zealand. He had had a great deal of experience sailing boats all over the world and had built the 54 foot, steel hulled ketch we were to sail. About noon we sailed out of the bay and into Somosomo Strait for the island of Kioa, about 10 miles way. We anchored off Kioa, did some snorkeling on a beautiful reef, and then had a marvelous dinner. (Dianne’s hobby is cooking, so we had some excellent meals.) On Monday, we sailed around Kioa in a good sea and then went ashore in the village. The people on Kioa are from the Ellice Islands, an island group north of Fiji. Apparently their islands had become overpopulated, so they bought Kioa from the government of Fiji and settled there. Not many white people come to this island, so there was a lot of interest in us, and all the women in the village turned out to sell us the handicrafts they had made. Warwick and Dianne knew many of the people in the village, so we met many of them and really had a good introduction to Fijian culture. A highlight was a visit to the school. The children were all coming back after their lunch in the uniforms. They gathered with their teacher on the beach near the school and all brushed their teeth. (Many Fijians have bad teeth because they chew sugar cane.)
After lunch we sailed on to the nearby island of Vanua Levu, the second largest of the Fiji group. We anchored in a sheltered bay surrounded by coconut palm plantations and then explored one of them. We also met one of the local fellows, who came on board with a load of fresh papayas, pineapples, limes, and lemons.
Fiji 1989.
The next day, Tuesday, we sailed on around Vanua Levu to a small but very beautiful bay where we again went snorkeling and saw some magnificent coral. Later in the afternoon, we sailed into yet another nearby bay and then went ashore to visit the small village and see their new school. The children were again charming, and they came out to the boat very early the next morning to sell us shells. It was quite a sight to see the little children paddling out to us on a calm sea in their outrigger canoes.
Fiji 1989.
On Wednesday we met up with a diving boat from the best scuba diving resort in Fiji (called Dive Taveuni). Pete transferred to the boat for a day of diving in one of the best places in the islands. (He later said it was one of the most exciting experiences of his life.) The rest of us then sailed across the Somosomo Strait to Taveuni and then up the coast of the island to the east end where we met Pete at the end of the day and where we anchored for the night.
Fiji 1989. uncertain about which island.
Thursday we sailed on to the island of Qamea and visited the very beautiful resort on that island. After anchoring in a sheltered bay we went to the resort for a Fijian meke, a way that the natives have of telling stories in song and dance. It was performed by local villagers as a way of raising money for their church, and it was very interesting and enjoyable. About 9 PM we started back to the boat, which was anchored about a mile away. Unfortunately, the heavens opened up and it poured! Needless to say we had a bit of trouble finding our way back through the reef to our boat.
Friday morning we visited a village on Qamea where Warwick and the village chief performed a traditional sevusevu, a ceremony where visitors present gifts to the chief in exchange for the privilege of visiting the village. (The gift is usually yaqona, the root of a plant from which they extract the traditional drink of Fiji. The root contains a chemical similar to pepper, and it has a numbing effect on the mouth.) The village was one of the most interesting we saw because the people lived in traditional houses made out of palm leaves and lived a life style close to the way they have lived for many years (except of course that they have given up cannibalism).
By later in the afternoon we had sailed over to Matagi Island, perhaps the most interesting anchorage we had seen. Matagi is a small island that was obviously a volcano. One side had broken away, so we could sail into the caldera. Warwick took us on a snorkeling trip to the reef just at the entrance to the bay that was the most spectacular we had seen. The water is so clear in Fiji that we could see the bottom at least 60 feet down. There were many types of corals in many different colors and fish of every size and color. And even some sharks cruising along the bottom. We finished a perfect afternoon by exploring some of the beaches in the bay and then had dinner by moonlight on a calm sea.
Saturday morning we decided to go ashore to see if we could find the most famous bird in Fiji, an orange dove with a green head! Apparently the best place to find it is on this island, and, sure enough, we found one at the top of a ridge overlooking our anchorage.
We sailed on late in the morning and anchored off Laucala (pronounced Lauthala). This island was bought some years ago by Malcolm Forbes for his private use. Although it is somewhat controversial, he moved the local village off the beach into new homes about 300 yards from the beach, and he provides for their medical care and education. The beach area is now used for a resort that is very small and very expensive. We met the resident manager, and he gave us a tour and even took us into Forbes’ home at the top of one of the highest hills on the island. (From the house and pool, you have almost a 360o view of the island, the beaches, and the Pacific. Beautiful!) Saturday evening we anchored once again off the island of Qamea and had dinner on a calm sea in the moonlight.
Sunday was our last day, so it was sad getting the boat ready to go home. However, we had a good sail across the strait from Qamea to Taveuni, and anchored in the bay by the Bain’s house on Taveuni about 11 AM. After saying goodbye to our hosts, we went back to Maravu Plantation Resort for the next several days.
Taveuni again
On Monday the day dawned with a tropical rain — all wet but still nice and warm. Dave and I decided to take one of the tours offered to hotel guests: to a beach and waterfall on the other side of Taveuni. Off we went — with an couple from New Zealand — in a Taveuni taxi driven by someone we would come to know well: Suhk Lal. After about 10 miles we had to ford a river. Unfortunately, the river was higher than usual, so Suhk’s taxi stalled after getting to the other side. We had to dry out the distributor (using a cigarette lighter) and push the car to get going again. However, Suhk decided that it may not be safe to go on, as there were more rivers to ford. Therefore, we turned around, forded the river we had just been through, and went back to Maravu. There we decided to take a trip down the island’s other shore with our New Zealand friends, and Kate and Pete decided to go along.
The roads on Taveuni are just dirt tracks covered with coral, and, with the rain, they were even worse than usual. Unfortunately, after several miles Suhk’s taxi had a flat tire from the coral, so we had to change that. We finally made it to the end of the island and saw the beautiful black, volcanic rocks and beaches. We had lunch in the rain, and decided to head back. On the way back, the other taxi — carrying Dave, Pete, and a guide — broke down because the rocks in the road had torn out some wiring. But Suhk soon had it fixed, and we proceeded a bit further — but only after hunting for Suhk’s watch which he had lost while fixing the taxi. Soon we had yet another problem with a wheel on our taxi, which Suhk fixed in his inimitable way.
Along a particularly hilly, winding and muddy portion of the road we realized something was wrong again with Suhk’s taxi. The odor of hot brakes was coming from the right front wheel. Suddenly, the wheel fell off, and the taxi went out of control. It was fortunate we were going quite slowly, so Suhk guided the taxi as well as he could into the hill on the right side of the road. (If we had gone left, we would have gone over a bank that fell away into the ocean.) If it had not been so potentially catastrophic, the accident would have been quite comical. In another stroke of good luck, another taxi happened along just at that time, and took us back to Maravu.
Fiji 1989. Cab number 666 was rather unlucky.
Tuesday was again raining, so Kate stayed in and read, while Dave, Pete, and I went off again with our New Zealand friends to a coffee plantation. The coffee on Maravu is especially good, and it was interesting to see how it is grown, picked, cleaned, and roasted.
Needless to say, the day we were to leave Taveuni dawned sunny and warm. We went to the little airstrip about 10 AM, and our plane arrived to take us back to Nadi on the main island of Viti Levu.
Sigatoka and Suva
On landing at Nadi we picked up our rental car, and headed off along the south coast of Viti Levu for the town of Sigatoka. There we were to stay in a small resort called the Crow’s Nest. After Maravu it was a come-down, but it was nice enough and it was in a good location. Sigatoka is on the Coral Coast, about halfway between the airport at Nadi and the capital of Fiji, Suva. Sigatoka itself is an interesting market town, so we explored the souvenir shops there on Wednesday afternoon.
Thursday drove the 100 km or so to Suva, the most cosmopolitan city in Fiji. Even though it rained most of the day, we made the rounds of the souvenir shops and the Fiji Museum. The artifacts were very interesting, and detailed the history of cannibalism in the islands and the exploration of the islands by Europeans and Americans. In the evening we had dinner at the Great Wok of China. We thought the food at the Great Wok was some of the best Chinese food we have ever had. Fortunately we got there early and could get a table.
Friday, June 23 was to be our last full day in Fiji, so we decided to go to the beach. The guide book said that Natadola Beach on the island of Viti Levu was particularly beautiful, and, since I heard the road to it was terrible, we decided to take that little sugar cane train that starts at the Fijian Hotel and goes about 15 miles to the beach. I thought it was a bit pricey, but it was fun. The train derailed on the way out, but everyone got out and helped to get it back on, so we made it out there in time for a swim before lunch.
My brother Pete and my father Jack head into the waves at Natadola beach.
Tragedy
After our lunch I am afraid that tragedy struck us. Dave decided to go in again to go body surfing. (We had all been body surfing before lunch, and it was wonderful.) Unfortunately, Dave was caught in a wave and was slammed head first into the sand with the result that he broke his neck (although we did not know it at the time). He struggled out of the surf on his own and collapsed on the beach. Pete saw it happen and immediately went to help him. Fortunately, Pete knew that Dave had a serious head or neck injury, so, after talking with Dave, he made a cervical collar out of beach towels. Then, after a search, we found a large board from a old truck. At Pete’s direction, we lifted Dave onto the board, and then carefully put him on the train, still on the board. I held his head as firmly as possible on the hour- long ride back to the Fijian Hotel.
In spite of the fact that the train people had called ahead to the Fijian to have a doctor there when we arrived, there was none in sight nor none expected. At that point Katie used her travel agent credentials with the manager of the Fijian, and they finally located a doctor in the nearby town of Sigatoka. He came after about 45 minutes, looked at Dave, and said Dave probably just had a severe neck sprain and perhaps a concussion. However, he thought we probably should have him x-rayed in the nearest hospital with the appropriate equipment; this was in the city of Lautoka, about 100 kilometers away. The problem was to find an ambulance. This took another 30 minutes or so, and then it only took us to Sigatoka. After some more conversation — and time — they agreed to take him to Lautoka, so Pete went off to the hospital in the ambulance with Dave, and Katie and I went back to the Crow’s Nest, checked out, and moved all of our stuff to the Mocambo Hotel in Nadi, a city where the international airport is located and closer to Lautoka. We finally made it to the hospital about 9 at night or so, where Pete gave us the bad news. Dave did indeed have a severely broken neck.
By the time we saw Dave on Friday evening they had him in a very old fashioned cervical collar, but it didn’t fit. It turned out there are only 2 cervical collars in Fiji, and the other one — which we found the next day — fit better.
At this point we did not know what to do. The orthopedic man — Fiji has only one, and I’m afraid he is not very good — had left for the evening, and the only other doctor was in surgery. We waited for him until about midnight, and he told us that Dave would be all right, that we should not worry because he was neurologically OK, and that we should come back Saturday morning. We were scheduled to fly home on Saturday evening, so we were anxious to figure out what to do.
Saturday morning we called people at home, including our local orthopedic man, and then we began checking with Qantas on how to get Dave to LA. On arriving back at the Lautoka hospital the local orthopedic doctor was there; he’s Chinese and, unfortunately, his English is hard to understand. Both he and the surgeon had mentioned something about some American doctors that were around, but they were not clear about whether or when these doctors would be available. However, the Chinese orthopedic guy said again we could go ahead and take Dave home that night as originally scheduled. We just needed to ask Qantas how to do it.
About this point we didn’t know what to do. But also at that point one of the American doctors, Dave Frankl, walked in. He is a young fellow who is there with his wife, also a doctor, working at the Lautoka hospital for two years. With his arrival our luck began to turn around. He urged us to go slowly with everything, to stay in Fiji a few more days to make sure Dave was stable, and to have time to make proper arrangements since it was quite complex to do so. In the meantime he told us that there was a chance we could get the other American doctor, Taylor Smith, an orthopedic surgeon from San Francisco, to come over from the resort of Musket Cove on another island. (He was in Fiji for a month to vacation and teach at the Lautoka hospital.) Without really telling us, Dave Frankl realized the seriousness of the problem, called Taylor and had him fly over that afternoon. When Taylor came into the hospital and saw the x-ray I could tell we had a problem, but I knew that Taylor and Dave Frankl were going to help us get everything arranged properly.
Late on Saturday afternoon Taylor and the Chinese orthopedic doctor put Dave into a cast called a “Minerva jacket” that went from the top of his head down to his stomach. The idea was to stabilize his neck well enough that he could stand the trip home. Finally, we began to breath a bit more easily.
On Sunday we spent much of our day completing arrangements with Qantas for a stretcher to LA. This turned out to be extraordinarily complicated. However, the Qantas manager in Nadi (Joe Sang) was extremely helpful, and we shall always be grateful to him. We found that a stretcher in a plane requires them to set aside nine seats, and some airlines charge you for all of those seats. Qantas was very nice in only charging us for 3 seats, one of which we had already paid for as Dave’s seat. Also, all airlines require a doctor to travel with a stretcher patient, so we were faced with paying for a seat for one of the American doctors to go to LA and return. However, Taylor said that Dave was stable and that Pete was qualified to give the required medical care. It took some doing to get Qantas to accept that, but they eventually did, so everything was cleared to travel on Monday.
On Monday it took some doing to coordinate the ambulance for Dave to the airport, to pay the bill at the Lautoka hospital (the total came to $125 for three days in intensive care, at the tourist rate — natives pay far less), to check out of our hotel, return the rental car, and so on and on. We had another good piece of luck even then. Taylor Smith was going to stay in Fiji for another week, but his wife and daughter were flying home on the same flight as us. Therefore, Taylor rode to the airport in the ambulance with Dave and was there to help us settle him onto the plane.
When it came time to get Dave on the plane (a 747), we took him into the plane through one of the rear cargo doors using one of the hydraulic lifts that they use for food carts. It took quite a few people to maneuver Dave on a stretcher into the plane and then get him carefully onto the stretcher that was bolted to the floor of the plane. And poor Dave was hot, frightened, and sick to his stomach from the medicine we gave him to keep him calm. It was a real nightmare… and we single-handedly made a 747 full of people about 30 minutes late.
After we took off Dave finally drifted off to sleep from the medication we had given him and he slept all the way to LA. However, there was still a minor problem. Taylor Smith had specified that Dave needed a portable bed pan and urinal, items that are normally with the stretcher. However, someone in Nadi had pinched them, so we made do with an orange juice bottle until we could get them from the Qantas office in Tahiti. However, as we neared Tahiti the chief steward told us they didn’t have them in their offices but rather had had to beg or steal them from UTA.
One of the most difficult parts of making arrangements to fly a stretcher patient is to ensure there will be an ambulance at the other end. In fact, Qantas will not take a patient until you can guarantee an ambulance will be there to take the patient off their plane. At this point we had more luck.
When we called our orthopedic doctor at home on Saturday, he got in touch with a colleague, Bill Dillin, at Centinela Hospital in Los Angeles. (Centinela is one of the foremost orthopedic hospitals in the U.S. and Dillin is one of the best in that field.) Dillin then called Taylor Smith in Fiji, and quickly discovered that Taylor had been his professor in medical school. All three doctors recommended that we stop over at Centinela to have Dave checked to see if he was able to go on to New York. In fact, our local orthopedic doctor said that Centinela was the best possible place for Dave and that we should stay there in any event for his treatment.
Qantas was again very helpful on landing in LA. They had customs agents come on board to make that process as simple as possible, they helped us get Dave off the plane to an ambulance, and they helped Katie get Pete over to American Airlines so that he could go directly on to New York. So, by early afternoon on Monday, June 26 Dave was in a hospital in Los Angeles and two doctors were there to check him. After looking at the x-rays they told us it was just luck that Dave was not killed by the blow to his head and neck and that it was nothing short of a miracle that he was neurologically fine. They also said that he probably would have been crippled if Pete had not done the right things after the accident. (They said that Pete will probably never see an injury that bad in his career in sports medicine.)
On Monday we checked on ways to get Dave home, and that turned out to be almost insurmountable. Airlines in the U.S. do not want to take stretcher patients (the damned lawyers!), so we were told we would have to use an air ambulance. But the cost of that starts at $8000. Nonetheless, with the help of a service provided to holders of a Gold Card from Master Card, we made arrangements to fly Dave from LA to New York City on an overnight flight on Friday on Northwest and then to take him by ambulance from New York City to Oneonta. All at a cost of about $4000.
The original opinion of the doctors at Centinela was that Dave would need an operation on his neck and that he may have to be in traction for 12 weeks or more in a hospital. However, they did a CT scan on Tuesday morning and discovered less soft tissue damage than they had expected. This meant that he could go into a traction device called a “halo” and that he would only probably need only about 2 weeks of hospital care after his operation. With this opinion, and observation that Centinela was really a first-rate place to take care of him, the three of us made the decision to stay there.
Therefore, they placed him in a “halo” on Wednesday. This device consists of a hard plastic vest that the patient wears. The vest supports U-shaped stainless steel bars that rise along the head. The bars are bolted to a ring or “halo” that goes around the patient’s head, about 1 inch away from the head. The ring is fastened to the head with titanium bolts. The bolts go through the ring, through the skin, and into the skull. Dave will have to be in this thing about 3-4 months. It is cumbersome and uncomfortable, but at least he can walk around in it.
After Dave had been stabilized in his halo, Dr. Dillin operated on his neck on Friday, June 30. They wired the broken vertebra together with the ones above and below. Then, using bone from his hip, they grafted bone onto his spinal column to keep the three vertebrae together permanently. The operation was very successful, and by the following Tuesday Dave was up and walking and really beginning to feel better. For the first time in about 10 days we could begin to believe that our son was going to come out of this a whole person.
Our decision to stay in the hospital in LA was a good one. The hospital sees a number of spinal injury patients, so the nurses and technicians know how to take care of such people. In addition, it was a very nice place, and Dave had a large, comfortable room. And finally, the people there were warm, friendly, and very helpful.
Although this has been a difficult time for us, many good things have come out of it. First, the people in Fiji were wonderful to us. The hospital does not have much, but they gave us the best care possible within the limitations of their facilities and equipment. The staff at the Hotel Mocambo were marvelous (the manager and one of the people at the desk even went to the hospital to visit Dave and they were helpful in making calls for us and in other ways). The people at Qantas went out of their way to be helpful, and we owe them our gratitude for smoothing over many problems. And Taylor Smith was marvelous. He went well beyond his duty, and he and his wife were a considerable comfort to us. In spite of the accident, we left Fiji feeling deeply grateful for the friendship of her people.
We went to Fiji to have family time together and for some adventure. We certainly found both. We did not come back refreshed, but rather with a renewed sense of our family. It was worth the journey.
This post was transferred from MobileMe to WordPress in 2020, with an effort to retain the content as close to the original as possible; I recognize that some comments may now seem dated or some links may now be broken.
David Kotz 
