High Five-O Challenge
A Day to Remember on Dragonfly Peak
Rob Howard / 23.02.2015
When you set out a challenge of epic proportions like Mal Law’s High Five-O Challenge, you never know what is going to happen. Despite his record breaking track record in trail running Law said at the outset that the he didn’t know if he could climb 50 peaks and run 50 marathons in 50 days, that’s part of the challenge after all – to see if he could do it.
By the time he reached day 17, the ascent of Dragonfly Peak, he had completed a third of his peaks, but at a price. A chest infection and then a knee injury had forced him to scale back his plans and shorten the routes. Severe pain descending meant the aim of a marathon a day had to be reluctantly dropped to enable him to keep going to reach his 50 summits, and his fund raising target for mental health services in New Zealand. He was losing one battle in order to win the war.
Then fate struck a cruel blow last Friday, when one of his best friends, Steve Combe, was killed in a helicopter crash near Queenstown. Steve had reccied the peak with Mal and his wife Sally, and was due to be the team leader on this day of the challenge. His loss had left the couple heartbroken at a time when they are already under huge emotional and physical stress.
Dragonfly Peak in the Mount Aspiring National Park is one of the more rugged and beautiful peaks on the challenge, and the day was going to be more than just another peak, it was also memorial and tribute to Mal and Sally’s friend.
I joined the team on the Albert Burn Saddle for the final steep ascent on a bright summers day where the Matterhorn like profile of the majestic Mount Aspiring dominates the skyline. Each day Mal has a team of support runners with him, and each of them has been raising funds for the challenge. In total he will have around 300 supporters out with him on the peaks and their fundraising has helped push his total raised to date to a magnificent $347,000.
All the team had on bright red challenge shirts and white caps, and they were also joined for day by elite trail runner Anna Frost and James Helmore from Wanaka Tourism, who were the sponsors for the day. (Wanaka is Mal’s home town.)
There was no trail to the summit from the saddle, it was a loose scramble, so steep both hands and feet were required at times, and with every step up in altitude the views became more and more panoramic and jaw-dropping.
The team stopped on a mound of shale just below the summit crags which is used for helicopter landings sometimes and visited a small cairn with had been built by Steve Combe a couple of months before. He’d put a bottle of beer under it for Mal and it was still there, buried on the mountain side, waiting for him. As Mal and Sally tearfully uncovered the drink left by their lost friend the support team gathered round, heads bowed to join in a moment of remembrance in a setting which could not have been more appropriate or magnificent.
After scrambling to the sharp ridge line on the summit the team celebrated peak number 17, building a cairn for Steve, taking team photos and enjoying the 360 degree mountain views. One of the supporters spoke briefly about a young man of just 16 who had taken his own life when his father died in an accident and whose family had donated to the challenge and the mental health services it supports.
As the clouds closed in and the temperature dropped the runners prepared to descend, but not before they’d been presented with medals thanking them for their help. With Mal’s injury made so much worse by descending he took the sensible course of accepting a ride down to the foot of the peak by helicopter, allowing him more time for recovery and for treatment back in Wanaka.
He’s had to change his schedule for the next couple of days, climbing peaks around Wanaka rather than the more remote summits he’d planned in the National Park, and this too will allow him to recover a little more, while continue his High Five-O Challenge.
You can find out all about the challenge and support Mal by making online donations at http://www.high50.org.nz/
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