The mountain, with an elevation of 3852 metres, earns its moniker from Andrew “Old Goggle Eyes” Humphreys, a Union General of the American Civil War. Not that “Hammer” is anticipating any Humphreysesque heroics on the trek, nor does he expect to take line honours either.
“To be honest I’ll be happy just to get up there”, he said in a phone hook-up from Flagstaff, “but I’m sure that as we draw near the end it’ll become a competitive race to the finish”.
In the countdown to the climb, Hampson, who is rooming at base camp with “Sugar” Kane Lucas and fellow bananabender Tom Bell, was refreshingly candid in his assessment of the task.
“Some boys are worried they’re not going to make it and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t either,” he said.
“The guy who’s taking us up said he took a bunch of schoolgirls up there the other day and they all made it, which puts the pressure on us a bit... but we should be right.”
By his own admission, Arizona makes a welcome change from Qatar where the Carlton players camped last year. “In fact, they’re polar opposites,” said Hampson, “Qatar being flat and 40+degrees and Arizona being mountainous and in the negative temperature-wise”.
“I have to say I prefer this place,” he said. “It’s a beautiful little town, training’s been as hard as it was last year, but all the boys have taken to it very well, everybody’s enjoying it and my body’s holding up, no problem.”
Arizona has of course been but one port of call for the worldly 24 year-old in the weeks and months since the 2012 season fizzled out.
“I went to Vietnam with Michael Jamison and ‘Laids’ (Jeremy Laidler) for ten days,” Hampson said. “It was my first time there, it was a beautiful place with its history, people and food, and if you haven’t gone there I recommend it.
“I then joined ‘the missus’ (partner and model Megan Gale) for a few weeks in Namibia in southern Africa where she was on a shoot. I found Namibia quite surprising. We stayed in a place called Swakopmund (Namibia’s most popular holiday destination dubbed “more German than Germany” by Lonely Planet), which was a German colony until just after the Second World War. All the architecture in the town is very German, and it’s surrounded by water and the oldest desert in the world.”
Hampson then went on safari in South Africa, “which is probably the best thing I’ve done by far”, then gave his regards to Broadway over ten nights in New York. Stopovers in Los Angeles and Vegas then completed the American leg (of sorts) for Hampson, who jetted back into Melbourne, albeit briefly, “and in less than a week was back here (in Arizona)”.
Like each of his ilk, Hampson has taken advantage of the Arizona experience to acquaint himself with the new Carlton Senior Coach, Mick Malthouse.
First impressions?
“Mick’s fantastic,” came the reply. “He’s been really easy for the boys to talk to, he’s involved in most of the stuff we’re doing and keeping up, and he’s so enthusiastic... I really like his ideas for the gameplan and the game in general.
“None of us have really got time off to talk to him about our roles within the team, although he did say today that over the next fortnight he’d take each of us one by one for a chat over a coffee and talk more specifically about football and the role.”
As for Hampson himself, all is going according to plan.
“My body’s feeling good and my mind is in a good placed too, which is just as important,” he declared. “I’ve been doing all the training over here and l look forward to the rest of the camp.”
