My plans for the mid term break involved snowboarding and bouldering, both easy, minimal effort, maximum fun activities.Terra (Dumont) ruined everything by; somehow, I can’t quite pinpoint the moment, seducing, no, tricking me into a 12 day mountaineering trip, with Mt Aspiring and a bunch of rock and ice climbing as the goal. I’m usually good at picking bad weather and declaring whole disciplines of climbing pointless for whole seasons, this was no exception, conditions blew for the big mountains. Iwas stoked, no Aspiring, we can just drive to the “Paynes Ford” of iceclimbing, rock up, crank Three 6 Mafia on the ghettoblaster, do some superfuturistic leashless WI/M 5+s and get a badass photo of me hanging of one tool with my bandanna on, loco style, way above my last piece, to much to ask? That is actually how Terra described it to me.
So, Terragrine Falcon picked me up from the Airport and took me to a complete strangers house, but the only people I can see are tramping club friends, so I assume its ours now, this was pretty close to the truth to be honest. I unpack ALL my gear onto Whit (Brierley) and myself;it was really fun…new tools and pons, 50m^2 of gore-tex jackets and pants from Whit and his awesome brother (both Bivouac employees and complete tools, love you guys) and a nice bouquet of new colour coded cams! Whit then clarified his financial situation, parents in China, $40 in bank account, bit of cash inthe wallet, emergency money now in Black Diamond form, wearing my clothes.
Rock Climbing
That day we headed out trad climbing in beautiful ChCh sun over to the Three Sisters, we all jumped on a bunch of funroutes, all just so happy to be on something longer than 3 moves. Highlights were an epic stick clip, without tape! Of the only sport route we could find; me providing free solo cookie relief to Terra and also me and Whit jumping on, but not redpointing an amazing mixed 22: grade 19 finger crack climbing for 10metres, bomber, spaced pro, then a steep face climb on edges that was a complete pump fest for our winter weakened forearms. Next time…
A quick supermarket shop and we made an outrageous amount of burgers for a crowd of skiersand whatnot at Neil’s (Kate Williman’s brother) place. At this point Alex(Ross) and James (our Christchurch contacts) disappeared for an inordinate amount of time, I figured kidnapping, turns out they were discussing whether or not to walk into Mt Somers that night, it being 10pm. I thought they were joking but decided to go along with it, a short drive later we were at Mt Somers car park but luckily we just slept outside under this roof (yeh, just aroof!) and then proceeded to flagellate ourselves up the hillside the next day,the first and second hills rate as the most fucked up I have ever been, ever,from anything. Terra, Alex and James were literally skipping, smiling and then waiting every now and again. It took ages, but I felt that the sight of Mt Somers almost made up for the effort. Mt Somers is incredible. Go there.Collate all known cams and start planning now. Nowhere else can you find 3 starcrack routes like this in NZ, in the most aesthetic setting. Beautiful.
Everyone bar Whit started climbing once we hit Orange Wall, (Whit layed on the grass, looking like he’d decked from the top, for about an hour, without moving) I tried Uno, 21, the “superlative Mt Somers classic”, failed in the last 5 metres, oh well.
Later on James tried to rap in the dark and came up 1foot short of the 2nd set of chains on a 70m rope, go figure. While he was doing some complex aid-esque trickery I tried some hard fucking aid of my own, resulting in an exploding cam placement and a sore ***. Next day saw Alex did the the classic 21, Scimitar, an aptly named rock climb owing to its shape.Alex took up the sharp end and did an awesome job, placing bomber gear and finally taking a semi-impressive whipper onto a medium BD nut, one more fall(she’s a machine!) and she got up, she’d easily get it next go if she bothered to redpoint (new word for these guys). I just managed a flash, at one point both feet slipped and I was full body contacting the rock with numb hands stack crimping some shitty dimples, so painful. Pretty hardcore for my calcitophilic fingers. Just as we topped out Scimitar the wind came up, then rain, and we could still see James on the rock and Whit and Terra at the belay over the valley,they were going to have fun…We decided the two Frenchmen who were headed to the Summit were either dead or going back by now, you see, they were wearing cottonin the great outdoors! I had to muster all my self-control not to tell them about my own fully synthetic and merino wardrobe as they passed.
On the walk back to the carpark Terra and James, someone who proved to be equally as stupid as her, decided, in heavy rain, the dark, with no proper clothes, massive packs full of rock gear, and no previous knowledge or experience, to go down the river instead of the track,canyoning they called it. Honestly, what the ***? Me, Alex and Whit sang dirty rap songs and played In or Aus the whole way down, at one point I got attacked by a tree snake deviously disguised as a vine, defeated, it slithered away before Alex and Whit could come out of the bushes following my harrowing battle scream. At the carpark, no others, and and flat battery…great, we just went into a kind of quiet, introverted space and willed the others back and the AA to hurry the *** up. Eventually both prayers were answered, hugs ensued and‘Betsy’ the Hilux got jumped (read: raped) by ‘Johnson’ the LandCruiser. 17rabbit smushes later and we were back in the garden (read: smog) city.
Wye Creek, Q-Town
Once the weather cleared we jumped in the car and, and, due to Kate not trusting my driving, especially uninsured (which is fair, I did sort of crash the last time we drove), Terra got behind the wheel for 6 hours. I was about as scared as I was messed up on the Mt Somers walk in. Countless close calls later, an awesome furgburger and some snowshoe bogarting in Q-Town and we were at the Remarks top car park in a blizzard.Like, an apocalyptic blizzard, not even Balto would have gone out in such conditions. So we got ready and with lots of German accented snow-show flexing found our way up to the top ski lift hut. It was -30 give or take, so we just made room and slept. Whit and Terra very envious downmat J. Anyways. We again, but seriously (as much I can be) this time,almost died walking to the top of the Remarks Col. I have a picture of Whit to prove this. Whit and I were cursing everything, poor Terra included, as well as trampers, snowshoes, snow, altitude, ice climbing, packs, trampers etc. Unhappy place.
A quick body rape up the last 20m and it was all downhill to Wye! Whose allure at this point still kept Whit and I alive, and Terra in a super hyperactivity state, complete with dances and running, yes running, at 4000m or whatever.
Now came the first test of our collective mountaineering prowess. Terra’s seemed to be comprehensive although largely theoretical, mine was based on ice climbing videos on the Petzl website and from skimming through the BS posted on a certain NZ climbing website, Whit’s on his acquired ill-informed bullshitting techniques prerequisite to Bivouac/Outdoor employment J
The problem was this steepish slope, with bluffs and gullies, a burning hot sun, and layered snow. Nice, with only two transceivers Whit and Terra stayed way back and ordered me to go and jump around and see how it felt. After 30mins of sweating and nervous tip-toeing I picked what seemed to be, although certainly wasn’t, the least dangerous line down. After traversing 45 degree icey slopes in snow shoes Whit and Terra rapped these bluffs on this ‘bomber’ (on the way back I lifted the block out of place with my hand…mmm) nob while I just whipped out the tools and did an easy traverse and jump into deep powder. A quick roll down the hill and the ice was right there, climb time!
Terra jumped on the first bit of ice wefound, a good starter pitch with double bolts at the top, nice! I then lead apitch just left without to much difficulty, placed my first screws, got calve pumped! Whit started seconding but was in such a foul mood from all the walking and generally being a grumpy person that he screamed “I HATE ICE CLIMBING” after about 5 moves and then bailed.
With the sun well gone and the round moon now dominating the skyline we descended down to set up camp. The girls started cooking an epic dinner while I dug what I what I thought was to be the mother of all snow caves. Turns out it was tiny and a complete *** to take clothes off in. Score one for Hangdog
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Next morning an alpine start saw us headingup the hill at 10.30, me in snowshoes for the approach in the hope it would keep snow out of my boots. I ended up collapsed in the snow after taking 1000steps and moving 2 metres, lying there comatose eating snow for around 15mins.
Rejuvenated, we headed off with much gusto to some absolutely beautiful, steepice lines. At this point my brain managed to catch up with my balls and we backed off. Walking right round we made it up to the top of the 2ndtier and had a look at this long, amazing line up perfect, bulged ice. Bulge after bulge. I hate bulges on ice! They are so awkward, I just want to mantle, butyou can’t! And when you swing your arm hits first and you don’t get any purchase. At this point I pretty much figured, if I fell, I’d deck, I didn’t trust the foot long screws I placed with annoying regularity, and didn’t want to tumble down the 1st tier of ice from half way up the 2ndso another drop nuts effort.
Lucky for us there was ample ice bouldering on the back of the waterfall. And running drinking water! Many outrageous ice moves followed on the columnar and super featured ice. Great fun. We experienced the dangers of ice boulder spotting: a service far more dangerous than the actual climbing.
Back on the first tier I led a nice aesthetic line up a vague, bulged arête that was quite steep in places. Terra followed, enjoying the incredibly fun route, reckoning WI4?
Whit followed another line to the right, in much better spirits, gladly swinging around some expensive bits gear. Fun was had by all. The plan was for me and Terra to plug the snow up to the 2ndtier and lead a mighty impressive 7m vertical pillar to a long section of lower featured angle ice with another couple of 5m vertical sections, looked WI 4-5.We built the belay and I tied in and placed the first bolt from the snow,climbed 1/3 of the way up and said *** this! Terra kept grumbling about the belay and I kept looking at the drop below and looking incredulously at the 4mmof pick holding me up in the immaculate ice. Instead we walked out quickly andI jumped on a steep mixed (well there was no ice) route consisting of a couple of pumptastic lock off moves and one arms (well…) into a big flake with pretty solid tool placements, my nice new crampons blunting themselves scraping on non-holds on the 20 (degrees) below. Lots of falls on a short length of ropeand I finally popped of my high point, right next to the second bolt (don’t laugh) leaving both my tools wedged up there. Ahhh, what to do, only one thing for it; some hard fucking aid. The tools were quickly recovered.
Walking back to the tier 1 belay we find whit with 2 down jackets on, grumpy and worried, happy to make another beautiful moonlit descent.
Returning to camp the snow cave roof resembled a satellite dish, a quick crawl inside the nicely tapered entrance and claustrophobia hit. I don’t like going backwards, so I squeezed past the now 30cm high entrance into the back of the cave. ***. 50cm high, do not likethis. Much digging later, and cave mk. II was ready. I only blocked myself in once, the ensuing panic made me contemplate suicide by snow shovel. Luckily Whit’s ‘regular’ 15 minute snow shovels saved me after some tense moments kicking the entrance into a compacted wall. Fun. Just like Paynes.
To further describe the conditions, I found out, after being ejaculated from the cave for dinner, that water in a bottle, would freeze over in about the time it took you to go toilet. Terra,our fearless Viking leader, stated that this meant it was the coldest place she had ever been in, an obvious precursor to horrific hypothermic injuries.
Another night on the downmat, with much spooning, and I woke up with one toe still numb, fantastic. Terra tried not to panic, “keep calm Tom,” she said. “It’ll go away in a few days” she said. That was 5 weeks ago and I still have numbness. Slab climbing will never be the same I fear, but cracks are less painful now.
Once we had all been reborn into the blazing sun from the blue burrow we packed up, pissed to be missing the PERFECT ice and PERFECT weather for walking and driving L The steep slope that gave us trouble on the way down proved to be even more counter progressive on the way up. Me and Terra solo-plugged and turf climbed offvertical thin snow to the top, thank god Terra didn’t pop onto me…we set up a sweet belay and took Whit up in excellent alpine style. For the record. 4m Wild Country slings are the ***. Don’t leave home without one; I’m pretty sure wecould have actually slung a snow bollard.
Another 2-3 hours of glorious snow shoeing and we were on top of the col and quickly sliding down the ski slopes on our snow shovels to the carpark. Yay!
After this we slept-drove the way back to ChCh, including a positively lovely foray through downtown (it was Saturday night), including a couple of street races. We didn’t miss anything.
Terra disappeared at 5? The next morning.Amazing. And drove to Picton, while me and Whit went rock climbing! Oh yeh! With Alex and a offwidth boulderer called Jan. We were at the Tors and did a bunch of awesome trad lines and a fair bit of free solo aid, up to A4? There was an actual sling throw onto a horn, it was super futuristic. I really think this is where NZ alpine climbing is headed; difficult aid pitches, perhaps at altitude,usually multi day, and always with turf sections.
One more night in the shed and a night riding round ChCh calling in contacts and eating Naan bread and we were ready(not really) for the uneventful flight back up to Wellington and 9am class!
Many thanks to Alex Ross and her understanding family for accommodation, guiding and bawse bagels while in ChCh and Mt Somers! We owe her!
Wye? because, despite my incessant BS, its one of the prettiest, most fun places i have ever been. Look out for a trip down next season. Terra won't be with us anymore, so maybe i lead??? scary. Start saving for tools now, and i recommend lots of Ruapehu trips to be up to pace when you arrive, we certainly were not and missed out on alot of routes as a result.
Thanks Terra for taking us, we love you really.
President 2011