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Cathedral Rocks

  •  19-11-2009, 11:15 PM

    Cathedral Rocks

    Cathedral Rocks, Mt. Ruapehu

    October 2009

    Terra Dumont & Jack Nixon

     

    My winter has been full of failed Cathedral Rocks attempts. Once by my friend being sick, once due to my perspective climbing partner having to dog sit, once by the car getting stuck half way up the Tukino road (we did have fun pulling it out with a 6 to 1 pulley system on a snow stake!) and multiple times by bad weather. So when at last Jack and I started driving up the Turoa road, with the sun shining and our bags packed I was very excited, and also trying to decide what was going to go wrong for me this time!

     

    We had a lovely slog up to the platue with the sun beating down on us and getting blatantly stared at by skiers on the rope tow. Probably the fact that my shirt was missing its back and I had Palpagradi (a pink soft-toy pig) attached to my pack wasn’t helping matters! In good Ruapehu style the clouds kept dropping giving us zilch vis and giving us good navigation practice.

     

    We built ourselves a lovely house, I chose the bedroom colours as orange (Macpack helped me there) then I decided white, with a hint of blue would be nice for the kitchen. We then headed around and checked out the ice. We decided Lahar View (WI2) looked good, so Jack jumped on the first pitch. He soon backed off, understandably given his ¾ shank boots, limited ice experience and very tiered, over stretched calf muscles. I then gave it a crack, and was having a blast, but it was getting dark and Jack was quite cold, so we decided to leave it until the next day.

     

    We awoke to a beautiful Sunday, clear skies and no wind. I jumped back on Lahar View, and thoroughly enjoyed the climb! Though the airy ice took a bit of getting used to as for the last year I have been well spoiled with the beautiful ice of Wye Creek and Canada. But once I got the hang of it enjoyed it just as much. I did it as 3 pitches due to limited numbers of screws, which ended up working quite well. The last pitch I found challenging as the 1st couple meters were steeper than anything I had led before and I was really tired and my head space was starting to go as I was also not used to continually leading. But once I got my head together and got on with it, it was great fun and a fantastic achievement.

     

    Atop the summit our shadows were visible below us on the clouds, encircled by a rainbow. A perfect end to a perfect climb J

     

    Terra J

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