It was on everybody's lips. The weather was unseasonably warm. The week of continuous sunshine we'd had whilst up the Tasman was all but unheard of. We were lucky in that there were some good freezes to start with, but they were soon to disappear with rising temperatures. People were saying that this season, in terms of snow melt and route condition, was a month advanced, that it is to be a la nina summer. This all meant that snow and ice climbs would be a grim prospect, if climbable at all, and that rock climbs were the far more sensible order of the day.
This was not really what I wanted to hear. As an Australian, with plenty of rock climbing back home and little snow and ice to speak of, I was here to climb the white stuff. But if you want to have a good time, you have to go with conditions, which I was of course fine with, because I do love rock climbing regardless of what else I may be missing out on.
I teamed up with James and Sleake to walk in and climb the classic West Ridge of Malte Brun, a route on reputedly good rock. We didn't make it very far - whilst descending the moraine wall on to the Tasman Glacier James slipped and twisted his ankle. It brought an end to his trip. We were lucky it had happened where it had, rather than somewhere amidst the Tasman moraine. I must admit a part of me was glad I didn't have to walk up the Tasman moraine with such a heavy pack.
Sleake and I set out soon afterward from MCV for a crossing of the main divide into the Copland Valley. I'd had this trip, a walk out to the West Coast via the Copland, on my mind for some time, and had decided to combine it with an ascent of Mt Sefton along the way. Mt Sefton is an incredibly prominent peak perched above MCV, and as such my eye had been drawn to in many a time from many a place over the preceding weeks. It's East Face is wild and difficult to access; our plan was to climb its West Ridge, accessed from the Copland Valley via Scott Creek.
Rather than cross via the Copland Shelter and Pass, we ascended an avalanche gut soon after hitting Hooker Lake, thereby avoiding what was meant to be one of the worse moraine walls around. A sidle under some bluffs to avoid some ice cliffs put us in a fine and dandy couloir which got us promptly onto the ridge coming down from Madonna Peak, which we soon traversed around from to cross the divide via Fitzgerald Pass, about a k south of the Copland Pass. It all worked a treat, and we got to Douglas Rock Hut, a beautiful old hut which is high on my list of favourite visited, a little under 12 hours after setting out.
The next morning we left the Copland track and started making our way up Scott Creek. It was far more involved than either of us had anticipated, and involved lots of rock hopping, scrambling, water crossing, crossing over deposited snow build ups as well as under them in channels worn by the passage of water, and a bit of jungle bashing/slab climbing to get past an initial waterfall. None of these obstacles stopped us, but as we came across another one, for which we would have to get the rope out to pass, we sat down and had a natter. It was midday, and we'd only ascended 400 vertical metres. We had another 1000m to get to the bivy site. Many factors influenced our ensuing decision to turn around, but the bottom line was that we did not want to get caught out in Scott Creek on the Sunday when they were forecasting rain - west coast rain. We did not rate our chances of climbing Sefton in a morning from the bivy (about 1300m of ascent) then descending 2700m back down through Scott Creek to Welcome Flat Hut all on the Saturday.
Once the decision was made, and we were back down past most of the obstacles encountered on Scott Creek, we noticeably lightened up. It happens frequently when climbing, when you realise that you are back down out of all (or most) of the dangers, and you switch your mind off from being so serious and focused on every thing going on, and you look to the future, what you'll be feasting on back at the hut, what you'll be doing next week back in civilization, what you'll be doing when you're back home.
I proceeded to walk out to the West Coast, via some welcome thermal hot pools at Welcome Flat. Despite not reaching Sefton, it had been an incredible trip, just the Copland in itself was an amazing walk through a landscape completely different to that on the east of the divide, the mountains being much more rocky and precipitous. My impressions of Scott Creek cannot be done justice by words, but the one word which I feel comes closest to describing it is 'wild'. It was one of the most wild places I have ever been.
At Fox Glacier I returned to the same cafe in which I had first seen a breakfast of pancakes with bacon, banana and maple syrup, when our guide had ordered it on my first trip to NZ a few years previous. They still had it on the menu, and it was great, such a good combination! I took it fairly easy, making my way up to Hokitika, and eventually hitched my way back around to MCV via Wanaka.
I unpacked upon returning to Unwin Lodge in the evening, and immediately repacked for another outing the next day. Steve, Chris, Andrew and I accessed our climb in style, by boat across Tasman Lake. We made our way up Gorilla Stream to a bivy site just before the route turned to snow.
The Nuns Veil was the peak on our agenda, a nice looking thing which stands out above its immediate neighbours on the eastern side of the Tasman. We were up at the earliest time yet this trip, 01:00, but we had a boat to catch in the arvo, after a reasonable climb and a 2000m descent back down Gorilla Stream. It was a good freeze, and the mornings ascent passed by quickly. It steepened up a little near a bergschrund below the summit, and it was a little windy and thus cold in the pre-dawn, but the sun rose just as we were approaching the top, and life was good! We took in the incredible views of the peaks along the main divide, dominated by the huge bulk that is Aoraki/Mt Cook, then descended back to the bivy for an early lunch. The descent wasn't too bad, but the 8kms or so back up the Tasman to the boat pick-up was verging on soul destroying. It was about a 14 hour day, and back at Unwin I reveled in complete exhaustion.
This was not really what I wanted to hear. As an Australian, with plenty of rock climbing back home and little snow and ice to speak of, I was here to climb the white stuff. But if you want to have a good time, you have to go with conditions, which I was of course fine with, because I do love rock climbing regardless of what else I may be missing out on.
I teamed up with James and Sleake to walk in and climb the classic West Ridge of Malte Brun, a route on reputedly good rock. We didn't make it very far - whilst descending the moraine wall on to the Tasman Glacier James slipped and twisted his ankle. It brought an end to his trip. We were lucky it had happened where it had, rather than somewhere amidst the Tasman moraine. I must admit a part of me was glad I didn't have to walk up the Tasman moraine with such a heavy pack.
Sleake and I set out soon afterward from MCV for a crossing of the main divide into the Copland Valley. I'd had this trip, a walk out to the West Coast via the Copland, on my mind for some time, and had decided to combine it with an ascent of Mt Sefton along the way. Mt Sefton is an incredibly prominent peak perched above MCV, and as such my eye had been drawn to in many a time from many a place over the preceding weeks. It's East Face is wild and difficult to access; our plan was to climb its West Ridge, accessed from the Copland Valley via Scott Creek.
Rather than cross via the Copland Shelter and Pass, we ascended an avalanche gut soon after hitting Hooker Lake, thereby avoiding what was meant to be one of the worse moraine walls around. A sidle under some bluffs to avoid some ice cliffs put us in a fine and dandy couloir which got us promptly onto the ridge coming down from Madonna Peak, which we soon traversed around from to cross the divide via Fitzgerald Pass, about a k south of the Copland Pass. It all worked a treat, and we got to Douglas Rock Hut, a beautiful old hut which is high on my list of favourite visited, a little under 12 hours after setting out.
The next morning we left the Copland track and started making our way up Scott Creek. It was far more involved than either of us had anticipated, and involved lots of rock hopping, scrambling, water crossing, crossing over deposited snow build ups as well as under them in channels worn by the passage of water, and a bit of jungle bashing/slab climbing to get past an initial waterfall. None of these obstacles stopped us, but as we came across another one, for which we would have to get the rope out to pass, we sat down and had a natter. It was midday, and we'd only ascended 400 vertical metres. We had another 1000m to get to the bivy site. Many factors influenced our ensuing decision to turn around, but the bottom line was that we did not want to get caught out in Scott Creek on the Sunday when they were forecasting rain - west coast rain. We did not rate our chances of climbing Sefton in a morning from the bivy (about 1300m of ascent) then descending 2700m back down through Scott Creek to Welcome Flat Hut all on the Saturday.
Once the decision was made, and we were back down past most of the obstacles encountered on Scott Creek, we noticeably lightened up. It happens frequently when climbing, when you realise that you are back down out of all (or most) of the dangers, and you switch your mind off from being so serious and focused on every thing going on, and you look to the future, what you'll be feasting on back at the hut, what you'll be doing next week back in civilization, what you'll be doing when you're back home.
I proceeded to walk out to the West Coast, via some welcome thermal hot pools at Welcome Flat. Despite not reaching Sefton, it had been an incredible trip, just the Copland in itself was an amazing walk through a landscape completely different to that on the east of the divide, the mountains being much more rocky and precipitous. My impressions of Scott Creek cannot be done justice by words, but the one word which I feel comes closest to describing it is 'wild'. It was one of the most wild places I have ever been.
At Fox Glacier I returned to the same cafe in which I had first seen a breakfast of pancakes with bacon, banana and maple syrup, when our guide had ordered it on my first trip to NZ a few years previous. They still had it on the menu, and it was great, such a good combination! I took it fairly easy, making my way up to Hokitika, and eventually hitched my way back around to MCV via Wanaka.
I unpacked upon returning to Unwin Lodge in the evening, and immediately repacked for another outing the next day. Steve, Chris, Andrew and I accessed our climb in style, by boat across Tasman Lake. We made our way up Gorilla Stream to a bivy site just before the route turned to snow.
The Nuns Veil was the peak on our agenda, a nice looking thing which stands out above its immediate neighbours on the eastern side of the Tasman. We were up at the earliest time yet this trip, 01:00, but we had a boat to catch in the arvo, after a reasonable climb and a 2000m descent back down Gorilla Stream. It was a good freeze, and the mornings ascent passed by quickly. It steepened up a little near a bergschrund below the summit, and it was a little windy and thus cold in the pre-dawn, but the sun rose just as we were approaching the top, and life was good! We took in the incredible views of the peaks along the main divide, dominated by the huge bulk that is Aoraki/Mt Cook, then descended back to the bivy for an early lunch. The descent wasn't too bad, but the 8kms or so back up the Tasman to the boat pick-up was verging on soul destroying. It was about a 14 hour day, and back at Unwin I reveled in complete exhaustion.
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