North Routeburn and Somnus Couloir

The weekend of the 17th and 18th of November a group of us went tramping up the North Routeburn, near Glenorchy, which is past Queenstown closer to the West Coast. We drove up to the road end on friday night and stayed the night in the Routeburn Shelter, a solid building with a fire place, tables, loo's and a wonderful concrete floor to sleep on.

The next morning we cooked up a greasy feast of eggs, bacon and sausages washed down with a nice big cup of coffee, packed our packs and joined the swarms of tourists for the start of our walk. The first two hours are spent on the well graded and wide Routeburn Track, the world famous Great Walk. There were certainly alot of people about as it was a beautiful day. Alot of people complain about the Great Walks being too conjested with Tourists, but we think it's fantastic that they can get out an enjoy our wilderness too. If one wants isolation, us Kiwis have plenty of other country the tourists can't get too easily. So we should go there instead.

Several of us were packing in our ice axes and crampons and climbing helmets, and as we were going to bivvy on Saturday night had alot of other gear we wouldn't usually bring. So our large packs with sharp pointy things hanging off the back looked quite out of the ordinary to the tour groups from Asia we passed.



Routeburn Flats, The hut is behind us, the valley to the left is the
North Branch we we went, the valley on the right is the
Routeburn where we had just walked up

After two hours we reached Routeburn Flats and the hut, we had lunch and branched off up the North Routeburn valley. The track here is still good but not quite great walk stuff. Definately a tramping track rather than a walking track. It meanders up the valley nicely, there were plenty of Paradise ducks around with their beautiful white heads. After about an hour and a half we came out on lovely tussock flats and could see Hobbs Bivvy, an enormous rock under which we would sleep that night.



Hobbs Bivvy, you crawl right in under, slept 7 of us comfortable,
just dont sit up fast during the night! Bump!

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent taking photos of the Couloir and Humbolt mountains on the other side of the valley.




Veiw from the Biv looking up valley, North Col is at the end,
the Somnus couloir is the prominent snow chute seen at right

A not so early as intended start saw a group of us leaving the bivvy at 7am and crossing the river and heading up the couloir, a big gut filled with snow and ice. This was great climbing and one gained height quite quickly, though the slope was on average 40-45 degrees. It's like walking up the stairway in a giants home. Really big. I turned around about half way and the other carried on for another half and hour or so and I downclimbed by myself. I really enjoyed this experience as I was completely alone and felt the presence of God as I climbed down. It was really peaceful and good for consolidating ones thoughts.

Looking up the Couloir from the Bottom. Looking past Ally's head down the couloir, about half way up

After lunch at the bivvy we packed up and walked out again. The sun was very hot which sucked ones energy out but nevertheless after an ice cream from the Glenorchy General store we all felt pretty good.

Have to go back and climb the Couloir proper and Somnus one day. Summer is best time for this, as the couloir is an avalanche chute, also the advice from climbers who were up there the day before us was to be down and out of the couloir by 11am (what we did) as it starts to get a bit sporty with some loose snow avalanches from the cliffs above, and just the snow softens up in general making it harder going.

On the trip was: Ben, Anna, Matt, Lisa, Ally, Andrew, Teri and I.

Tramping in the Pisa Range

We went up into the Pisa Range with Mark, June, Miri and mate from work Andrew in the weekend. Hired every set of snow shoes bar one in wanaka, and Andrew hiring a set of skins and heel lifters for his skis so he could telemark instead.

It turned into a bit of an epic as we set off from the snow farm carpark at 9:30 pm. The predicted clear skies had turn to misty rain, which bounced back ones headlamp beam giving a great veiwable radius of about 30m.

Through a good combination of Map skills and GPS usage (Marks' work toy) we found the hut at about 1:45am. A good design, an old insulated chiller by the look of it, so it was nice and toastie in no time. Kirtle Burn Hut it was. Next morning saw a 10:30 am start for a stroll up Mount Pisa. Really just walking slightly uphill until you run out of mountain and it drops off down to the Cromwell valley. However the Rime ice on the fence posts made great shapes and patterns and the rolling snow covered hills were beautiful in the changing light. Again the promised weather didn't really deliver but we got some fantastic views through the cloud when it cleared breifly. We headed down back to the hut, much faster downhill, admired some onimous looking cornices that overhung the valley we by passed. Back at the hut at 12:45, Lunch, now lunch was good, tortillas, sundried tomato cream cheese and hummus with cashews, mmmmm, pack up, navigating in the day is so much easier than in white out in the middle of the night! It was nice to see different scenery (our actually see rather). Great trip.

Was actually really hard work in snow shoes, while you certainly didn't sink nearly as far. the extra drag on your feet does still drain your engergy especially when you stand on them or trip over them. Not as effeicent as tramping but still good for deep stuff. We would have been waist deep in most places without them.

Charlies 21st

The weekend of the 25th of August we went up to Mount Cook and stayed at Unwin Lodge (NZAC Base Lodge) for Charlotte's 21st. (Teri's sister). A great weekend was had by all, everyone dressing up on Saturday night for a big game of "Who am I" were players take turns at guessing who people are supposed to be by their costume. With about 50 people attending it was a strange sight to behold. The next day was a lazy morning, a hearty breakfast melded into brunch which somehow rolled into a wonder up Mount Sebastopol with Ben, Alex and Tammy. A good short scramble up broken and fissured rock, some of it more loose than we would have prefered, however we went one at a time so as not to dislodge rocks onto each others heads.

The best part was the descent, which was scree running down a really nice scree slope. Ben being the descent specialist he is was down in less than 20 mins I think. Teri and I took a bit longer, this also being the first time I had ever been scree running so it was good to soak it up. I have since read a trip report on the web describing that slope as one of the nicest scree runs in NZ. A trip to the Old Mountaineers Cafe and bar for an ice cream before heading to the lodge to pack up and drive home through the Lindas Pass, another beautiful piece of country, and another brilliant piece of road engineering. Nice drive it is.

Single Cone 14/15 July 2007

. Teri and I and our good friend Ben went up to the Remarkables ski field (at 1600m) and hiked up beyond where the skiers go up to a saddle and then from the saddle we went further up the side of the mountain till we got to a plateau at 2050m. We set up Camp there, two tents which we dug into the snow to keep some of the wind out. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the area around us and practising with ropes and things like that. I fired up my stove at about 5pm when we started to loose the light behind the bulk of Single Cone, the highest point in the Remarkables range above Queenstown (2319m). Melting snow for water for drinking and cooking at took a little longer than usual, but my stove is really powerful and before long we were all in one tent enjoying hot rice with Mince and vegetables (which I had dehydrated earlier making it much easier and lighter to prepare in the backcountry) We lost the light completely at 6pm and with the disappearance of the sun went the little warmth it had provided. Within minutes the temperature had plummeted to minus 9 degrees Celsius, The actual temperature that night we don't know as Ben's watch which had the thermometer ceased to function at minus 9. I dare say the night got much colder. Tucked up in our down sleeping bags we slept long throughout the night and woke up to a lazy start at 7:30, the sun was out but had not yet reached the tent. When it's first rays hit the tent the ice that had formed on the inside began to fall onto us giving us the motivation to get up and get moving. I melted some more snow for breakfast and after a hot brew of Hot chocolate along with breakfast we packed up the little gear we would take with us to the summit. We expected it to take about two hours to get to the summit, and took some chocolate to eat on the top along with our down jackets and rain coat to keep out the wind. Sporting our Waterproof overalls, and jackets, Climbing Harnesses, Helmets, gloves, two ice axes, climbing boots, crampons and of course our packs with the rope and other gear we would need we set off up the easy angle slope to towards the top.

Within 100m of the top the slopes steepen quickly. We sidled across under rocky outcrops to a narrow Couloir (pronounced Cool-wah), a gully with steep rock sides. Ben having a lot more experience on this sort of steeper terrain headed up the Couloir "Solo" without a rope. Teri and I did not feel comfortable doing this so got out the rope, Teri fastened herself to the anchors drilled into the rocky sides and I attached to the rope which was attached to her and I "Lead" climbed above her about 50m to the next anchors, I carried with me equipment to make a another anchor halfway up to protect against a fall, however after halfway up the angle eased a little and because the couloir never sees the sun the snow was firm and icy, meaning great for using the spikes on the crampons and the picks of your two ice axes. After I had clipped in to the anchor at the top just below the ridge, I belayed Teri up, bringing in the slack rope as she climbed. She then carried on past me onto a little ledge with a steep drop off. This was the scariest bit, as you popped over the ridge there was Queenstown and the whole of Lake Wakatipu laying over 2000m below you. Still on the rope so she would go far if she slipped she climbed up the ridge and out of sight. When she had reached the summit some 40m from me she tugged at the rope which meant I was to start climbing, It was my turn to get a bit of an adrenaline rush as I popped over the ridge, I admit I concentrated mainly on where I put my feet and axes and didn't have time to think about the drop. I was comfortable know that Teri had me on the rope and that Ben was with her there to help. I came up to the "false" summit, the peak slightly lower than the highest point and could see Teri and Ben waiting for me, I followed my rope across the narrow ridge between the two peaks, 2000m drop on the left and a not so steep but about a 600m drop on the right. The ridge was about 60cm wide and I felt surprisingly safe, there was not a breath of wind, if it had been windy it would have been a different story altogether. The Summit was large and quite safe to walk around on comfortably. We spent about 3/4 hour up there soaking up the view, all 360 degrees of it. We could see in the distance, mount Earnslaw, Mount Aspiring and all the way to Mount Cook in the distance, such a clear day.

We walked back across the ridge unroped as these few metres we were all comfortable with, then we built an anchor and I belayed Teri down past the steep drop to the top of the Couloir, then she clipped into the anchor and belayed me down so we were both protected by the rope. We had to wait about 20 mins to descend as another group were coming up. When then dropped the full 60 m of rope down the couloir and abseiled down the icy gully. Teri went first me second and Ben last. It was then a case of traversing the easy slopes back across into the sun, and after taking our harnesses and crampons off for the softer snow we ran down the powder snow slopes to the tents. One can take awfully big steps when descending snow slopes as you sink in up to your thighs sometimes if the snow if soft like it was.

After packing up the camp we set off for the car park much quicker going down it only took us an hour of plodding. All the skiers had gone for the day and we one of the last cars down. We met up with another friend in Queenstown for a nice hot meal at the Ale house Bar and then headed home, utterly spent.

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Luke & Teri.