By Terra Dumont, 01 December 2011
How to live at Wyn Irwin for 2 months and climb one (or is it three??) little mountain
Psyched from two months of climbing in Europe and excited about mountains with snow on them I literally bounced into Wyn Irwin, ready for my second season of filming with Tony Rac. Regardless of my enthusiasm, I did harbour some small doubts as to the sanity of spring climbing in Mt. Cook after two disastrous previous seasons. The theory was that this year it would be fine, as we were starting in September as opposed to November. The weather would be settled, the snow would be consolidated, the crevasses would be filed in...
Due to a patchy forecast with only a small window, Tony and my first trip was Novara. The plan was to camp out on the top and get the sunrise on Cook. But half way up we encountered waist deep powder and strong winds. Needless to say we retreated, set up camp in the most sheltered spot we could find and headed back to Mount Cook Village the next day.
In the comfy confines of Wyn Irwin Cam started my training
in the art of sifting. This involved cuddling up in my down jacket and blanket
by the fire with a cup of tea and my lap top, on which I
twiddled away at my thesis. And so the months went by...
There were a few intermissions in my sifting. Both Cook and Sefton lured me from my chair onto their inviting slopes - full of promises of consolidated snow and clear starry nights. Upon venturing onto their flanks I found their proffered flowers to be fakes.
Tony and my first attempt on the NW couloir of Cook resulted in having to kick in the Gardener Hut door as snow had piled up more than a meter high behind it (sorry DOC!). We didn’t even make it to Empress Hut as the weather turned early on us. My next attempt was a few weeks later with Sleak. We decided to attempt the climb from Gardener Hut, but only made it about 400 m from the hut before turning around due to deep pow. Watching the avalanches come down on the walk out made us very happy about our decision.
The story of my relationship with the East Face of Sefton is sadly very similar. You would think I would learn! Tony, Sleak and I only made it about 300 m from Sefton Biv on our first try – the wind crust was breaking off before I even managed to finish digging my avo pit. Cam had a good giggle at us and then enjoyed a ski down as we trudged back. Tony and my second attempt was barely more successful. This time our plan was to camp below Tuckett Col. We only made it to the start of the traverse over Huddleston Glacier where we again found serious instabilities in the snow pack. We enjoyed a camp with a lovely view, and headed home to Wynies the next day.
On a single day window I even tried a solo trip up Mt. Annette via Sebastopol ridge. It was again aborted half way due to unstable slab. Climbing Mt. Sebastopol barely counted as an accomplishment, despite being the only thing I had summited so far! In desperation to actually climb, Rob, Pat and I ran away twice to the safety of the bolts and solid rock of Wanaka and Queenstown. Some things sport climbers do have right... But the lure of the mountains would always bring us back; most commonly to black clouds and horizontal rain as soon as we drove past Freds Stream.
Finally, after being in Mt. Cook over a month, there was a decent weather window. The snow pack was still looking a bit unconsolidated on Sefton and the GT of Cook looked blue, so we decided to try something a bit different and so started our date with La Perouse. Sadly we didn’t even get to meet her properly, but instead went for her more accessible friend Jellicoe. The night started out perfect - clear, calm and crisp. From Empress Hut we soared over the glacier and up the flanks of Sturdy on perfect neve snow. We then dropped down onto the West Coast side and sidled the ridge. After some calf-burning soloing on front points we found our first difficult section around the back of Jellico which involved climbing down steep, rough snow. I headed down first, setting up a fixed line for Rob and Pat, Tony then cleaned it. From there we headed up to the summit of Jellicoe. At this time it was 11 am and we knew we still had plenty more ground to cover before summiting La Perouse, and we had no inclination to go back the way we came up. As we could see what appeared to be a straightforward way off Jellicoe we decided to wait until the evening freeze before heading down. It was a fabulous warm, wind free day. Perfect conditions for a picnic and afternoon sift on the summit!
As we enjoyed the view we discussed how many raps it was going to take to get down to the point where we could walk to the glacier; the bets were between two and four. Given we had four snow stakes between us this seemed good. Around 4 pm we made a t-slot and I headed down to make the next. After the 4th t-slot we tried down climbing for a bit, but found a shrund. Being out of stakes, I made a snow bollard, and headed on down again. I made another bollard, then another. Next I ended up half way down an ice cliff, so it was time for a v-thread! It was quite the party with the 4 of us on one anchor point (2 v-threads and a screw)! And then back to the bollards.... we lost count. Somewhere around the 15th or so abseil we hit the glacier, 600 m of rapping... Being able to walk again felt so good! 23 hours after leaving the hut we re-entered her doors. After only four hours sleep in Empress Hut we pulled ourselves out of bed to try and get back to town before the storm, which was already howling, got any worse. We made it back in 5 hrs... running in front of the rain the whole way!
The forecast for the next week was terrible, so I decided to take a vacation to sunny Christchurch. Two weeks later I made it back with Wouter. As the forecast kept on changing and ended up being marginal we decided to head up to Mueller Hut for some ski touring and climbing. The plan was to ski over to Seally, climb the North Face and ski down the West side. The snow was quite icy and steep in the morning, and thus my lack of ski crampons meant we had to walk. Sadly the snow froze over only partly, meaning we were breaking through to our shins or knees with each step. We only made it as far as Annette Plateau due to this pace (sorry Wouter!). We enjoyed about half an hour of decent skiing before it all turned to mush and we headed back to Mueller Hut. The next day Wouter decided he would like a refresher on technical pitching skills, so we found a random couloir up Mt. Ollivier and headed up. We call our route “Bumblies Couloir” and the recommended (and completely unnecessary gear) is two 30 m half ropes, 2 snow stakes, 2 pitons and an ice screw (extra points the more imaginative your placement). For footwear I suggest the running shoe – crampon combo, while Wouter swears by ski boots. Enjoy the 13 pitch wonder!
So in conclusion, regardless of the lack of climbing it was a fantastic spring – my thesis is going along better than I had hoped for and I met many fantastic people. I send out a special thanks to all the lovely people that made Wyn Irwin home for me; especially: Cam, Tony, Sleak, Dan, Anne-Laure, Pete, Rob, Pat, Carl, Nina, Arthur and Martha. Wuz to you all!
Terra :)