comingdown themountainsstory and photos by shane orchard

4TH DECEMBER 2006. As we climbed out of a small valley the hut finally appeared—signalling that the day’s efforts would soon be over. A splash of colour in a big

white landscape, it’s a real homing beacon of goodness to the weary traveller. Thehut was attracting colourful characters too by the looks of things.

People had been steadily arriving through the day, and it was now overflowing!We had quite an assortment of hut-mates, from trans-Tasman tourists, to local

purveyors of speed ascents, a wordly group with their guides, and hard localclimbers. Add some skis and a board for good measure and we had an interestingcrew—all stoked to be up here. Evening saw more arrivals installing themselves in

the vicinity, some going for tents, and some bivvying on the deck …

coming down the mountains

MAIN PHOTO Steve Eastwood ascending Mt Elie deBeaumont. In the background the Main Divide stretch-es towards Aoraki Mt Cook.

INSET Andy Theng skiing off Nun’s Veil. Once off thesummit area it’s a huge ski into the valley below—awesome in good powder.

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our wishes were granted and we emerged happily unscathed. Nearly not so the previous trip! That effort had coincided with the

first snowfall for some time which hadn’t been accompanied by strongwinds, although this wasn’t entirely obvious to begin with from our ren-dezvous at base camp Twizel. The next two days or so promised goodweather, and so with the assistance of the Glacier Explorers crew, Iopted to take my American guest on a multi-sport adventure. With thesun now shining, we embarked with a blast around the Tasman Glacierlake. Then all too soon it was time to wave goodbye to the machinery,and say hello to a demoralising swathe of moraine and other obstacleswhich were set to dominate our day. As two small load-bearing antstoiling along the hot valley floor, I’m sure we provided an entertainingspectacle for many that afternoon. To cut a long story short we pro-ceeded along the Gorilla Stream route—via scrub bash and boulderhop—towards our destination: Nun’s Veil or the ‘Mighty Monkey’, asAndy called it. On the way we encountered some solid boulderingmoves which were even more interesting because of their exposure toan ugly torrent below, and our heavy packs!

The next day was a perfect blue blazer and by mid-morning werealised the full implications of the new snow at hand. We had up to25cm of the lightest snow, with no wind effect, making the whole placeextremely skiable. The summit was cloudless and windless—just perfectfor Andy’s first taste of the vistas around Aoraki. Shortly after, we gotgoing on the downward leg, and soon got to the one exciting pitch ofthe descent. Here, the Mighty Monkey threatened to assert its domi-nance, and things got quite exciting! The dry powder over multiplebulges of hard, steep glacier ice produced some memorable moments.First up, and my first turn on the face sent up a billow of powder whichengulfed the scene. Now blind and alarmingly moving at an increasingspeed, I somehow managed to negotiate the bulgy ice section, with animpressive powder cloud streaming out large. So far so good, but unfor-tunately we didn’t have the camera out! There was still plenty of excite-ment left for Andy as he took his turn to drop in. Partly as I hadn’trearranged all the powder there, but mostly because the line alsoinvolves a crucial traverse to the left—or else confront a second bulgeon the glacier and most likely be flung off cliffs into the valley below!Andy was underway when a slight stutter sent him catapulting for-wards: ragdolling over the first bulge and accelerating through the lowerface towards the next bulge of doom ... A couple of ragdolls short ofthat, Andy thankfully rolled to a stop. He then calmly edged across theface to greet my slightly panicked self with the remark, ‘that MightyMonkey nearly kicked me off the edge!’ We waited a few more minutesto make sure that the Monkey was well off our backs, before enjoyingthe remainder of the 1100 metre run back to our bivvy. Back on lowground in the peaceful valley, we were all smiles, but the events of theday were a reminder of the sharper end of ski mountaineering missions.

They were some good times, but of course all’s well that ends well!The season also distinguished itself by providing at least a smatteringof reasonable weather over the fickle spring period, which was muchappreciated. There might have been a few glitches but the scene wasset perfectly in early December when at last a big high came driftingalong. That was good news for Rory Camm and myself at the time,having time for just one more trip before the inevitable recommence-ment of that four letter word beginning with ‘W’! ÷

In the warmth of the Northland summer, I’m putting pen to paper,and memories like this seem such a world away! That Decembertrip was definitely a highlight, though my thoughts also go back toAndy from Colorado, who had arrived for a couple of weeks ofentertainment. This presented an excellent scenario, as I had justescaped work for a while. At the time, I’d had tried hard to engi-

neer a dose of hut time á la Aoraki, but it wasn’t to be in the end. Still, I wasdetermined to play tour guide and organise as best I could. Amongst dodg-ing the marginal spring weather, and a comedy of road trips, we did managea couple of trips in the mountains. Looking back, they were a great warm-upfor eventually getting up to the névés, not to mention fuel for few goodyarns along the way!

Our last mission went down especially well. Like a good CSI plot it hadweaved itself, from conception in urban Christchurch, through many incar-nations onto the after-party which followed nicely. The journey began, asthey often do, with a few bleary-eyed hours on the road. This brought us toan early morning in Mt Cook village, greeting clearing skies, peppered withfreaky clouds. We traded our car-interior for a world without heaters andsound systems. Although it had felt like summer a few clicks back, here itwas decidedly wintry. New Zealand’s contrasts never cease to amaze! Thiswas just what we were after of course, and the inevitable question wassoon to be asked: ‘Well, what’s the snow going to be like up there?’ Bythat stage I was stuck in the tour guide’s hot seat but I had to admit that Ididn’t know. The report said new snowfall of 1.5 to 2 metres on the Divide.So we agreed to settle in for some lengthy crystal ball gazing, and scurriedabout the village in search of a coffee or two. Our momentum flaggedthere for a little while, until finally a flurry of helicopter-less possibilities sug-gested themselves. We reluctantly contemplated a new—and far morelaborious—camping plan. This took a lot of convincing, especially due to adisturbing revelation about pack size maximus, meaning that we wouldhave to discard half of the shopping and most of the good stuff. But some-how we overcame our procrastination and resigned ourselves, sadly, tounpacking our mountains of goodies—fully chosen with air-trafficking inmind. The stuff that disappeared from our pile of five-plus days worth of for-mer ‘essentials’ was quite disheartening. We had almost got over that busi-ness until, several hours later, the question of dinner resurfaced. Adiosdream gourmet ski tour!

On the plus side, the weather cooperated perfectly, together with the gen-erous amounts snow on hand for the trip. Our vague plan to chase freshiesin the shade and slushies in the sun got the nod, and it turned out to be quitepossibly the best five days we could have asked for. The touring was great—we had a few good missions to Mounts Jean and Darby—plus the mainevent of the trip, a powdery south face of Mt Sealy. We found lots of excel-lent lines in these parts— topped off nicely with some hitherto unnoticed dis-coveries on Mt Kitchener. Our ‘no-mishaps’ theme was successful too, hav-ing worked its way into our psyche due to previous events! On this occasion

The adventurebegins on the floorof the Tasman Valley,with the snow a longway off!

The occasionalspeedbump slowedprogress on the wayup the valley. Onereason to do morebouldering …

Andy Theng with thesummit slopes ofNun’s Veil beyond—the scene of hisnasty encounter onthe ice onlymoments before.

Rory Camm warming up the day with a ski on the Explorer Glacier, before headingto Conway Peak in the background.

Rory Camm near the summit of Glacier Peak (3002m), Main Divide.

32 THE CLIMBER ISSUE 60 | WINTER 2007

NEW ZEALAND’S ULTIMATE IN EXPANDED SKITOURS IS FOUND IN THE 3000 METRE REALM. INTHE AORAKI MT COOK AREA THERE ARE FOURCLASSIC HIGH POINTS THAT ARE WELL-RECOG-NISED AS POTENTIAL HOSTS FOR GRAVITY POWERED FREE DESCENTS, EACH OFFERINGSUMMIT LINES ON THE MAIN DIVIDE.

Mt Elie de BeaumontElie is the most frequented of the big peaks by touringparties. The whole slope is reasonably moderate, there’sa choice of routes up and down, and it also holds excel-lent powder in cold conditions. The most aesthetic lineis dependent on conditions on the Anna Glacier, as it isbasically straight down the guts. To do this in good styleyou need to memorise terrain options and obstacles fair-ly precisely to be able to carry speed. From the summitthere’s a short icy face leading down to the shoulder,and from there you can choose between dropping intothe Anna or continuing down the ridge to the col belowWalter for a more straightforward route. The line thatruns down the Anna, past Walter and Green and on tothe flatter terrain further down the Tasman would makean epic ski run in powder, for its length and quality.Going on memories of sampling it in two stages, thatwould be a long day’s mission though!

Glacier PeakOf the bigger peaks visited during 2006, this one was ingreat condition on the west face. In the centre of theface, you choose from a reasonably dodgy-looking selec-tion of bridges on your way down. From the summit theface was set up with rolling curves that draw you intocertain lines. (Beware of huge cornices overhanging tothe east!) Going with the flow we negotiated a couple ofsmall ice cliffs and schrunds to get onto the lower face.Aesthetically, it was good all round.

The MinaretsThe west face is a good general mountaineering route.The climbing is enjoyable with expansive views outwest, and the summit area is feel-good too. The descentis quite a New Zealand classic. After a few turns downto the saddle area from the summit, the lines down thewest face are steep in anyone’s books. There is no clearrun-out to help with high speeds once you get started,and in my case the line between ‘in’ and ‘out of’ controlgot fairly blurred. It would be easy to crash here goingfast Keep away from ice cliffs and the falling debriszones to the skiers left of the face.

LendenfeldAnother classic for ski mountaineers. Approaching thepeak, there is a selection of routes through the icefall inthe Haast Corner area, with three likely options for thedescent—all being funky. Heading up the North Ridgeroute we found a peculiar feature which is apparentlycommonplace there. It looks like a small but lengthyschrund running right down the line of the ridge, perhapsresulting from the ice pulling down close to the ridge onboth sides of the mountain. It creates a thin eerie strip ofterrain close to the east cornice line but sheltered fromthe exposure down the north face. It also functions to trapnew snow a lot better than the north face slope whichwas a sastrugi field on our visit. On descent from thesummit you are fully exposed to the large north facewhich rolls off quite disturbingly. We traversed on a right-wards angle for about 30 metres to get close to the eastface drop-off, at which point the top of the downwardsrunning schrund was visible. We then jumped it from thetop onto the better snow of the ribbon below (don’t over-shoot!). The line continues straight down the ridge fromthere, and onto the glacier sections below. All up, it’s asolid cross country ride down to the névé. Conditionswere generally favourable for these routes in 2006.Perhaps we got lucky—the nature of some of theseroutes certainly changes from year to year as well as fromday to day. Judging by the notes left in the hut books,there were some great tours found elsewhere in the areatoo. No doubt!

HighPoints

5TH DECEMBER 2006. It’s been a relaxing evening in the comfort of thehut, following another excellent day on the snow.. It’s 10pm and we’vejust spotted lights up on Lendenfeld indicating that Al Uren and theguys have successfully escaped from their new route on the west face.We can see them standing where we were a few hours ago which is anice thought! We’d been wondering what was up, as they’ve been outfor 18 hours. I imagine them looking enviously at our tracks right aboutnow, as they begin the down-climb towards the névé. Tomorrow we’vegot plans on the go for something new and even better. And better still,tomorrow morning will be a sleep-in as we need all the sun we canget. Gavin’s getting up at 1am to avoid the sun, and we’re sleeping in toget some sun, such is the world of contrasts!

6TH DECEMBER 2006. Back safely again. What a day! My tongue is sun-burnt. (Didn’t factor that one in did I!). Rory has fared much betterthanks to his Arabian style headgear. During the day’s exploring we dis-covered some brilliant lines, and, as a bonus, my board mostly behaveditself all day! The first thing we went up was the ‘Prime Rib’ on BristolTop, which we had been oogling all week. It really lived up to its namewith very funky terrain, and was steep enough to require a good doseof commitment. Late afternoon saw us up the south west face ofConway Peak, which also lived up to our expectations—in fact it madeit all the way to number one on Rory’s list! It was a classic run and alsowide enough to happily go really fast. (A good thing!) Our mission wascomplete, and we couldn’t have asked for a better note on which toend a journey in the hills.

Steve Eastwood dropping off the summitof the East Minaret on the Main Divide.

Sunrise on Elie De Beaumont (3109m), Tasman Valley. Steve Eastwood negotiating terrain typical of our highest peaks.

Rory Camm searching for a way through the schrundson the west face of Glacier Peak (3002m), Main Divide.On the Minarets (3040m), Main Divide. Malte Brun the background.