Climbing Mount Cook: A Small Epic
- Erin H. Newton
- Aug 27, 2017
- 17 min read
February, 2001
Looking back two years later, the smell of wet wool blankets, walking exhausted on a glacial moraine, and the mention of Mount Cook brings to life the experience of climbing the highest mountain in New Zealand. Had my climbing partner Paul and I even bothered to glance at the names and ages of climbers commemorated on a pinnacle of steely grey schist at the base of the mountain, we might have noticed we were the formula for death in New Zealand mountains. Two young American rock climbers, inexperienced and determined to get up the crown jewel of the Southern Alps, but unfamiliar with New Zealand weather having arrived only weeks before, and even less practiced with ice axes, crampons, and placing protection in snow and ice. But we were going for the summit come hell, or high water, or in this case, crevasse falls or avalanches.
I had finished three years of study at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and decided to move to New Zealand with my best friend Kim to complete my final year overseas at University of Otago in Dunedin and planned to stay and earn a Masters degree in Geology. Back in Massachusetts, I got into rock climbing in a major way, climbing three times a week at the local gym, taking a climbing class, and going to my favorite climbing areas Rumney in New Hampshire and the Shawangunks or “Gunks” in New York every weekend I could. When I was accepted to Otago, I immediately started researching the climbing adventures, and discovered the highest mountain, Mount Cook or Aoraki, a stunning massif of ice and steep gullies, was only 12,349 feet (3,764 metres), but an unparalleled mountaineering challenge. The first ascent in 1894 wasn’t repeated until 100 years later, and Sir Edmund Hillary summited it in 1948, which began his training for climbing the highest mountain in the world, Everest, only five years later. As I had been named after him (Middle name Hilary), and had the opportunity to meet him in New Zealand before he died (the Mt. Cook South summit ridge was named the Hillary Ridge after him in memorium in 2011), I decided I had to make an attempt at getting to the summit, and it was the only thing I could focus on until I did. I called up my old climbing partner, Paul, and he said he would meet me in New Zealand for the climb.
First Stop: Mount Cook Village
We hitched a ride to Mount Cook Alpine Guides office in the small end-of-the-road Mount Cook Village, where tourists and climbers alike are awed by the sight of the imposing peak. We asked about mountain climbing conditions and requested a weather update. The guides reported the traverse from the low to high peak was no longer being guided due to “bullet proof” ice on the ridge. That was ok. We didn't plan to be guided. The weather was fine for the next three days and the woman at the counter said we’d be lucky to make it to the first hut seven hours up the Hooker glacier and on top of a 200 metre rock since it was late February and navigating through the wide open crevasses would be a challenge. Paul and I were wary of naysayers behind desks in National Parks, though we’d both worn the uniform ourselves as cave tour guide (myself) and wild lands fire fighter in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. We didn't realize at the time what rigorous training was involved to become a certified guide. on average it took ten years and $30,000 dollars, and the guides who took clients up Mount Cook, also guided in the Himalaya and all over the world, and were among the best.
After chips in the bar at the small Mount Cook Village, we took a snooze in a bush we thought was out of the way, but in fact was practically a tourist stop, as we had Japanese tourists taking pictures of us as they walked to breakfast at the swanky Mount Cook Lodge early the next morning. We rented crampons and a single walking ice axe each (we assumed two technical axes each would get us into trouble, since we didn’t know how to ice climb, so we figured we’d stay on a walking route) and we commenced with moraine bashing up the mountain at 10:30 am the next day, not exactly a mountaineers start. We quickly learned why most New Zealand mountaineers take flights in to the base of mountains to summit them. Glacial moraines are unconsolidated rock and ground up silt coughed out by the moving glacier and along with being miserable to navigate, they can be deadly. A friend who took a mountaineering course with me years later fell down one and broke her arm, necessitating in an air rescue.
In New Zealander or “Kiwi” lingo we knew we were inexperienced but figured we earned a few points for being “keen.” The Mount Cook Alpine Guides and the Search and Rescue team would have labeled us “dodgy”. More experienced mountaineers seem to have license to attempt more dangerous routes with abject hazards, and since we weren’t experienced we decided to make up for that with assuredness, conservative climbing, and fitness. That was our first mistake in planning, since neither of us was conservative. Paul jumps out of a plane for a living. I have, from a very young age, made it a habit to climb up things I couldn’t get down. This climb was no exception, though walking up the non-technical Hooker glacial moraine from Mount Cook village seemed fairly benign…I mean, we could always turn back right?
Day 1: The Approach
Stepping onto the Hooker glacier from the moraine, Paul said, “Aren’t these things supposed to float?” It was his first step in crampons on ice. After three years of studying the geology of glaciers and volcanoes in Colorado, I learned there are plenty of glacial lakes, sub-glacial tunnels, and some pieces of ice that float in lakes, but glaciers are securely grinding down their base, until they grind out stunning mountain cirques and valleys. Seven hours later we were learning to use our ice axes navigating around crevasses as the sun was setting. It seemed the crevasses were getting wider and wider as we zig zagged our way up the curve in the valley. We worked out a janky system of wrapping the rope around ourselves (though we didn't properly tie the coils off, so they were hanging everywhere and probably would have strangled us if we fell) and testing snow bridges while the other got ready to dig their ice axe into the snow to arrest a fall, should one of us go into the gaping cracks. Paul jumped across several, and I didn't think I could make it across the last wide expanse. He couldn't find a way back, so he yelled he was counting to three, and if I didn't jump, he would pull me in. I stopped pacing the edge looking for a narrower crossing, backed up and make a running leap. Surprisingly, I made it.
We realized the Department of Conservation (DOC) travel time of seven hours does not factor in navigation time on the glacier during months when crevasses are open and snow bridges absent. We quickly concluded we would be spending our first night on a glacier when we didn’t bring a tent if we did not find the fixed steel lines leading up the rock bluff to the hut. Just as the sun set, Paul spotted a tattered rope hanging from a bluff at the edge of the glacier. We hurried to the spot and encountered our first obstacle. In optimal months (November to January) the space between the glacier and the rock bluff, the schrund, is filled with snow and the fixed steel lines are only several metres from the upper surface of the glacier. In challenging conditions, climbers have to scramble down into the unfilled schrund and climb 25 metres up the wet rock to the steel lines. Eager to avoid spending the night on the glacier, Paul climbed free up the wet rock to the fixed lines and belayed me up.
The next few hours were spent happily attached to steel wires climbing in the dark to the barrel of a hut called Gardner. A cursory look at the intentions book told us no one had been there in three weeks. So impressed with ourselves for climbing to the first hut, we decided to try for Empress Hut, the highest hut on Mount Cook. We planned to make a bid for the low peak since we didn’t have ice screws to traverse to the high peak. We prepared by practicing crevasse rescue on a bed post with the guidance of an “Introduction to Climbing Techniques” instruction manual. We both realized the irony of the situation, reading an instruction manual two days before summit day on the highest mountain in the Southern Alps.
Day 2: Empress Hut and Route Planning
A late start at 11:00 am the next morning brought us to the Empress Hut only four hours later. Walking through the heavily crevassed terrain we quickly learned to manage our rope and when crossing thin snow bridges with great yawning abysses below, the other partner was ready to self arrest. We didn’t plan past the possibility that one of us could have quite easily fallen into a crevasse and neither of us knew how to get the other out. Cunningly, we left our stove, extra food, and sleeping bags at Gardner Hut since we planned to be up to the low peak the next morning and back down to Gardner for an extravagant celebratory feast. We only planned to stay in Empress Hut for one night so wool blankets would suffice.
From the balcony of Empress Hut, a spectacular view was revealed in the evening sun. To the West, snow-covered mountains hovered over the Hooker and Empress glaciers. To the East, was the Sheila Face of Mount Cook, a mix of steep rock climbs to the true summit. We consulted photo copied Mount Cook route guides discarded in the hut. Unfamiliar with the rock, snow and ice grading systems for mountains, we assessed the routes by relativity. Clearly on a scale of one to seven, we shouldn’t climb six or seven. All the rock routes on the Sheila Face looked climbable with rock protection, but we didn’t carry a rack since we thought we could find a scrambling route, so we decided grade 5+ (whatever that was) might be challenging without a rock rack. We were tucked into wollen blankets and turning out the lights when Paul read aloud, “Green Saddle: Grade 3+, the first route climbed on Mount Cook by Fife and Graham. We turned the lights out and I said, “Let’s give it a go…we can always turn back.”
Day 3: Summit Day
We awoke at 4 am for once excited to leave and called in on the hut radio for a weather report. We learned the station was closed and would not open until 8 am. I never made that calling after hours mistake again in the Southern Alps, where weather systems move fast and furiously, coming from Antarctica across the Indian Ocean and slamming into the mountains often with little warning.
We decided to climb anyway at dawn since we had to navigate several crevasses via snow bridges. We left the hut at 7 am (hardly an alpine start) and after crossing several snow bridges spanning deep crevasses we were soon making our way up the bottom of the gully, which was already showering snow and ice from far above. So we contrived a clever system we thought. I gave Paul my only ice axe and secured myself by kicking in somewhere sort of out of the way of falling ice while he climbed. For those uninitiated to climbing safety techniques, on difficult routes it is typical to make anchors and place gear in the rock between climbers who are roped together so that both climbers are protected from giant falls. It is also typical to wear technical crampons with sharp front points and carry two bent shaft ice axes for ascending technical ice routes.
Anyhow, after Paul scrambled up a section, he would lower the axes and I would climb while he belayed me up using a body belay, or wrapping the rope around his body to counter my weight if I fell. We carried one snow stake we found left in Empress Hut, though we weren’t sure what to do with it. It soon became our most important (and only) piece of gear as Paul scrambled up a 10 meter waterfall of ice and needed some way of securing himself. He hammered the snow stake in a space between the ice in the gully and the base of the Sheila rock face. We realized then that we had no ice or rock protection, but since we were rock climbers, we’d be better off soloing on rock than on a steep ice gully. We climbed out onto the Sheila rock face.
The Sheila Face, 5+
We took turns leading pitches up the rock gully always roped together and belaying from rope anchors attached to rocks we tapped lightly to test stability. We both knew the rope was the most dangerous component in the system since we were climbing the most run-out pitches of our lives with no protection. Dynamics of anchor safety aside, if either of us had fallen with 25 metres of rope between us we would have taken a 50 metre fall (the full length of the rope, assuming the anchor held and the other climber was not ripped down as well). An explanatory note is necessary here since most self preserving climbers would have bailed at this point. We climbed on for several reasons: 1) It was a clear day which helped maintain our sunny outlook. 2) We didn’t want to climb down the ice gully and anticipated finding a better way down. 3) The summit seemed so close, and I had to start University the next week, so it seemed our only shot. After several years taking mountaineering courses, studying snow layers, climbing with experienced skilled climbers in the NZ Alpine Club, and meticulously reading the fast moving Highs and Lows Island mountaineers study to be sure they aren’t on the summit in a raging storm, I learned one important thing that would have been good to know then: It is always better to come down and live to climb another day, than to summit and never make it down. Summiting, after all, is only half the expedition accomplished.
At 8:30 pm we reached the summit ridge via the Sheila face and scampered to the top for a spectacular evening view of the surrounding glaciated steep mountains of the Southern Alps. We realized we had no choice but to bivy on the summit ridge without a tent or bivy (bivouack) gear. Fortunately I had read a few Krakauer books and knew epics could be much worse than having to spend a clear night shivering on a summit ridge. We watched tiny planes and helicopters far below flying their impressed occupants back to fancy dinners and cozy beds. I thought, as we stacked rocks and wrapped up in a light tarp, that the helicopters seemed of a different world. I would discover the next morning just how inaccessible those rescue helicopters would become.
Day 4: The Linda Shelf
The words I heard from a restless sleep the next morning were clear. “Oh fuck. We’re fucked” Paul growled after poking his head out from under the tarp at 5 am the next morning. I agreed with him when I looked out and saw swirling heavy winds bringing snow and a complete whiteout. (Note: This moment was the first of three when I thought we might as well be dead). The snow was just beginning to fall and neither of us had thought the clear night before to decide on an escape route. Absailing, or rappelling, down the face we had climbed was out of the question since we had only one sling each, which wouldn’t get us past the other 12 descent pitches. We had only one bag of nuts left so breakfast was brief. We planned to go down the Green Saddle gully which before had seemed menacing, but now seemed to be our only hope. Our first goal was to get off the windy summit ridge and over to the gully which involved traversing a shelf above a 200 metre breakaway, the headwall of the heavily crevassed Linda Glacier. In later discussions with seasoned guides on Mount Cook, I learned this traverse makes everyone nervous since one careless crampon step could take a climber all the way down the headwall.
We used our snow stake to belay each other slowly across the Linda Shelf traverse and eventually used the stake as a running belay so we could both move at the same time. I learned later this is a pretty common technique when you need to move fast in the mountains, but of course more risky since you aren’t making any solid anchors.
After nearly wandering down a steepening face turning drop off in the whiteout, we discovered an icy cave and settled in for several hours, waiting for conditions to improve. Shivering in the ice cave, we discussed the possibility of no return and realized we had no pen or paper to write to our families. Paul suggested if we were desperate enough we could write a note in the snow and take a picture of it. We then concluded, with weather worsening, there would be no chance for a helicopter rescue, and since we didn’t have a pen and paper, we had better take some initiative and get ourselves down.
Getting to Green Saddle and Descending the Ice Gully with No Rack
The clouds cleared for a moment, and through blowing snow, we could see a short way ahead. We started down carefully with me in front since Paul seemed more confident on near vertical rock soloing than on ice and steep slopes. I took a few steps then felt a sharp tug on the rope. I knew that Paul had fallen and I jammed my axe into the snow and put all my weight on it, ready to arrest his fall. He cursed and caught himself. With some stress relieved, we continued down to the Linda Shelf, still a long way from safe ground.
We reached the wind-blown icy strastuggi-covered top of the Green Saddle at 8 pm, having eaten only a few nuts that day. Consensus decision making was difficult as the wind was raging and we could hardly hear each other yelling into the wind, though we were side by side. Paul yelled, “I’ll lower you into the gully and you tug the ropes two times if you can’t find a belay stance and want to come up. Pull four times if I should climb down.” He added, “Remember, we DON’T want to spend another night up here!” He sat with his back facing the other side of the saddle and lowered me into the unknown. (Note: This was the second moment I thought I might as well be already dead). My brain screamed stop but my body mechanically found a belay stance after being lowered 50 metres into the howling ice gully, and I tugged four times. It seemed like an eternity waiting, but I finally spotted him climbing down to me, carefully using our two ice axes. He said, “That was the scariest shit of my life.” In retrospect, I should have untied every time he down-climbed, because it was highly unlikely, down-climbing 13 ice pitches in the dark, he wouldn’t fall and pull me down with him, since I had no equipment to make an anchor. But, since we couldn’t hear each other over the wind, the rope was our only connection, and while it was basically a swift line to death, it felt better than being alone.
After twelve more pitches of the same routine, him lowering me off a body belay while standing on a ledge on the edge of the ice gully and using the ice stake to secure himself, we reached the bottom of the gully at 2 am, soaked through and freezing. With two snow bridges to cross and snow flurries turning to hail, snow whipped at our faces and I couldn’t feel my hands or feet from sitting at the belay stations but was grateful Paul had not kicked a single bit of rock or ice down while climbing above me.
Day 5: Getting back Alive
Searching for the first snow bridge we’d crossed earlier in daylight at the head of the cirque, became a lot harder in the hailing darkness. We both recognized the importance of NOT spending another wet, freezing night out without food, water or shelter. Our experiences climbing in summer in the High Sierras of California had at least prepared us for changing conditions in the mountains and we both wore three extra layers on top and bottom and carried headlamps. We wandered along seeing purple snowy shapes dancing in our lights. We found ourselves crossing slippery hail-covered snow bridges on our hands and knees, then re-crossing them when we found they led to only wider unnavigable crevasses. At 4 am both of our headlamps shorted due to water leaks, and we were left standing in the darkness with only the sounds of wind and rocks avalanching from the Shelia face above. Paul sat down with his head in his hands and said, “Fuck this. I’m not enjoying myself.” He started groaning strangely then became quiet as he quickly got colder. Determined not to lose any fingers and toes and even more focused on living through the night as I’d heard many stories of people just sitting down on mountains and never coming back, I stomped around singingly mainly selections from Madonna, the American National Anthem, and “The Ants go Marching In” mixed with songs I’d learned at summer camp Tulequoia and our 4th grade mountain retreat weekend at Scicon, the extent of our environmental education in school. I cursed myself for not knowing words to more songs, but strategically avoided “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot…Coming for to Carry me Home” because we didn't want to go to that "Home" just yet.
Returning to Empress Hut
Around 6:30 am we could feel daylight approaching though we could only see whiteness. Around 7 am there was enough light to wander through the swirling snow, wind and clouds. We remembered crossing debris from two large rock avalanches and hoped we would re-encounter them so we could navigate our way to Empress Hut. After re-crossing what we thought was the first pile of debris, I would have crossed my fingers if I could feel them. When we came upon the second one I was sure I was only remembering in my delirium crossing the first one. I had already seen so many delusions of people, and rescue vehicles, and warm lodges in the low light, I couldn’t trust my eyes or brain anymore. Shortly after, I noticed a strangely constructed silhouette emerging from the mist, and discounted it as just another illusion. As we got closer, I realized we had, in fact, by some fluke, found the Empress Hut.
Day 6: Slumber
We stumbled into the hut, stripped off our dripping clothing, and curled up under woolen blankets to pass the day in a feverish slumber. When we awoke, the clutches of our mistakes were still near. Our food, stove, and sleeping bags (as well as feminine necessities which I desperately needed) were still at Gardner Hut. Paul found moldy butter, and a packet of noodles and dried beans and braided a wick from string to construct a stove. At this point, I thought he was MacGyver. Two hours later, the meal was cooked and we ate for the first time in two days.
The adventure was nearly over. We had only to wind our way down through the puzzle of crevasses, get down Pudding Rock, and avoid general mountain hazards (rock fall and ice fall, avalanches, ourselves) over which we had very little control now that we were amongst it. We waited a day for our clothes to dry and for the weather to change then started down the Empress Glacier in a daze, truly awed by the unfolding landscape.
Day 7: The Last Mistake
After the events of the preceding days, we felt released from our fears and skipped over and around crevasses, swinging our ice axes happily. We picked up our things at Gardner Hut, had another meal, then climbed down Pudding Rock attached to the fixed lines. I rappelled down the full length of the rope to the bottom of the schrund and found the rope just reached when I stretched my now frozen right big toe to a higher ice platform. I sat on the glacier enjoying the crumbling, cracking, sounds of the moving glacier until they were interrupted by Paul yelling, once again, from above “Oh Fuck, Fuck Fuck!” I looked up in time to see every climber’s nightmare unfolding. The whole rope arched in the air before it landed in a heap beside me. After down-climbing carefully through the night and lowering me on body belay after belay down the gully, after staying attentive for 48 stormy hours without food, Paul got complacent and dropped the rope.
With his tried and tested ingenuity, Paul gathered several pieces of tattered rope hanging from the rock and tied them together, lowered the rope to me, and he retrieved the rope by pulling it up after I tied the rope to his tatters.
After one last long scramble down the Hooker glacier and moraine, we stepped over the rope which professed to be the separation between safety and risk with a sign saying “Dangerous. Rock Fall” from where we’d just come. We walked to the Alpine Guides desk feeling as though we’d been gone for years. The woman at the desk asked, “How’d you go?” We said, “We climbed it.” She didn’t look surprised or interested and said, “Oh. Good on ya.” I was told later by a Mount Cook guide we were lucky. Very lucky.
We visited the schist memorial pinnacle and noted the names and ages. Neither of us discussed it, but I suspect we were both thinking similar things. We were relieved it was us and not our families paying our respects at the memorial. Two more years climbing in New Zealand taught me there are better ways to learn sobering lessons in the mountains, and in the Southern Alps the value in patient preparation and gracious retreat when conditions are less than optimal can not be understated. Climbers in New Zealand who enjoy long climbing careers are not only attentive to the weather and conditions, but to their own egos. After all, everybody knows “There are old climbers. And there are bold climbers. But there are no old, bold climbers”. The lesson we learned climbing Mount Cook was simple and will never be forgotten. Climb less to climb more. The mountain will always be there.
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