June 3, 2002
Sitting here listening to Kenny Rodgers, "You picked a fine time to leave me Lucile" and watching Daniel's pup on his family’s New Zealand farm on the Waitaki River rip up the skin of the rabbit I shot yesterday (now in the oven), I'm feeling stuffed and content, as only the curiously restless human spirit can feel after suffering through a great adventure. Several months prior to our trip to Mount Aspiring, located in the sprawling remote mountains above Lake Wanaka in Aspiring National Park on the west side of the lower South Island of New Zealand in the middle of the Tazman Sea, I was warned by Daniel, "There won't be any shagging pigeons on this trip." This is his kiwi way of saying, "I have one week off from work this year, I want to climb Mount Aspiring, and we must be very efficient and organized if we're going to get to the summit." Fortunately he was a climatologist in a past life (before he became a nature film director and then a rural doctor), so we had pretty good chances of nailing the good weather as he had been studying the fast moving front patterns obsessively by the hour approaching our departure.
Preparatory Mistakes
This being our seventh outing in New Zealand winter this year, I had plenty of opportunity to make preparatory mistakes. During my first trip in the New Zealand “hills” last year climbing Mount Cook, I didn't wear a helmet, took one ice axe and no rock protection, shovel, or avalanche transceiver to climb a grade 5 rock and ice route which, on a mountaineering scale from 1 to 7, is pretty darn cocky. My second week long trip flying in to the Fox Glacier and skiing back out with a small group of committed mountaineers, I forgot my sleeping bag at the hostel, only to be handed it unstuffed on the chopper pad while we were loading up our gear. That trip ended in excruciating pain as I had forgotten to unlock my teli boots for the twelve hour hike down the glacier, resulting in huge goose egg bruises on my shins. On the third trip skiing backcountry in the Old Man Range, I forgot my skins having had a late night out dancing the evening before and had to post hole (break trail) up hills for three days with a group of saintly folks who, I’m sure, will never invite an American on a hut trip with them again.
This winter, I've been a bit more organized, but weather, unforseen circumstances (unfitness), and short days have sabotaged several mountain trips. On Nun's Veil in the Cook Range, I only learned to adjust my crampons just before climbing up a 45 degree ice slope. On Brewster in the Haast Range (west coast), everyone learned that hiking through deep snow for seven hours in the darkness of the coldest, shortest day of winter requires nourishment, and "feeding the flame" as my dad says, offers invaluable benefits. Despite our efforts, we failed to summit our goal when Daniel developed a sudden heart murmur and had to lie down on a platform I stamped out for him on a steep snow slope so that he wouldn’t pass out. Had we put our skins inside our sleeping bags to keep them from freezing in the hut the night before, summit day might have been a very different story.
During our trips to the Remarkable Mountains, hovering above the stunningly beautiful eco tourist destination Queenstown with its sprawling blue green lakes, we aimed to climb Single Cone, a slightly technical snow slog. After some crevasse training rescue in the area and snow pit digging exercise, we knew on summit day that we should turn around when our snow pit column collapsed with one tap on slippery ball bearings which held a two foot thick snow layer that could have been deadly if it slid. While deciding not to climb the mountain due to high avalanche risk seemed prudent, in the future I won't hang around beneath the jean-wearing “punter” (as they say Down Under) climber who climbed above us as we turned around without concern for our welfare or his. Our most recent attempt to climb Mt. Sealy in the Cook Range, was clumsily aborted when we didn't hear the watch alarm for the summit morning 3 am departure. This trip was doomed from the start when we managed to mix fuel bottle and fuel bottle head of two separate stove sets that nearly fit, minus the small fuel leak that nearly resulted in our removing Mueller hut before it was to be rebuilt the next year. The lesson climbing Sealy was simple: No water in winter even on sunny days means no water. Hours of melting snow in every container available yielded only enough drops to remind us of our extreme dehydration. While sitting beside a dripping rock for hours seemed impractical at the time, this method proved to be the only successful attempt to get water without fuel.
Expedition Organizing
The Tuesday before our Friday departure for Mount Aspiring, I remembered my father's frustrations with me preparing for backpacking trips in high school. Every trip I forgot something and every trip I managed to convince him that I only needed 20 minutes to pack and therefore only had to be home at 4 am only one hour before our early morning departures. My focused challenge for this trip seemed to have changed. I decided not to be the last one ready, and not to forget anything, and with that resolution, I didn’t. Kate, our third "expedition" team member, was packed a week before our departure. Kate was, however, short on sleep after sneaking in only twelve hours in the final two weeks of her natural history film making course. Fifteen hours after the screening of her film she found herself carrying a 25 kilo pack up the Matukituki valley towards the menacing French Ridge bush climb which brings a climber to the expansive Bonar glacier at the base of Mount Aspiring.
Approaching French Ridge Hut
Two huts, French Ridge Hut and Colin Todd Hut, are used to access the Bonar Glacier, from which many of the other stunning mountains in Aspiring National Park are climbed. Mount Aspiring, known as the “Matterhorn of the South” has a classic three sided mountain shape with several beautiful ridge lines and technical snow and ice gully climbs leading to the summit. At 3,033 metres, it is the highest mountain in New Zealand outside of the Main Southern Alps divide. We planned to climb the "Sou-west" ridge, a grade 3+ with a gully containing one to three pitches of near vertical ice. The climb from French Ridge Hut would involve a 15 hour day. This prospect was not appealing to Kate and Tom, who were keen to get up to the base of the ridge, build a snow cave, and leave early. Daniel and I had spent three hours the week before building a cave to summit a mountain we lost interest in when we got in an argument on the glacier leading to the summit, so we weren't interested in sleeping in a freezing, badly ventilated, spindrift plagued snow cave again so soon. Rising at 2 am to put on frozen boots and clothing in a dying southerly storm was also not appealing. A discussion of the merits of both options ensued there on the glacier. Tom, who carried 24 cheese sandwiches and 15 large packaged biscuits, or cookies, convinced us with these words: "We are not here to have fun, we are here to climb a mountain!" Strangely enough, he wasn't interested in climbing the mountain at all and seemingly would have preferred to "enjoy the natural environment" traipsing around in his snowshoes chasing pigeons, or the pesky high alpine Kia parrots, as was the case.
Snow Cave Bivvy in a Storm
Kate, a very fit long distance runner and strong rock climber, had decided to climb with private reservations about her energy levels and fitness after several stressful and frantic weeks. She felt a shorter day would preserve our energies for the steep ridge climb. Daniel and I conceded and for four hours we skiied across crevassed terrain somewhere near the middle of the Bonar Glacier in a freezing white-out snow storm. It was 5:30 pm when we reached the base of the climb, so we brought our shovels to the relative shelter of a snow burm near the start of our route and started digging. At 8:30 pm, exhausted with tears running down our faces, we climbed into our spacious cave with minimal energy reserves and frozen feet and fingers. The South West Ridge slipped away into warm sleeping bags and dreams of warm huts.
The next morning was clear and we were too cold and tired to attempt the summit, so we skied to Colin Todd Hut in one half hour. The day was spent practicing crevasse rescue and teli turns in fresh powder. Italian brothers enjoying some back country skiing on a break from climbing guiding in Australia, took us out for some turns and nearly brought my Aspiring attempt to an abrupt halt by leading me within two metres of the edge of a 200 metre cliff. Fortunately, at the last minute, I saw the darkness below and put the breaks on, gingerly stepping slowly back from the edge of, what would have been, a very bad end to a good day.
Summit Morning
The next morning we rose at 3 am hurrying into our gear and forcing down our museli, left at 4 am, and climbed unroped up the 55 degree ramp of the North West ridge (grade 2+) leading to the summit. Kate put her foot through a crevasse crossing a snow bridge to the ramp, and we all peered below into the darkness but didn’t stop to waste time roping up. We slogged up the steep icy ridge with wind and blowing ice biting our faces as the sun’s warmth made an agonizingly slow appearance. Upon reaching the summit at sunrise five hours later, we stood only for a minute yelling congratulations over the wind through layers of Goretex which covered our ears. We met one other man as we reached the summit ridge. He had soloed the more technical route we had avoided and nonchalantly mentioned the South West Ridge was his favourite route and he had done it over 7 times alone. He offered us some Whiskey, sausage, and a puff on his cigar before he turned around to go back down and disappeared along the ridge. As we walked down, we looked out to see Aspiring casting its stunning shadow on the glaciers far below.
Getting of the Glacier and back to Rainforest Greenery
The trip back to Colin Todd Hut took 7 hrs total in yet another whiteout, a typical mountaineering scenario in the Southern Alps. Wispy clouds streamed like mountain spirits across mountain passes below us and Daniel spotted a ring around the moon and small clouds gathering on the west coast, indicating a front was approaching. After a 13 hr escape using navigational waypoints to re-cross the Bonar glacier in swirling clouds and snow, we returned to French Ridge hut in chilling wind just after Richard, the solo climber, and just before Jane and Bruno, a young couple who had just climbed the 13 pitches of ice and rock up the imposing vertical South face of Aspiring. The 7 hr hike out with skis catching gnarled branches on the steep hike out in snow and rain was endurable but not nearly as enjoyable as the fresh fish burgers afterward. If only every morning could be so memorable.