Climbing in the Southern Alps

The key to a successful climbing trip in New Zealand is to be in the right place and wait for the right time. If you are unfortunate the right time never comes, and you sit in a hut for days on end waiting for a break in the dreary weather. Mandy and I were fortunate and the right time was only a day later than planned, which is a good thing since waiting isn’t exactly Mandy’s forté.

After spending all morning packing and all afternoon driving we arrived in Wanaka just before sunset. It was a beautiful evening, with a cool mountain breeze blowing across lake Wanaka and the evening light shining on the summits and glaciers of the Southern Alps on the other side. We relaxed on the beach for a while enjoying the long southern sunset and taking photos, and then set about finding a place to camp. The map indicated that there was a Department of Conservation (DOC) campground just outside of Wanaka near Albertown, but we couldn’t find it so we stopped in a local bar to ask directions. The first bartender I asked knew about DOC campgrounds, but didn’t know if there was one nearby- she had only been working there for two months. She passed me on to the second bartender who had been around longer, and he didn’t know what a DOC campground was, but thought that there might be some sort of campground up the road and across the one lane bridge. It turned out that the DOC campground was across the bridge on the other side of the Clutha river, not 200 yards from the bar- so much for local bartender wisdom.

The next morning we arrived at the Aspiring Guides office at 8:30am for a meeting with our guide and to check and pack gear. Our guide Nick Morgan was a nice guy in his late twenties with the lean body of a climber, a quiet demeanor and rowdy red hair. His conversation was generally short on words but long on meaning, and most of our gear check consisted of him telling us- “Nope; don’t need that… nope, that neither…” as he whittled our gear down to something more akin to what I would have expected for a day of backcountry skiing than a four day climbing trip. It turns out that the hut we were going to was well insulated and had all of the required cooking gear, so we ended up leaving a good deal of gear in the office. We were a bit concerned about leaving all of the rest of our toys in the van parked on the street for four days, so Nick kindly offered the use of the car park at his house, and we returned the favor by lending one of our sea kayaks to his girlfriend while we were gone.

With Nick at the wheel we headed west out of Wanaka over the divide to the west coast. Often referred to as the Wet Coast, the region held true to its moniker, and we were soon driving through steady rain. At one point along the highway we drove through a valley that had seven waterfalls tumbling down the hillside. We stopped at one for photos and I had my first experience with the dreaded Sandfly.

While talking about New Zealand with friends prior to the trip the noun “sandfly” always appeared in sentences after the conjunction “but…” and along with the adjectives “awful, horrible, miserable, etc.”- as in “The trek was beautiful, but the sandflies were horrible.” Moments after we stopped walking at the end of a short path to the waterfall the sandflies started feasting on my uncovered ankles and I instantly understood the meaning of all of those adjectives. Sandflies don’t sting like mosquitoes, they bite right in and keep on chewing until dispatched with a swat. They are small and numerous, keeping one’s hands occupied waiving and slapping and generally making photography rather difficult. After a few quick pictures we ran back to the car and began scratching. Sandfly bites itch for days, and although I was able to consciously withstand the impulse I found myself unconsciously scratching at night and when I was bored. Tourists quickly learn the trick that residents have known for years and tuck their pants into shoes or socks to minimize skin exposure.

Blood was shed for this waterfall photo.

After our brief encounter of the worst kind we headed up the coast and arrived at the climbers hut in Fox around 5:30pm. The rain was sporadic by then, and there was still a chance that we would fly into the hut that evening, but after waiting in the hut for a few hours without word from the helicopter pilot Nick pronounced our flight delayed until morning and we headed off to investigate the little hamlet of Fox and the toe of the Fox glacier. It was nice to get out and get some exercise, but the toe of the glacier was not nearly as impressive as some we had seen down in Patagonia years before. We were tempted to hop over the fence and past the “Danger” signs at the end of the trail (which one is free to do in New Zealand), but the prospect of being written up in the local newspaper as “Bloody stupid tourists” like several guys the month before who had gotten clobbered by icefall was deterrent enough to keep us safely behind the ropes. Our ice time would come soon enough.

On our way back through town we saw a sign advertising “Glow Worm Caves”, and so after dinner Mandy and I returned to investigate. Unfortunately the cave itself had been destroyed in the name of progress and replaced with a café, but the lady behind the counter informed us that we could see glow worms along the forest trail down the road. So Mandy and I headed down the road and tentatively followed the trail in the dark looking for luminous Lumbricidae. Soon enough we saw small green spots glowing in the forest, concentrated in dark hollows and on old root balls. The back end of the worm glows as it excretes sticky dripping threads- hopefully to catch as many sandflies as possible. After witnessing this strange phenomenon we returned to the climbers hut and told Nick that the climb was off- we were going to stick around and watch glow worms. He laughed and told us to contain our excitement for a few days- the chopper was due to leave at 7:00am.

Pretty exciting stuff, eh?! Go Go Glow Worm!

The west coast of New Zealand must have the highest concentration of helicopters per capita anywhere in the world. Every building, barn and shack has a pad with a shiny helicopter behind it, and when the weather is good they get used a lot. Every store along the main road takes bookings to fly climbers into huts, kayakers into rivers and tourists up for views of the Southern Alps. Which meant that no alarm was necessary- as early as 6:00am the sound of engines starting up across the field rousted us out of bed. As we drove down the road towards our pad-behind-barn launch site, Nick asked if either of us had flown in a helicopter before- to which we both replied no. “Well, keep your head low, stay in front of the helicopter so the pilot can see you, and follow my signals.” Right. Actually it was that easy, and when the copter arrived we ran on to the pad in a stoop and loaded our gear into a cage on the skid and the back seat, after which Nick motioned for Mandy and I to hop into the front. The clear Plexiglas wrapping around and below us gave me a sense of vertigo at first as we lifted off and buzzed over the trees, but that passed quickly and Mandy and I enjoyed a fantastic ride up the Fox glacier and over a pass to the Centennial hut which was perched on a ridge above the Franz Joseph glacier.

The Centenial Hut as seen from the helicopter just before we landed.

After a brief rest and breakfast we headed out on to the glacier for a training day. There had been quite a bit of snow in October, and the glacier was in really good condition with the crevasses well filled in and perfect snow for cramponning. Mandy and I negotiated the first pitch down the ridge from the hut a bit tentatively, as it was moderately steep and Mandy had not used crampons in many years. After the first pitch the going was easy across a basin to a point at the end of a spur ridge that would give us good views of our route the following day. As we approached our objective for the day we practiced various crampon techniques on the increasingly steep slope until we reached a bergshrund (a large crevasse near the top of a glacier) and uncoiled the rope. Nick led the last pitch, stepping over a narrow section of the bergshrund and then front pointing up the steep snow to a rock pinnacle on the ridge above. A short scramble brought us to the point at the end of the ridge, where we had great views of Mt. Tasman, Mt. Cook and Eile de Beaumont as well as our route up the west side of the Minarets. After a bit of sight seeing Nick lowered Mandy and I down the steep pitch and we worked our way down to mellower terrain to practice more crampon techniques and self-arrest techniques. By noon we were headed back to the hut, and we spent the next eight hours relaxing, eating and enjoying the views. The University of Otago outing club was kind enough to leave a copy of their annual publication documenting hilarious escapades of the previous year (ie- carrying a fridge full of beer into the wilderness), which kept us well entertained for most of the afternoon. After watching the evening light fade on the Minarets we packed our bags for the climb and set our alarms for a 3:00am alpine start.

Mandy on the steep pitch of our practice day climb.

Sunset on the Minarets; our route climbed the sunlit glacier.

After a typically restless pre-summit night 3:00am rolled around and the wind was howling outside. Nick poked his head out of his bag, listened for a moment, and then rolled over and went back to sleep. Mandy and I did so as well, and by 6 the wind had eased so we had breakfast, roped up and headed out. By mid morning we reached the base of the glacier that forms the west face of the Minarets. Several crevasses and bergshrunds crisscrossed the face, and our route zigzagged through them, first on the left side of the face, then the right, then straight up the middle. The steepness of the face gradually increased, and near the top Nick led several pitches of steep climbing up 60° snow. By the time we reached the saddle above the west face, Mandy and I were both ready for a break. Just about every muscle in my legs was burning from the various crampon techniques we had employed to climb the face. After a short rest we scrambled over one last bergshrund and followed a ridge to the 10,000 foot high west summit of the Minarets. Clouds had been moving over the summit prior to our arrival, but as we reached the top they cleared and we had great views of the Southern Alps. After taking in the views and taking photos we headed back down to the saddle for an early lunch. Rested and rejuvenated we headed back down the west face, lowering the first few pitches and down climbing the rest. By the time we reached the bottom of the face the snow was softening enough so that we could travel the rest of the way back to the hut without crampons. Seven hours after starting out we returned to the hut happy, tired and hungry.

Myself and Mandy on the summit. Mts. Cook and Tasman are the clouded summits to the right of Mandy.

Nick down climbing the steep section of our route.

Rather than fly out from the Centennial hut, Mandy and I decided to spend some more time on the ice our last day, and choose to hike across the Franz Joseph glacier and down the Fox glacier to the Chancelor hut, where we would catch a helicopter back to Fox. An overnight snowstorm had deposited two inches of new snow, but had cleared off in the morning and the weather was even better than the day before. The new snow and clear skies made for spectacular views, but the downside was that soon after we started out the new snow started sticking to our crampons. Before starting out we had put duct tape on our crampons to try and prevent the balls of snow from developing but to no avail. So for much of the hike down Mandy and I were constantly banging our crampons to knock the snow off. After crossing a pass over the divide between the Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers we came upon a bergshrund that was particularly tricky to cross. After searching for a while, Nick found a snow bridge to cross. The bridge did not look very stable, and so we crossed it one at a time with a belay. It held up fine, and we headed off down a relatively un-crevassed corridor on the right hand side of the Fox glacier. On the way down there we had spectacular views of Mt. Tasman and several large ice falls on the Fox glacier. We arrived at the Chancelor hut with just enough time to take our packs off and organize our gear before the helicopter arrived. The landing pad was a small flat section of ground on a bluff that overlooked the lower Fox glacier. Rather than lifting off an gently cruising down the valley our pilot decided to give us the E-ticket ride and angled the helicopter steeply off of the bluff, dropping several hundred feet to just above the glacier before leveling off and heading down the valley- quite a thrill! After stopping by the alpine hut in Fox for a quick shower we hit the road and made it back to Wanaka by 7:00pm.

Mt. Tasman as seen from our hike out, with seracs of the Fox glacier in the foreground.

Thanks to better than average weather, good guiding, hard work and a bit of patience Mandy and I had a fantastic climb of the Minarets and thoroughly enjoyed our three days on the glaciers of the Southern Alps.

Looking down the Fox glacier from the hut we flew out of with the Tasman Sea in the background.