The day dawned clear again after a star filled night. Despite some strong winds, our tent had survived the night, but only just! The fabric flapped and pulled noisily all night long giving us a restless night. Clare took the brunt of it though as she was on the windward side and the tent would flatten down on her with each gust! There were also some huge rockfalls from over on the otherside of the glacier that woke us with their thunderous roar at various intervals during the night. I got the stove going at dawn and took a few photos of the skyline, before returning to breakfast in our sleeping bags.
After striking camp, we stashed the tent and one rucksack so that we could travel light along the rocky ridge with just the bare essentials.
It was an easy rocky scramble upto the false summit of our first peak - Mt Olivier and in the clear morning air, the views continued to be fantastic. A little rockier section the saw us on the summit proper, where we got views right up the Mueller Glacier as well as out towards the east coast.
From there on was a narrow ridge that led precariously on towards Mt Kitchener and Mt Anette. The scrambling was good and most of the rock on the ridge was fairly solid. There were several towers to negotiate; we went round some and over others, with the odd false trail making us retrace our steps and find a better way.
The ridge took us up and over several unnamed peaks as we traversed the skyline. The sky remained a deep blue and the wind continued to whip across the ridge keeping us cool. Eventually, below the last peak, we decided to make what is know as 'a sound mountaineering decision' - and turn back. Ahead of us lay some relatively straight forward rocky scrambling on one side and a steep snowfield on the other. Now, we both agreed, the margin for error was greatly reduced. This final rocky fin was incredibly exposed an without ropes we decided that to continue would be too risky. Despite being so close to the final peak in the chain, we had no option but to turn back. Carefully we picked our way back along the knife edge. Back near the summit of Mt Olivier, we found a sheltered little spot had some food and a little snooze in the sun!
We awoke from our slumber to the noise of rockfall. Across the other side of the glacier, various big scree slopes had released and were sliding downwards in great plumes of dust. As the rocks reached the glacier below the dust clouds kicked up and before long the whole valley was clouded out!
As the dust cleared, we continued back to camp to retrieve the gear that we had stashed. We then refilled our water bottles at the hut, we headed off across the small snow field towards the Sealy Tarns and then down to 'the steps of pain'.
The sun beat down and in our tired state, the steps were even more tourturous. All we could do was focus on the luxuries of the valley and keep going! Eventually, the ground levelled out and we arrived back at Wendy (the camper), utterly shattered.
Getting into the shade and out of our boots was a sweet relief!
As soon as we could muster the energy, we drove the short distance to Mt Cook village and went direct to the 'Old Mountaineers Bar' where we ordered ice cold ginger beer and a pile of heavily salted chips! We ate them sat in front of a 20ft high window at the end of the building that looked out at Mt Cook. Bliss!
We didn't rush to leave, but when we did, we both had long hot showers at the van before returning to the bar an hour or so later for a second session! This time of mountain burgers and pizzas! Our bodies couldn't get enough food in them!
It was only a 2 minute drive across the valley floor to the campground, where we pulled up, climbed into bed, watched a movie and fell into a very satisfied deep sleep...
No comments:
Post a Comment