Mount Cook (February 1-3)

This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.

As nobody had fired a climbing trip report the Editor's way, he thought he would get off his butt and try, Cook in a weekend from Wellington.

Its been done before from Christchurch, but never the Capital City. Foley was joined by Lawrence: Tye and Chris McGuire and we chartered a six-seater Cessna from New Plymouth. With Kathie Foley and a Radio Windy reporter we. flew to Mount Cook Friday afternoon in perfect weather, landing at the Hermitage at 6.30 p.m. Bryan Carter, one of the local Alpine Guides, gave usa lift to the chain across theil Ball Road at the Blue Lakes, and-at7.20 p.m. we wereoffion foot. We cut out the 2% hour road walk in lhr 40m and began the moraine wall climb: from the -] Ball Glacier to. -Cinerama Col on dusk. We had banked on climbing by moonlight, but we hadn't. reckoned on the moon being on one side of the Anzac Peaks, and us on. the other. No freeze and knee deep snow was another problem, and instead of reaching the Col at 1.30 a.m. (Saturday), it was 3.30 a.m. by the time I wandered across it. Originally we had planned to climb Cook via the Zurbriggen but ice recession has left the start of the climb badly cut by shrunds and avalanche debris and the top part over-hung by green ice cliffs. The access on to the East ridge is equally as bad. : We had to-head for the Linda corner anyway, so we put off making a final route decision till then. As we jumped over and fell into numerous pressure cracks and slots on the Grand Plateau, a warm wind (about 15 knots). biew from the NW,: çreating a very eerie feeling.. Posr ::

Bolow the: Zurbriggen we saw. two parties aborting an attempt via the Linda. As the snow was deep and ominous hogs backs wêre building up in the Tasman Valley, we ecided to head for the tracks we knew must exist in the Linda. By mid-morning the weather signs looked bad and the wind, had sprung to 25 knots. We tossed the climb in and headed out via Cinerama Col and the Ball. From Blue Lakes and return, 25 hours in all. On Sunday rain clouds obscured the mountain and the. valley disappeared at times behind swirling dust clouds formed by a 50 knot wind. The local planes were grounded so we did the only sensible thing - went rubber rafting down the Tasman' River with Gavin Wills. : As many may already: know, Radio Windy sponsored the climb which created some publicity. Although none of the climbers liked the idea of outside sponsorship, it was a means to an end. We felt no undue pressure to continue past the point of reasonable safety just because somebody else was footing the bill, yet the sponsorship did allow us to spend.a great weekend in a great place. the Editor