An Eye for An Eye

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An Eye for An Eye South Face of Mt Hicks, Winter '83 Dave Wills Peter Cammell could only spare a down hard, rotten water-ice slopes, week, and with a week's perfect and over small shadowy bulges. weather already gone, our hopes were Four scarey absails into darkness, few. 6.40 ferry, overnight bus to off sparse anchors, aided parts of Christchurch and 8 am landliner to the descent. arrive at the Hermitage about 3.30 on Saturday, buggered. Halfway down, having been hanging from my curver (ice-axe) after an Skis and skins on, and we left with absail, I broke the pick off trying little delay, following cross-country to retrieve it from the ice. ski-tracks up the Hooker Valley. The trip to Empress Hut was not At the bottom of the gully we keep uneventful; we skiied across a plodding till we reach the morning frozen lake, through jumbled sunshine. After the break, it was avalanche debris and deep powderup. and across to Harper saddle. snow drifts, with Pete continuously It's already about noon, but it's canning over or just popping out of an easy plod to Empress. his bindings. We eventually arrived with the weather holding The primus roared, and we consumed fine and calm, ideal for the climb. countless brews before cooking up last night's tea. Bad weather 8 o'clock in the morning (barely cancelled our next climb, so we light), and we started on the headed out. Heavy wind-crust made 'Curver' route. I drew the short for desperate skiing, but it's all straw. The first pitch was 'hard' - downhill and mid-afternoon found us loose powder snow on rock, topped by recovering the traditional way = overhanging ice-bulges (three of in the Hermitage bar. them) - slow climbing, ending in a hanging belay. The second pitch followed suit and Pete fell victim to the first bulge, nearly cutting the rope clean through in the fall. The second bulge left us both (in turn) hanging by only one axe, feet swinging in space. The third bulge, coming hard on the heels of the second, was made more difficult by failing strength. Pitch 3 saw no let-up and steepened into a gently overhanging wall, before levelling off into the first ice-field. Five hours gone, and only 3 pitches up. Ten more pitches of climbing; steep walls and short ramps, good and bad ice; brought us to the ice-cap. After tired B dragging legs up the easier slopes of the ice-cap, we arrived at the ridge top. It was seven-ish - time for food and a rest. (Our water bottles had long since frozen.) The descent route appeared infinite in the weak moonlight. We belayed