Minarets and Red Needles - Trampers Among the Mountain Giants

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MINARETS AND RED NEEDLES - TRAMPERS AMONG THE MOUNTAIN GIANTS Harry Smith On the summit of Aiguilles Rouges Harry Smith Late in 1991 I was sitting at my desk, feeling bored with upon the Minarets, a mountain on the main divide, half work and thinking there must be more to life than this, way up the Tasman Glacier. This is only a grade 2 in the when a message suddenly appeared on my computer guidebook, but at 10,022 feet or 3056 metres it just screen from the other side of the world. Michael Henley, breaks the magic 10,000 foot and 3000 metre barriers. a former work mate of mine now living in London (and a former member of the Tararua Tramping Club, but The next day we çaught the tourist bus up the Tasman everyone has their faults) was coming back for a visit. Valley, and walked in up the Tasman Glacier. The Was I interested in a trip into the mountains? It didn't moraine on the lower part of the glacier was just as bad take much persuasion for me to agree. as I remembered it from the last time I was here, but at least this time there was something to take our minds off We met up at Mount Çook village in early January, and the endless monotony, with the huge Mount Cook enjoyed a pleasant evening at the pub (built to keep avalanche coming into view on our left. This had trampers, climbers, and other such undesirable elements occurred only a few months ago and must have been a away from the rich Japanese and American tourists up the terrifying experience for the climbers who were in at road at the Hermitage) before retiring to our expensive Plateau Hut when it struck. The east face of the mountain tourist accommodation, the concrete floor of the public had broken away one night, taking the summit with it and shelter, carefully turning a blind eye to the large signs leaving a huge trail of debris down the mountain, over saying not for overnight use. The weather the following the Grand Plateau, down the Hochstetter Icefall, and day was bad, So we stayed at the village and planned right across the Tasman Valley. Our route took us what we were going to do. Neither of us had climbed through the middle of the debris for some distance but we anything really difficult, we were basically just trampers couldn't decide whether it was better or worse than the who liked getting up into the snow and ice. What we moraine. The debris was thick and claggy, but at least it wanted to do was climb something that was fairly big and was reasonably compact and stable. impressive sounding but also not too hard. We decided

When we finally reached the white ice of the glacier the large schrund but we were able to make our way around travel became a lot easier, and before long we were the end of this, on the edge of a dizzying vertical drop climbing out up the steep moraine wall to De la Beche down the other mountain face. Here we put in a fixed Hut, which perches among giant boulders at the foot of belay for the final steep pitch to the summit. the ridge between the Tasman and Rudolf Glaciers. This is a spectacular setting, surrounded by giant mountains, At two o'clock we stepped onto the summit itself, to be and with Mount Cook framed perfectly in the hut greeted with brilliant views down onto the ice fields of window. the Franz Josef neve rising above think cloud banks on the other side, and out over to the Tasman Sea beyond. A The next morning we were up at two o'clock and away check of the map, however, showed that we had climbed by three. We picked our way up the ridge by torchlight the wrong Minaret! The other one was twenty feet for a few hours until it started to get light. For a short higher! So we quickly made our way down and went over time at dawn all the peaks around the Tasman Valley and climbed the other one too. At last we felt able to were bathed in a beautiful golden light. It was a perfect, proudly utter the obligatory quote from Sir Edmund on fine, still day. reaching a summit: "We knocked the b*st*rd off"! It was now the middle of the afternoon. The sun had been beating down for many hours, and we were getting concerned about the strength of some of the snow bridges we had crossed on the way up, sO we didn't delay any longer than necessary and were soon on our way back down. The ice fields seemed much longer than they had on the way up, and we eventually arrived back at the hut at seven o'clock that night. It had been a long, hot, tiring day, but also one of the most satisfying and enjoyable ones I have spent in the mountains. Although the Minarets are not a very difficult climb, it had given us a real sense of accomplishment to reach the top, and the scenery spread out all around us had been breathtaking. Next morning was another perfect day. Really we should have made the most of it and gone and done something. But we were feeling lazy after the long climb the day before, and the sun on the verandah of the hut was very appealing. We ended up spending the whole morning lounging there, soaking up both the sun and the scenery. At one point I summoned up the energy and will power to wander a few yards from the hut and take some Sunrise on Mt Cookfrom Harry Smith photographs of some mountain flowers, but this was De la Beche Ridge exhausting work and I soon returned to the verandah to laze in the sun! For most of the way our route followed the ice fields on the right hand side of the ridge. We had a five and a half About midday we felt we had better move. Not that we thousand foot climb from the hut, and it seemed to go on wanted to: it was just that the sun was threatening to for ever. Finally, near the top, we sneaked around the move away from our verandah! So we hurriedly packed bottom of a steep ice arete and into an icefall on the other up, and nipped across to the other side of the glacier side. We picked our way up through this, weaving where we spent the rest of the day catching the afternoon backwards and forwards among the crevasses and sun on the verandah at Beetham Hut. treading gingerly across snow bridges. Occasionally we came to a dead end among the crevasses and had to back- As if to punish us for our laziness, the weather the next track, but with some trial and error we were always able day was bad, and we were confined to the hut. The to find a way through. A large schrund stretching right following day was also not very good, but by now we across the top of the icefield looked like it might cut us were feeling restless sO we set off for a wander northward off, but when we reached it we found an ice ramp. jutting towards the Malte Brun Glacier. At the head of this there out at one point, providing a way across. This led to a is a little peak called Rum Doodle. There is a famous short ice wall on the other side, which we scrambled up, mountaineering spoof novel about an expedition to climb to emerge onto a gentle ice plateau. At the far side of this Rum Doodle, the highest mountain in the world, sO we we saw our goal, the two Minarets, rising like two thought it would be fun to climb this peak. We also rounded beehives above the plateau. wanted to see what the famous west ridge of Malte Brun looked like from close up. We headed straight across the plateau towards the western-most Minaret. This was cut off at the base by a

Beetham Hut framed by Mt Cook Harry Smith We made our way up the Malte Brun Glacier, across a would be more exhausting work; fortunately, however, very narrow ice bridge over a deep and nasty crevasse, another party from the hut was ahead of us and had made and found ourselves in an amphitheatre of steep rock a line of perfect steps right up the slope. We made our walls vanishing upwards into the mist. There was no way up, thanking the other party for all their good work obvious route onwards, and the weather showed signs of as we passed them on their way back down! A short time getting even worse, sO we decided to flag it and return to later we were standing on the summit of the peak, the hut. As we picked our way back round the mountain admiring the surrounding scenery on yet another perfect side, we were treated to an impressive weather display, day. with a huge bank of cloud coming in from the west, rolling over the main divide, and flowing down into the Mike had to get the bus back to Christchurch the Tasman Valley, like some gigantic ocean wave crashing following day, so we raced back down to the hut, packed onto the beach in slow motion. up, and set off down the glacier. We reached Ball Shelter just before nightfall, planning to spend the night there The report on the evening radio sched was for good and catch the tourist bus back to the village the next weather the following day, and we decided to climb morring. However we met couple of climbers there who Aiguilles Rouges (the Red Needle), a peak rising up had some spare room in their car, so we carried on out to beside Malte Brun Pass at the head of the Beetham the road end with them by torchlight and got back to the Valley. That morning we were up and away by four village that night. o'clock. Wej picked our way up the valley in the dark and after blundering around for a while on an awkward little And SO ended a great trip in the mountains. We had spent bluff (where the route was obvious in daylight on the way a week among the highest mountains and the largest back down) we arrived at the foot of the long snow climb glaciers in New Zealand, and although our climbs to the Pass just as it was getting light. It was a long probably wouldn't seem very much to experienced exhausting plod to the top of the Pass, from which there climbers, they had been highly satisfying to a couple of are long steep snow slopes leading up the flank of trampers. Aiguilles Rouges to the summit. This looked like it