A Copeland Alternative

A Copeland Alternative It was a sign of a changing world that I could sit in Charlie Hobbes’ café at Mount Cook Village, check my emails No longer does hitching to Mount Cook/Aoraki mean an almost immediate windy walk across the Hooker Valley with a pack to Whitehorse Hill after signing in at the Visitor Centre. Instead I could take the time to email friends while looking at the route outside the window.

As a warm-up to an Olivine Wilderness trip, I exploited a doubtful weather window and made a pre-Christmas dash for Fitzgerald Pass in Mount Cook/Aoraki National Park. A new route over the Pass, close to the more popular Copland Pass, was profiled on the Alpine Recreation Canterbury website and I was eager to give it a go.

Somewhat unexpectedly, the weather dawned fine when I woke up at Stocking Stream shelter. The forecast was for a nor-wester so the clear skies were a considerable relief. As dawn lit up the top of Mt Sefton, I headed up the track to the Hooker Glacier lake and its medley of grounded icebergs.

A short walk along the old Hooker Hut track gave access to the side stream that led up out of the moraines onto the tussock and scree slopes above.

A momentary flirt with the idea of a quick route up a steep snow gully ended as blocks of ice at the base of the gully became visible.

I chose instead to stick to Gottlieb Braun- Elwert’s route up the buttress. My friends will attest to my fear of heights and it looked scary. A cairn marked the start of the route reassuringly so I swallowed my fear and headed on up.

An early mistake saw me too far to the northern edge of the buttress on steep tussocky ground. The way up from there was up a steep slab leaning over bluffs so I retreated with all the nervousness of a kitten that has climbed a tree but doesn’t quite know how to get down again.

Once on the proper route, the going was good. The rock was more solid than the loose rubbish of Copland Ridge with broad tussock ledges linking easy scrambles. Near the top, more care was required where the route sidled across ledges above a steep drop. A careful step across a short slab and more scrambling, this time on looser rock on the northern edge of the buttress, and I was Tramping & Mountaineering 2004

Geoff Keey and drink a latte.

comfortably on the scree shelf above. A gentle ridge above led to an attractive tumbling waterfall and an excuse for a rest.

Ridges to the north and south plunged steeply to the valley floor, armed with teetering towers of implausibly stacked rock. Above, ice cliffs hung on the Main Divide, as it gained height toward The Footstool and Mt Sefton.

My reverie ended in a quick scamper as a large rock whistled down the snow slope above, followed by some smaller companions, before tumbling down the waterfall with a clatter and a crash.

Heading up a snowy ridge, the source of the rock problem soon became manifest. Above the snow Aoraki/Mt Cook from the start of the route up Fitzgerald Pass (Geoff Keey)

The lower Hooker Valley and Mt Cook Village 1000 metres below the upper slopes of the pass (Geoff Keey)

slopes that fed the waterfall, a band of scree was exposed by the summer melt. The ground beneath was soft, wet and loosened by nightly frost and melting snow. Periodically, lumps of rock would lose their grip on the mountain before hissing down the softening snow slope and over the apparently safe waterfall ledge. The slope had conspired to keep this hazard well hidden from below.

Yet the ridge itself was safe and secure. Credit must go to Gottlieb Braun-Elwert on his route. The route followed a ridge between two gullies that are guarded by icecliffs. While I was able to plod up the ridge in safety, snow and ice avalanches would roar and rumble down either side.

Only one section of route was dangerous where the route crosses under an ice cliff on the Stewart Glacier. Tiredness was no barrier to a speedy trot across that section. A smear trail marked the path of giant ice blocks thrown down by the mountain.

After that easy slopes led up to a prominent snow shoulder that can be seen from Mount Cook Village. From there it was a simple, though careful sidle around moderately steep slopes to Fitzgerald Pass.

Below me the Copland Shelter looked tiny, perched on a ridge a few hundred metres north. From the final slopes to Fitzgerald Pass, the Copland Pass looked very dramatic, with only the thin trail of footprints in the snow revealing where others had gone before.

Tramping & Mountaineering 2004 The Hooker Valley stretched out a kilometre below. The Mount Cook Range rose from Ball Pass, peak by peak, each one higher, and more dramatic, than its neighbour; Turner, Pibrac, Nazomi and finally Aoraki/Mount Cook over one and half kilometres higher than Fitzgerald Pass.

Cloud billowed up in the west, curling finger-like tentacles over the Main Divide, obscuring the view. But from here I was on familiar ground. I walked and slid down snow basins below the Copland and Fitzgerald passes and aimed for the zigzag track to the valley floor. The weather cleared.

Where the Copland Track ends at the top of the Copland Pass zigzag is one of the great locations of the Southern Alps. Northwards the implausible sharp spires of Dilemma and Unicorn rise above the cirque of the upper Copland Valley. Ice tumbles off the faces of Mt Sefton to the south.

Stretching west is the long, rugged ridge of the Sierra Range with its saw tooth peaks poking up above the hidden expanse of the Douglas Neve. Beyond the Sierra Range the softer, tussock and forested coastal ranges sat in the afternoon haze and the sky beyond hinted of the Tasman Sea.

I sat there at the top of the track with its reassuring line through tussocks scrub and bluffs. The sun was hot. There was little wind and I was tired. So I rested in the satisfaction of a great day and an alpine route completed. The pungent smell of alpine shrubs filled the air.