Couloir Peak

Text taken from the club newsletter.

COULOIR

PEAK

ARROWSMITHS RANGE by MIKE SCHIER with BRENDAN ECKERT, KATY GLENIE, and MIKE PHETHEAN

Last year I went on one of David Jewell's trips to climb Mt. Arrowsmith (2781m) via the South Cameron Glacier (East Face). I remember that it was pissing down all day long on the way in, and we slept pretty much the entire second day due to snow fall.

On the third day, however, we got pretty good weather but the snow conditions were far from ideal (we sank up to 1m in the snow) and we ended up turning around 300m below summit and running home the day after. Despite having bad luck with the weather, I kept the Arrowsmith Range in good memory as the way in is quite nice (not a nightmare with heavy packs), the hut has an awesome purple colour, and most importantly, there are 15+ peaks which can be climbed from there. All that made me put up a trip there on this year's schedule, with no particular peak in mind. With the trip date coming closer and the usual suspects (Brendan, Katy, and Mike) signing up, I asked Mr. Google for some nice pictures of the Arrowsmith Range, and one of the first hits was the south route onto Couloir Peak (2642m). It in- stantly caught my eye as the route is super obvious - a big couloir going from the Upper Cameron Glacier all the way to the top - so no way for me to mess up navigation.

After the usual procedure - flying to Christchurch, rental car to Lake Heron, walk in - we arrived at Cameron

Hut on Saturday afternoon with a day of mint climbing ahead of us and a decent weather report in our pockets. According to the hut book one would roughly expect one party per month, so we were quite surprised to meet not one but two groups there. However, space turned out not to be an issue, and one of the groups comprised of girls which was a pleasant diversion for Brendan.

For the next day, we decided to split up as Katy and Mike wanted to climb Mt. Arrowsmith rather than Cou- loir Peak. So an alpine start saw us four leaving the hut together under a clear night sky; Brendan and me head- ing up the main valley via the Cameron Glacier, whereas Team K&M scrambled up the moraine ramp to reach the main snow field below Mt. Arrowsmith. Concerns about the snow freeze luckily did not eventuate and we worked our way up onto the upper glacier at a decent speed. After crossing a crevasse that separated the couloir from the main glacier, we climbed two ice steps which were de- scribed as the crux of the route, and steadily plucked our way to the ridge. From there the actual top was only a 20 metre hop away, so we sat down to have an extended lunch and absorb the stunning 360 degree view. Every now and then we tried to spot Mike and Katy, but with no luck. Black dots, which we believed to be them, turned out to merely be rocks after not seeing them move for a while.

After lunch we carefully traversed to the top, where I tried to recover the ice screw that had reportedly been left behind by a Canterbury climbing party a week earlier, again with no success.

We went back to the hut the same way without inci- dent and met up with the other two who had come back a bit early. It turned out that they had to fight with poor snow conditions and loose rocky ground underfoot on

Walking in to Cameron Hut

Cameron Hut in the foreground looking towards the Cameron Glacier their way up, so had turned back.

After some sunbathing and fixing the hut radio, Mike and I decided to go for another early start the next day to climb the west face to the ridge of Tent Peak before heading out to the car. However, soft snow on one of the vertical bits of the route made us turn around half way; but nonetheless it was quite nice to get at least something done for the day as the weather was as brilliant as the day before.

In summary, it was one of the best trips so far in NZ as all the three core ingredients were right - destination, weather, and company!

Couloir Peak