Mount Taranaki

There are good reasons why I post so many last minute trips. The main one being you have no control over the weather. Planning an exact date weeks in advance normally leads to disappointment.

There are not many weekends where Mount Taranaki offers perfect blue skies, minimal wind and low risk avalanche conditions. The trick is to have a plan, then wait for the perfect time to present itself.

Marty, Stirling, Rendy, Myself and The Shit Weasel were all available for the mission to summit Taranaki.

We drove up after work on Friday, parked up at Dawson Falls carpark, then walked about 1 hour to the Waingongoro hut for the night. We had it to ourselves which was sweet.

Up to Syme Hut

It’s decent hike up to Syme Hut. We got there for lunchtime, dumped all the overnight gear inside, then had a quick break and a feed before continuing…

Heading up

The South face does not get as much sunlight as the rest of the mountain which tends to make the snow harder, especially the higher you get. It’s a great workout for your calf muscles and good for some toe pointing practice with your crampons.

Once you hit the slope behind the hut it’s a relentless grind up to the summit.

The slope just goes and goes…

Summit

The last little section before the summit is probably the trickiest part and you hit it when you are gassed out! Here’s a video clip of me hitting the Summit:

We had a beer on the top to celebrate, plus had the luxury of lounging around on the top without getting cold.

Marty and Rendy were not far behind and I got some sweet video shots and photos of them both.

Next comes the fun part of going down…

I could have stayed up longer, but it’s a good idea to get back down before the sun sets!

There were a total of 3 groups up on the Mountain this weekend. Our party of five, four experienced Koreans and another group of three.

We made a good call as we were the first to hit the Summit and the first group back to the hut. The Koreans were not far behind us.

I was keen on doing some skids on the way down. I took the crampons off far to early and ended up hurtling down the hard ice at high speed. The Shit Weasel came flying out of my backpack pocket and and overtook me!

I had to speed up to save him.

Ouch,Ouch, Bounce, Ouch!

I really should have known better and waited for the softer snow. I speed up bouncing down the hard ice , overtook the Shit Weasel, then folded my legs around him whilst pulling off a sideways self arrest!

The result was a bruised right buttock, elbows and shoulder blade!

The rest of the team were far more sensible and made it down unscathed.

The final group ended up coming down in the dark. One of them was not confident with the hard ice and was not sure footed with her crampons. The Koreans spotted this and gave them a rope.

Two hours after we returned they were still up there! We could see the torches still high up and I was having discussions with the Koreans about a rescue mission to get them!

Fortunately they got back before our chosen deadline time. I was feeling quite beaten up after saving the Shit Weasel and really wanted a quite night!

Sunday

It was an early rise to watch the sunrise. Pure magic to watch the sun pop up from behind Ruepehu. Then back into the hut for a coffee or two to warm up.

More Skids!

Sliding is always the quickest way down a mountain! But we had soft snow this time. Arguably I could have started higher up, but was still feeling tender from the previous day!

Please note: Alpine trips are only suitable for those that have previous experience using ice axe and crampons. Risk management is vital to have an incident free trip.

There will be some blog posts coming soon that cover Snowcraft courses for anyone interested.