Tititea/Mt Aspiring is the highest summit in the Otago region and the only 3000-metre peak not in Aoraki/Mount Cook or Westland Tai Poutini national parks. The distinctive spire catches the eye and imagination and its prominence props it well above its surroundings. Known as the glistening one, the angular surface is harsh, rugged and foreboding. Softness creeps in momentarily after a snowstorm, and at sunset or sunrise when blanketed in warming glows.
Joining me was Sooji Clarkson, a gifted ice climber whose voracious appetite for steep, mixed and ice climbs had taken her to many wild places, including a long stint in Canada. She was easily the most technically proficient climber I had partnered up with for this whole project.
The first morning, at four, we set off from French Ridge Hut up the slopes to Quarterdeck Pass, never quite encountering the deep snow we’d anticipated ...
A change to our plan came as we neared the South Face and saw how well formed the ice was. After a brief discussion, we geared up for a new line in an area without any previously recorded ascents, starting 10m to the left of Chocolate Fish Route.
The ice was odd: scalloped blobs joined together like stacked oyster mushrooms, the surface, hard dense ice, but with soft gills underneath.
The fourth pitch was steep and only halfway up the face, my forearms became inflamed with lactic acid. That’s where Sooji, the team technical expert, took over. She dispatched the pitch with the grace of a gecko, chuckling with delight as she went. I followed, laughing mercifully. At the top of South Face (mid-Coxcomb Ridge) a long plume of wind-blown snow arced over the summit of Aspiring. We’d been on the face for five hours, but still had plenty of energy in reserve. We stowed the rope and climbed the easier slopes of the ridge as the sun dipped out of view behind the North East Ridge. Near the longest step, the wind gusted to at least 70kmh, and the rock ahead was dry, with occasional rotten rime icicles.
This would require careful dry-tooling to negotiate, followed by climbing into the full force of the wind. The final Coxcomb wouldn’t be the ropeless, photogenic scramble I’d envisioned and while the prospect of descent via the full Coxcomb Ridge was also uninviting, at least the wind would be less intense.
We turned around and began our descent as darkness fell — a dance up and over the numerous rock towers and sketchy overhangs. We’d linked our relatively short South Face climb to the middle of the Coxcomb Ridge to strategically avoid the steep, loose, precarious section lower down the ridge. Down we went, ungracefully straddling the ridgeline, sending powder snow skyward into our eyes, along with goose-down feathers as my jacket unavoidably tore against the rocks ...
Despite a valiant attempt to retrieve it, I climbed up as far as I could and cut the remaining rope, then stepped down over the final schrund and rejoined Sooji, stopping for a late lunch at 11pm, in the lee of the wind at the base of the South Face. It still blasted as strong as ever, churning over the summit ridge. A tide of cloud was also edging its way up the Bonar Glacier. At least we had our own tracks to follow — or so we thought. Halfway across the four kilometres of soft snow that comprises the glacier, our tracks began to fill in front of us ...
Now on the Quarterdeck, the wind blew unabated, transforming soft, white snowflakes into projectiles tearing at our eyes. In such dark and disorientating conditions, I used all my senses to follow terrain markers in my head, but creeping doubt grew as I ventured further and further without confirmation. I checked my GPS to make sure of one key thing: that we weren’t about to walk off the edge of the glacier into Gloomy Gorge. Communication came in short bursts as Sooji and I yelled across the wind. Neither of us could see very much. We persevered, climbing headlong into the wind, head torches strobing the pellets as they whisked past. We’d stumbled into the equivalent of a bar-room brawl, glass flying, the exit signs switched off. Finally, as the slope angle eased, so too did the wind, relieving us of the apex of two violent currents colliding abruptly.
We stumbled into French Ridge Hut nearly 24 hours after our departure ...
I hadn’t managed to capture photos on the upper Coxcomb Ridge, but another opportunity would arise the following season. Sam Smoothy, a professional free-skier, was beginning to venture into alpinism. We headed up the Matukituki Valley, reaching the South Face in good time. Our sights were again set on Chocolate Fish Route, which I first climbed in 2010 and which would put us beyond the lower Coxcomb Ridge with the least effort. I scampered over the schrund and up the South Face, and was immediately challenged by vertical ice, but I found my flow by the end of the first pitch, and Sam followed, grinning widely. We swapped leads to the ridge line, in drastically different weather to the previous visit, and soaked in the sun before continuing to the large rock step.
My memory of 2010 was of a plastered layer of hard ice that I was confident to solo climb. Now, there were deep layers of brittle snow, barely clinging to the rock, carved out in intricate designs. The surface had long, narrow moulded fingers that pointed into the prevailing wind. It worsened as I edged higher. After placing a couple of less-than-ideal ice screws, I finally found a solid-looking block of rock to wrap a sling around. It calmed me for the first time. I climbed higher, squeezing through an awkward chimney, and edging upwards into a cauldron of soft, rotten snow. I pulled at each new section hoping for something more solid, but it never came. I pushed onwards, now more than 10m above the sling. Some anxious scrambling through waves of dreadful snow and rime ice led me to the ridge. I dug around for an anchor, excavating down to the rock, but there was only loose dry snow, interspersed with vaguely cohesive denser layers. All I could muster was a combination of plunged axes and my body weight in a strong stance, while plonking myself into the hole I’d dug meant I could spread the load across the anchor and myself, if Sam should fall. Once he arrived, we unroped and could enjoy the freedom of movement across the gendarmes and aretes to follow...
A soft landing, especially one in the mountains, is a feeling to behold. I let out a holler of satisfaction and lined up the camera for Sam’s launch. He jumped with the certainty of someone with years of experience in dropping cliffs and catching big air. He landed, smiled wryly, and sauntered off around the corner. He may not have been in his usual ski boots, but big mountains were his home. Sam was especially stoked when we reached the summit. His experiences till now on Tititea/Mt Aspiring had been thwarted by bad weather and poor conditions, and so he was thrilled to enjoy the view without the pressure of an immediate departure. We sat and absorbed the whole experience ...
Pain and suffering could be enough to persuade me to retire, or at the very least climb each mountain no more than once, but this mountain has become so irresistible that I find myself returning again and again. There are many more memories to be made.
Ko Tititea te maunga: Aspiring is my mountain.
The book
Seeking the Light, by Gavin Lang, Potton & Burton, $89.99
