Whakapapa Birthday Weekend!

Helen seconding the lean first pitch of 'Comfortably Numb' (making it a bit harder than in normal conditions) on Pink Floyd Buttress, The Pinnacles at Whakapapa.

Tim on a mixed arete of an alternative second pitch, a variation to the lack of ice and abundance of loose rock on the original second pitch.

Left: Coming down from the Pinnacles (Right: compared to when we were last here in June)

Sunset on Pink Floyd Buttress from the Ruapehu Hut.

The Ruapehu Hut, Mount Taranaki and the lowering sun.

Mount Ngauruhoe at sunset.

Helen climbing up the ski field just after dawn.

Leaving the ski field far behind...

Overlooking the summit plateau and Cathedral Rocks on Mount Ruapehu.

Climbing up to Glacier Knob via it's South Face.

View from Glacier Knob.

Skinning across the summit plateau towards Cathedral Rocks.

On the rimed up Cathedral Rocks.

Climbing up to Dome with Cathedral Rocks behind.

Crater Lake and Tahurangi beyond.

Helen in front of Tahurangi, Ruapehu's highest summit, the crater lake is hidden between.

Helen skiing down the Whangaehu Glacier.

Tim skiing down the glacier.

All important lunch at the bottom of the glacier.

Tim skinning back up the glacier.

Brithday party in the Ruapehu Hut.

Pancake preparation!

Pancakes, in the loosest definition of the word.

Looking down the icy Grand Gully, Helen sitting on a rock in the middle of the picture. It was slightly lower than this point that the ski field's Lahar* siren went off warning us of an iminent Lahar through the ski field and promting us to move to higher ground. We were well above it anyway - it turned out to be a false alarm/test.

*A flow of pyroclastic material and water that flows down from a volcanoe, typically along a river valley - wikipedia

Pink Floyd Buttress. We climbed 'The Delicate Sound of Thunder' a steep ice pitch to join the right ridge line taken by 'Momentary Lapse of Reason'.

Two Weekends up the Mountain

Two weekends ago we headed back up to Turoa to get two days of skiing in. On Saturday night we walked to the Blyth Hut again to find it had recently been stocked up by helecopter with firewood for the winter so we again had a cosy night. Sunday was a bit more cloudy, snowy and windy, though the fresh snow gave some good skiing.

Now there's a challange for Darrell...!

Last weekend, despite it being the school holiday and likely to be quite packed, we headed up to Whakapapa on the northern side of Ruapehu. We had hoped to get some ice climbing done, but everything was rather bare so we packed up the touring gear and headed up from the top ski lift to Pinnacle Ridge.

Pinnacle Ridge and the crater of Ngauruhoe behind.

On the wider part of Pinnacle Ridge with First and Second Pinnacles behind after skining up from the ski field.

View across the Tama Lakes to Ngauruhoe.

The snow crater of Taranaki in the distance

Unfortunately, the slopes on the way down to the ski field weren't in amazing condition.

After exploring a bit of the ski field we contiuned our tour of Tongariro Huts and walked an hour off the Bruce Road to the Whakapaiti Hut, arriving just before dark. We shared the hut with Chris (Brummy) and Christina (Kiwi) and it took most of the evening for Tim to get to grips with the complicated rules of the card game that Christina was trying to teach us.

Descending into the Whakapaiti Basin.

During the night the wind picked up significantly at times shaking the hut to its foundation and in the morning we headed out into the worsening conditions to get back to the car. The wind made it a battle most of the way with rucksac straps flapping horizontally as we leaned into the wind but luckily we had our googles shielding our eyes from the blasts of wind-blown snow and securing our hoods to our heads. With having to walk most of the way directly into (two steps forward, one blown back) or side on to the wind (stumbling side to side), it felt a long way back to the buffeted car. As any further plans for the day were ruled out with both ski fields closed due to gale force winds we made an early departure back to Wellington.