Mount Rolleston

The 900m high Otira face of Mount Rolleston in Aurthrs Pass national park is 2 hours drive from Christchurch and is the mountains most prominent face. It is in fact made up of a number of gullies and prominent buttresses of rock ranging from very bad to not quite so bad.

Heading up the Otira Valley just after first light

Climbing up to the gut on the approach to the central buttress of the 900m high Otira Face

Mount Phillistine Behind

Scrambling up the approach gut. Above this there was a 2m pitch  to beneath the waterfall and a short pitch up a steep and crumbly wall to gain the snow/scree patch under the buttress.

Helen enjoying the beautiful orange and solid rock of the lower 200m of the buttress

Further up the rock quality deteriorated

Helen negotiating the cheval ridge during a relatively horizontal section of the ridge

Final buttress up to the Rolleston-Phillistine ridge

On gaining the Rolleston-Phillistine ridge there was a section of easy, blocky scrambling before the final 50m of great rock and good climbing directly to the high peak

Looking down the Otira valley with Mount Phillistine beyond

Looking south towards Mount Arrowsmith and the mountains of Mount Cook national park

The col between middle and low peak. We  sidled middle peak along loose but easy ledge systems on the Otira  side 

Looking towards Avalanche Peak and the Waimak valley beyond from low peak

We opted to descend the Rome Ridge rather than retrace our steps a bit and tackle the Rolleston-Phillistine traverse. This was very steep and loose at first   with the rock improving  as we approached the blind steep gap which involved a few short abseils and pitches. By this point it had begun raining. We were right on the edge of it as Mount Phillistine to the west was still clear of it.

After the gap there was one more notch with a short abseil and climb  and we were glad to have found a way through.

As we descended the remaining steeper scrambly sections of the ridge, the rain eased and we witnessed a great sunset

We hit the tussock just as it got dark leaving us with an atmospheric descent through mist and the beautiful beach forests to the valley bottom and back up over Arthurs Pass to our parked car at the end of the Otira valley.

A very long and involved day but its amazing to have such good access to a big climb like this.