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New routes down south - January 2005

In late January David Morgan and Matthew Woods (Woods as he's known) headed off with big ambitions to the hills around Mt Cook. The weather was looking good for 3 days so we headed up the hooker glacier. Well that plan ended 9 hours later after wandering on the glacier 3-4 hours trying to find a way through. The 27-degree weather on the Hooker and some pretty big crevasses conspired against us. The route on to pudding rock was nasty, with some big, creaking, dripping seracs threatening it. Always better to be back another day. 12 hours walking from day start saw us back on the playing fields above the Hooker glacier for a lovely bivvy under the watchful eye of the south face of Cook - with a full moon sitting on top (just like the cherry in the ice cream story)!

Next day saw us head out to the village and set sail for the Ohau range with promise of good weather for a few more days. Dawn broke nice and early and we left the car, crossed the river for our leisurely 3 hour walk up to the base of the Tenderfoot wall on Mt Glen Lyon (found by Woods and Paul Hershey a little while back, where they climbed the first route) - took more like 4-5 hours, a bit too much leisure!

With only one route on the wall we had plenty of scope for a new route. The wall is about 400m in height with some laid back sections and some steeper bits. Our route took us up a slab for 3 pitches (not much gear but easy climbing) and onto a ledge, which we soloed up to another wall. There we soloed another 70m or so of a sweet corner before Woods put on the rope for a scary lead. A few more pitches and another superb lead by Woods saw us on another ledge and the route narrowing to a ridge with little promise of a way off. Anyway the problem was surmounted by a chin up on a very precarious block bigger than both of us. Another 200m or so of scrambling took us to the summit of Glen Lyon at about 8pm, beautiful views all round. The 800m of a living scree slope and we were on the valley floor. After attempting a river crossing in the dark we flagged the idea, deciding safety came first and ended bivvying again on the river bed (within view of the car in morning). A cold night sleeping on a dusty riverbed ensued and we were pretty thankful for 5:30am when it was light enough to cross the river. Note to readers - if your mate is happily sleeping (all be it shivering his ass off) don't wake him up to tell him he's cold (thanks Woods!), its pretty hard to get back to sleep again.

We had a leisurely drive back to Omaramara for some bacon, eggs and hasbrowns and then a swim in Lake Benmore and some sunbathing. All in all a pretty wholesome and exciting trip for 4 days down south. It should be noted for you guys who have your sights set on big mountains (just like us) there is some really good stuff to be done in the Ohau region. The route is unnamed but we think would be about a grade 4, crux 16ish.
Dave Morgan