Aoraki/Mt Cook, East Face

What a line! A huge alpine face, with 1200m of continuous 45 degree skiing that regularly holds good snow just half an hour from Plateau Hut. It’s really a testament to how New Zealand ski mountaineering has developed over the last decade that this line, which only saw its first descent in 2011 and at the time was viewed as the domain of only the top skiers in the world, now sees multiple descents per year and is a classic right of passage. The first time I skied it there were 14 people in total on the face! It felt more like being in Chamonix than in the Southern Alps. But don’t underestimate this line – it is serious alpine terrain and deserves to be taken seriously.

Pretty straightforward route finding. Note the ice cliff on the right at the bottom – this is very active and you want to stay out from under this as much as possible

I’ve skied this line twice, first on 3rd November 2019 with Sam McGrath and Zack Wentz, and again on 11th October 2020 with Pete Deytrick and Graham Dawson. It seems like a waste of a weather window in some ways to ski the exact same line twice, but it’s such a fun line when it’s in condition I would happily ski it a third time (plus me and Pete had been talking about skiing this line together for years… He couldn’t make the 2019 trip so I owed it to him to go up again!). This is definitely the time of year to go for your best chance of good stability and good coverage. Both times I skied the face in powder, which is super fun but means you’ve got to be especially careful with stability.

Approach

I’ve always gone for the fly in option – a flight from Cook airport takes about 15 min and there are almost always other climbers or skiers around willing to split the flight to keep the costs down (and a ski plane is cheaper again). If you can get a back flight so customers both coming in and out its even cheaper, you can get it as low as 100ish bucks per person. The hike in is getting progressively more difficult due to the moraine washing out and collapsing along the ball shelter track.

Once you’re past the ball hut, you have to descend to the confluence of the Tasman and ball glaciers and then climb up to boys glacier to Cinerama col. Rock fall and wet slides are common on the boys so don’t be there too late in the day.

Plateau hut is incredible – 33 bunks in 4 different room, with plumbed in gas and cookers in the kitchen plus all the pots / pans / cutlery you could need. The heli drops you about 20m from the hut so bringing food in a big cardboard box or bin bags is a good option. If you take the ski plane it lands about an 45 min skin from the hut so you have to pack properly.

Zack catching some wild sunrise rays half way up the East face

Climb

The East face gets hot fast as soon as the sun hits so you need to be out early. We got up at midnight and out of the hut at 0100. It’s worth skiing over to the base of the route the day before to figure out the best way through the shrund at the bottom because it can be a bit confusing in the dark.

From the hut it’s a quick ski to the flat part at the base of Zurbriggens Ridge. There is a big active ice cliff at the base of the ridge – don’t linger under here and get up to the base of the East face out of the firing line ASAP.

Graham and Peet heading up the East face

We roped up to cross the bottom schrund, quick stability check and then the rope went away and we soloed the majority of the face. It’s a bit of a slog, plugging steps for 1000m, but you’re rewarded with the most epic sunrise you’ll ever see as the first light hits the face. You need to trend left while you’re climbing – a bit more than you might expect. Once you get to the final couloir to the summit ridge, the snow quality generally deteriorates.

While this section was skiable on my first trip, on my second time it was bare ice so we made 1x rappel

When I was there in 2019 it was firm breakable crust overlying ice, just about skiable – we soloed up and we able to ski back down to make a full descent of the E face. But in 2020 it was bare glacier ice, we put the rope on for the final climb (55 deg) and rapped back down to where the snow quality got better. From the top of the E ridge it took us 45 min to the summit. It’s low angle and relatively mellow compared to what you’ve just been climbing, but was wind scoured sastrugi the whole way and we left our skis and the top of the E ridge to get the summit and walked back down.

Descent

Looking down the top section of the face with the plateau 1000m below

From the ridge the top couloir is fairly full on, 50-55 degrees on a narrow spine which is very exposed and often has wind affected snow / ice. Luckily you’re coming up this way and can make a full assessment of whether or not you’re going to ski this part or not. We made cautious jump turns down this top section. About 50m or so down from the summit the line tucks round to skiers left under an ice bulge and the snow generally improves here and you can start opening it up and tearing up the face!. The first few turns here are steep at around 50 degrees, but after another 100m or so it mellows out to 45 degrees and then stays like this all the way down to the plateau.

Sam got this sweet shot of me getting deep

The snow was unbelievably good for us on both trips, and we made big fast slashes and slarves getting face shots the whole 1200m down to the plateau. You trend left the whole way down the descent which is useful for dodging your stuff. Drop the schrund at the bottom and cruise back to plateau hut for the celebration beer!

If you’re skiing the face in powder be especially careful of the sun warming up the face – on the 2019 trip we had 24 hours of cold still weather after the storm for settlement and then another cold 24 hours to ski the line. The next day the temps went up to a FAFL of 3000m and we sat at the hut watching big avalanches ripping out on the face all day exactly where our tracks had been.