Don’t be put off by the fact this line is on the Caroline – it has none of the objective danger, super easy route finding and a quick easy climb to get to the start of the line from Plateau. Probably the best bang for buck ski line I’ve skied in NZ, deserves to be more popular! We spotted this line while skinning back up to Cinerama col after skiing the Caroline and thought it looked epic, so booted back up the next day with Will Rowntree, George Millets and Clem Cadario.
Length – 800m
Steepness – 45 deg
Exposure – Above some cliffs initially but once your on the main body of the line its a straight line down to the Caroline glacier. You are exposed to some overhead hazard on the approach under the East face but you can skin quickly through this section
Aspect – SE
Extras – nil
Difficulty – Climb 2. Ski 5.1 E2
Equipment – Glacier equipment.
Climb
From Plateau, it’s really quick and easy to get to the start of the line. Ski across the plateau towards the base of the East face and skin up and along the shelf under the East face to the East ridge. The ice falls at the base of Zubriggens and the East face are active so don’t hang around. From here boot up the snow ramp, staying on the spine until you reach the ridge. There is a large obvious rock band that splits the E ridge in two, just to the right of our line above. This puts you at our start point marked with the red arrow on the pic below. Harder and easier variations are possible. For a harder variation, you could climb up to the right of the big cliff, as if you were headed up to ski the full Caroline. This would put you on top of the yellow line – a steep and technical looking couloir which the joins up to the normal line. As of writing hasn’t yet been skied! An easier option is to climb up even further left of our line putting you right at the edge of the E ridge. This would miss the first section of the descent which involves some skiing above exposure and puts you straight onto the fall line section.
Take a look on the flight in at which route will go best. When we were there the line in yellow was looking a bit thin with some patches of ice and rock to negotiate, and after the previous days antics on the Caroline / post celebration goon head we were wanting something a bit more chilled. We left the hut at 0600 and were dropping in at 08:30.
Ski
Really incredible skiing. We had perfect shin deep cold powder the whole 800m down the line, and we opened it up cutting big fast turns getting face shots from top to bottom! From our starting point there was an initial super fun spine which was holding great snow. You are over some exposure on this top section. From there, we cut left between two rock bands to get onto the fall line section down that takes you down to the glacier. From here its consistent 40-45 degree skiing, with a selection of small spines and plenty of good safe spots to wait for each other. The angle steepens up a little for the final pitch down to the bottom and the shrund send.
Routefinding is easy and by staying high on the face you avoid all the ice cliffs and objective serac hazard. The spot you get to on the Caroline glacier is above the large crevasses so the skin back up to Cinerama col is cruisy and straightforward
It took us around 45 min to ski the line and another half hour skin back up to Cinerama col, and we were back at the hut by 11:30. Clem and George then nipped up Mt Dixon and speed flew back down to land at Plateau in time for an afternoon heli pickup – pretty heroic stuff.
Peak Exposure 