Hectic line which is up there in terms of New Zealand steep skiing, and only half an hour from a chair lift. Best known as a winter mixed climbing route, the south face is very steep and has continuous exposure meaning you can’t afford any mistakes on this line. Id been wanting to ski the South Face for at the last few years but never thought the conditions were really right. In late September 2021 a couple of good storms came through, and I headed out on a couple of trips into the Remarks backcountry to ski Lake Hope and Tuwhakaroria, and all the S faces were absolutely coated and stability was good. Seemed as good a time as ever to take a look, and the conditions on the face did not disappoint. The conditions were so good that after skiing the S face classic I climbed back up and skied a second line, Cookies and Cream, straight after. Dave MacLeod who is my local oracle of all mountain things says the South Face Classic has been skiied before but reckons that Cookes and Cream was a first descent….get in!
- Length – 300m
- Steepness – Very steep at the top. 55-60 degrees for 50m. Then roughly 50 deg for remainder
- Exposure – Extreme and unrelenting. Your on narrow traversing terraces above large cliffs continuously. A fall or small avalanche almost certainly fatal
- Aspect – South facing
- Extras – I made 1x 15m rap to enter the face. Good large block to sling. 15m rap to connect top and bottom snow fields – I left a snow stake. DBA at bottom for final rap, 60m to ground. If you traverse skiiers left from this DBA there is another one at 30m so a single 60m rope is ok. I was able to ski the bottom section from this lower DBA but this is unusual (normally WI3 ice route)
- Difficulty – 5.3 E4
- Equipment – 60m rad line. Crampons, 2x tools. Snow stake, rap tat, nuts for anchor if needed.
When skiing a climbing line like this its your responsibility to make sure your not going to knock any climmbers off the route. Its a climbing line first and nobody is going to expect a skiier to come down it – even small sluffs can knock the leader off the face and cause a serious accident. This line and Cookies and Cream are relatively safe from that perspective as the line traverses the whole way across the face so your generally not above the climbing line – but still take extra care and wait for the climbers if needed.
Approach
Jump on Curvey chair lift (or if your feeling keen skin up from the base) and traverse across to Wye saddle. Skin up the East face of Single Cone as if you were heading up to the starndard couloir route. You want to drop in right at the top of the snow slope which is just to the East of the notch. Theres a nice big boulder you can put a sling round to rap.
Descent
The first rap gets you past some rocks at the very top of the line and establishes you on the face. Also gives a chance for some final assessment of the stability and snow conditions before pulling the rope. If you have any doubts at all just ascend the rope and bail. This starting spot is very steep and exposed, and was the one spot on the route for me with firmer snow. I transitioned to my skis while still on the rope and made some very cautious jumpturns and had to side step over a couple of rocks, before jumping over one final small rock into the main upper snowfield. Here the snow was much better, confidence inspiring boottop poweder, and the angle eased off to around 50 deg.
Cut diagonally right across the face towards a big boulder at the far skiiers right of the face. From here cut left and find the entrace to the lower snow ramp. I sound it easily as Id climbed the route just a few weeks earlier, but this could be a tricky spot to find otherwise. Your looking for a narrow rock and ice gully that trends sharply to lookers left and is around 40m long, so 1 rap is only going to get you part way. I left 2x snow stakes so I could rap this section, but in the interests of developing steep skiing in the Remakables I’m planning on putting in a few DBAs next year – watch this space.
Immediately at the bottom of the gully there is another short section of very steep narrow skiing, pushing 55-60 degrees. Few more jump turns here and your into the lower left trending snow ramp which takes you all the way to the DBAs at the top of touchdown ice. This was the best skiing, the angle eases off to 45-50 deg and the snow was superb, light boottop powder. Just before the DBA the angle increases a little. Take extra care here – at some point it transitions to ice, you dont want to take one turn to many and find yourself falling off touchdown.
I bumped into Hamish and Beate at this point who had just started climbing the route – was becoming a bit of a running joke that we had keep running into each other in slightly outlandish spots throughout the season! Hamish was brining Beate up to the top of touchdown ice just as I got to the final gully above the DBA. I waited at the top of the section for them to get past me, and after a quick catch up and conditions chat I headed on down (as a bonus also meant I could ask them to retrieve my snow stakes, win!).
The DBA can be completely buried late season, and I had to go digging to find it. If you dont know exactly where to look this is impossible. See photos!
I was assuming I was going to have to rap a full 60m down to the snow but it was so filled in I actually only made a 15m or so rap to skiiers left onto a snow ramp and could then ski down to the base. In more normal conditions if you only have 1 rope, either expect to make a V thread or rap down and across to skiiers left where theres another DBA at 30m (again hard to find late season)
To get back to civilization , head east. Either climb the access gully to get back to the East face of single cone, or enjoy a cruisy ski south east to the lake just below the 1700m contour and then skin back up the Wye Creek route.
Peak Exposure 