The most accessible ski of the monster peaks towering over the Grand Plateau, Dixon offers makes for a good introduction to this kind of high stakes ski mountaineering and is often used as a warm up for skiing Cook. Easy but exposed skiing from the summit leads into short steep and technical couloir back down to the Plateau. An alternative more difficult line is to cut from the East face onto the South face and cross diagonally left between the two serac bands. This is the line we were hoping to ski but the final section was bare ice when we were there.
- Length – 800m from Plateau hut. Summit 3004m
- Steepness – Access couloir from plateau to East face around 50 deg. East face around 40.
- Exposure – East face is easy but exposed. Couloir is steep but a straight line to the plateau
- Aspect –East (couloir S facing). Significant wet loose risk if you leave it too late
- Extras – As for all of these big lines spring (Sept – Nov) is generally when they are in condition
- Difficulty – Climb : 2+ Descent : 4.1 E2
- Equipment – 60m rad line. Crampons, 2x tools. Snow stake.
Access
Heli or ski plane into plateau is the most common access route. Plane is cheaper if you fill it, but means you land a 20min skin from the hut so need to be more on it with your packing. The heli drops you at the door so you can rock up with a cardboard box full of food and beers and not worry about it. The heli also can fly in worse weather than the plane. I’ve always avoided the hike in, but the general beta (as of summer 2022) is to head up the Ball shelter track, and get around the husky washout generally by staying high. Head up almost to the ball hut site and get down the morraine wall to the tasman via garbage gully (series of grassy ledges). From here head up towards the Boys glacier and then up to Cinerama Col. This is changing on a yearly basis so look for up to date beta before heading up. From my experience of climbing up and down moraines its the most dangerous part of these trips and to avoid a rock to the head I want to avoid it if I possibly can. Does that make me soft? Probably.
Climb
Skin across Plateau towards the obvious couloir at the east end of the south face. The large imposing ice cliffs on the south face are quite active and reguarly throw death chunks on top of the entrace to the couloir so dont hang around – make a plan and smash up into the safety of the couloir. Late in the season the shrund can open up and become impassible (climbing parties have been known to bring the ladder from Plateau hut to cross Himylayan ice fall style) but as a general rule if its that late you probably wont be skiing it. It pays to go and scope the shrund out from a distance the day before and work out exactly where your going to cross. Climbing the couloir is straighforward steep snow climbing up to the quite dramatic knife edge ridge at the top. Here the angle eases off significantly and you follow the snow slopes up to the summit – easy snow plodding. At the very top you gain another short ridge to get to the summit. We got to the summit at 09:20
Ski
Average 40 deg snow slopes from the summit. Most exposed right at the top, with significant hazard on both sides. We had a recent 10cm of snow which had bonded well with the underlying snowpack and so skied this section in powder. Its important to be skiing early in the day as this top section gets blasted by the morning sun. Some low cloud rolled in for us during the descent and kept the direct sun off it, but made for trickier route finding. The gradient and the exposure decreases as you descent, until reaching the ridge on top of the couloir. From here traverse across and descend the couloir. Pretty steep at the top and narrows to a choke. We made jump turns down to the choke and then had to downclimb a few metres as the choke was narrower than a set of skis and the snow wasnt soft enough for me to fancy the straight line! From here the skis went back on and it was around 45 deg back down to the shrund. After clearing the shrund we pointed it and put as much distance between ourselves and the ice cliffs as possible. Back at the hut by 11am we had a pasta feast and tried to get some sleep before heading up the East face of Cook the next day
Peak Exposure 