Bruce Peak, Butterfly Buttress

Come on a trad multi-pitch climb, she said. It’ll be fun, she said… This was Jack’s first trad/alpine climbing experience and the first on which I lead by myself. The climbing was easy with a crux of 14, and the rock was decent, however a leisurely pace meant we were near-benighted as we struggled to find the walk-off in the dark. Route finding in pitch black and 60kph winds… Not advisable!

Moral(s) of the story – need to work on simul-climbing, bring a lighter rack, a single rope would have been fine, 1 bag of car chips to come back to is not enough

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• Grade: 5 IV 500m. Crux grade 14 (Largely sub 14, 10-14). All trad including anchors. Good belay ledges.
• Equipment: Full trad rack, singles up to #2, full set of nuts. No need for RP/micronuts. 2x 240 slings for anchors. 5-6 alpine draws sufficient including some 120s if confident at the grade – I was only placing 4-5 bits of gear on most pitches. We used 2x 60m half ropes but with long slings a 60m single rope would be fine. We walked off but did come across tat from another party’s rap descent – always a good idea to have some spare tat.
• Approach time: 4-5h via the North Temple track/Gunsight Pass
• Climbing time: 12h (we took it v slow, a fast party could climb it in half the time)
• Season: Best in Summer, for those long days and warm rock. Being on the SW aspect we were largely in shade so layers were appreciated.
• Team: Maria, Jack 29/12/2022

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Approach

Park at Temple Campsite.

Option 1: Walk in/out via N Temple Track. 1.5h along a doc trail – a few landslides along the way make for navigating some fallen trees. Getting up and over Gunsight Pass to the biv spot took 4-5h. I would not want to descend this chossfest, so would not recommend this as a way out.

Option 2: Walk in via N Temple and out via S Temple (9km, 5-6h in and 16km, 6-7h out). This was the route we opted for. Walk out from the biv to the S Temple track required multiple river crossings. Once you hit the doc trail follow the cairns (there are no regular orange markers until you hit S Temple Hut).

Option 3: As per the guidebook/climbNZ, start on N Temple Track then turn off at BZ14 433 141 and head straight up through scrub towards Bruce-Steeple col. Looking up at the dense beech forest, we thought this might be slow going but I’d be open to trying it next time.

The Route

To get to the base of the route, sidle 200m North of the biv spot along the same contour towards Bruce Peak. The climbing starts at the lowest point of the buttress.

P1: (14, 60m) Poor gear. Climbing no harder than a 14 but felt harder as was difficult to protect.

P2: (10, 60m) Very easy scrambling, can be simu-climbed for confident parties. Minimal gear was placed with much better protection than in the first pitch. Finishes over a wide grassy ledge.

P3: (11, 60m) Similar to above. Follow the arete.

P4: (14, 60m) Probably the hardest pitch yet, grade 14 interspersed with easy grassy ledges. Decent gear. Some steeper areas directly up, however can avoid by sidling right.

P5 (13, 60m) Some staunch moves in between easy climbing.

P6-8: (11-13, 60m each) Can stick to the arete but we chose the path of least resistance, going diagonally left which leads you to a rocky platform.

From here we took the rope off and scrambled the last 50m or so up to the top via an easy gully. The true summit lies 100m East of where you top out. It’s easy ground heading to the true summit then you have to navigate ledges down to Bruce-Steeple col. Would have been much easier in the light but doing it with head torch illumination alone resulted in a lot of back/forth. We ended up actually going down the NE face then coming back up the N side of the col. Came across a block that a party had rapped off down the S face – perhaps in the dark as well? Basically, I’d leave plenty of daylight to figure out the descent. Would expect it would take 1-2h to get back to camp.

All in all a great 3 day trip, and awesome to be able to share in a friend’s first trad climb. A little dose of suffering is good for the character anyway…

Addit: struggling to upload the gpx file at the moment. Just comment if you want it and can send through directly.