daytrip – Peak Exposure

An awesome day on the ridge between two stunning peaks in Arthur’s Pass. I can see why it is so popular! Easily do-able in a day trip from Christchurch. We did this in Autumn, but I think it would make for a great winter day out as well – perhaps even better given you would avoid travelling on loose rock. As Marije said “we’ve given it a good go trying to kill each other today”…

Grade: II, 3+ (grade probably comes from doing it in winter)
Time: 11h total (including breaks and a quick swim in the Otira River secondary to peer pressure)
Equipment: can be done in trail runners/approach shoes. We took a 60m rad line for 1x 25m rap. Tat and a few nuts – didn’t end up using. Lightweight crampons – didn’t use as there was no snow on the route.
Season: summer/early autumn; also a popular winter route but more objective risk.
Team: MJ, MK 22/04/2023

Topo map of our route; msg me for the gpx file

access

Park at the small carpark at the start of the Otira Valley Track. We stayed in MJ’s van the night before, allowing for a lie-in… 6am alarm.

Follow an easy marked trail along the river for about 2km – this took us 30 minutes. Cross the bridge and boost up around 1000m elevation up to Philistine. This took around 2h – there’s a dug in trail through the moraine then head up left through Warnock’s bluffs, passing a marker/pole (see below pic – ?karaoke mic).

climb

From Mt Philistine you get stunning panorama views of the national park and the southern alps. Here the ridge travel begins!

Sidling left, sidling right we navigated the gendarmes – it is pretty intuitive most of the time, but with the heavy clag that came in, we couldn’t see what the best way ahead was so made a couple of errors making for trickier climbing. Some of the rock was slick from the previous nights rainfall which also added to the spice. I found it a harder/more exposed than the Phipps-Temple traverse but still felt happy enough without a rope.

As you approach the high peak of Mt Rolleston there is an obvious gully straight ahead and then some orangey/red slabs to the left. Both ways looked okay but the latter more exposed so we chose the gully – it was loose so we went 1 by 1 but was fine otherwise.

Overall from Philistine to Rolleston the ridge took us around 4.5-5h.

From high peak walk 50m East to a rap station – lots of tat and a mallion. It was around 25m long and drops you into a gully. From here sidle left following the vague trail/cairns. This puts you on low peak (2212). There’s a good biv spot here but no water.

descent

Initially follow the ridge for 250m of descent then veer left onto the Otira slide. Variable quality scree but mostly good. We followed some cairns but there were multiple options to pick your way down.

At around 1950m we used a steep gully to descend but this was avoidable in retrospect if you stay left. We found a bit of snow to glacade down which was a brief but welcome respite from the scree!

From here just follow the cairns into the valley floor. Stay left of the river and you’ll meet the trail. Boost back out the way you came – optional swim in the river for bonus points!

Heading down Goldney Ridge towards the Otira slide

A fun day out that’s easily accessible as a long day trip or cruisey overnighter from Christchurch. We made a weekend of it staying at CMC’s Kennedy Lodge the night before, then staying on for canyoning down Agility Creek the next day (what was supposed to be our ‘rest day’ but turned into a borderline quest – but that’s another story).

Generally low easy scrambling (grade 12 ish) but with 2 well defined overhanging cruxes that I reckon are more like 16 than the topo 14. You can avoid these if you want to. Rock is loose in places but generally decent and the gear is spaced but not as run out as I was expecting from the climb nz description. Crucially the anchors are bomber, with big spike belays for 240cm slings on all 4 pitches. Easy scree descent.

Grade: III, 4+, crux 14 according to topo; I think this is a bit of a sandbag, the overhanging crux is more like 16 but is short. All trad, no bolts including anchors.
Equipment: full trad rack – singles of cams up to #3, full set of nuts (RPs were very handy), tat, 2x 70m half ropes
Approach time: 1.5-2h
Climb time: 4.5h
Season: Summer into autumn. West facing so gets the afternoon sun.
Team: Joe, Tom, Alex, Dave, Maria 02/04/22

approach

Park at Temple Basin ski field carpark and head up the 4WD track that turns into a well maintained walking track to the lodges. Central buttress is flanked by a left and right buttress. It extends into the scree further than the Left/Right buttresses do making it easy to spot.

The route

It isn’t really obvious from the Climb NZ topo that this route is actually a series of pinnacles, and so you need to make 2 short raps during the climb to link them together. Multiple variations to the route exist – the Climb NZ topo shows 3 alternative starts, coming together towards the top. We chose the line on looker’s left of the buttress. Other routes start further right.

Pitch 1: (10 40m) Scramble up the detached stand alone block in front of the buttress to get to the scree platform at the base of the buttress. We went up just to the right of the obvious deep crack. We soloed up this section in approach shoes, pretty limited options for gear if you want to pitch it. Is easy to just walk around this section to the base of the main buttress if you want to avoid it.

Pitch 2: (12 50m) We chose to climb the arete on the far lookers left of the buttress which starts from a small grassy patch. Either stay left in the groove for easier climbing but looser /mossier ground, or right on the face for better rock but more difficult and run out climbing. About halfway up is a small overhang which is easier to get through on the left. Some pretty loose rock on the overhang so watch out. After almost a full rope length you get to a large grassy platform about 5m wide with a big boulder you can sling as a belay.

Pitch 3: (16 50m) We climbed up the right hand side through the small overhang (see pic) which has some cool stemming moves. There was some loose rock and average gear just on the crux move which made this a bit stressful. If you stay left sticking to the ridge you could avoid this section. Once over this is you scramble up grade 10 blocks to a ledge on top of the first pinnacle and make an anchor with a sling over the very top of the pinnacle. There were a few slings and a maillon left there when we were there. From here you need to make a short rap (5m or so) onto a small ridge and walk along this above steep gullies to the start of the next pitch. Very loose rock on the ridge so take care.

Pitch 4: (12 30m) There’s a small area you can tuck into at the base of the next buttress to belay from. Head up the groove on the right hand ride of the buttress. The angle then eases off up to a spike belay at the top of the second pinnacle. Another sling/maillon was insitu here. Make another short rap to the start of the final pitch.

Pitch 5: (15 30m) Generally easy climbing but with a well defined crux half way up. Step right into the overhang. Great gear (#2 cam just below the crux) and huge jugs to haul on to get you through. Then scramble up to the top where you can make another good sling anchor around a boulder.

From here we took the ropes off and scrambled through the shingle to the cairn on the summit.

Descent

From the summit, head South along the ridge towards temple col then drop down into one of many scree gullies back down to Temple Basin ski field. We cut off halfway between the summit and the col down a scree couloir, and then trended left picking our way through the bluffs to get down to the ski field base building in around 1.5 hours. The scree is pretty hard work and Maria stacked it losing a phone and cracking her camera so watch out!