ski touring – Peak Exposure

The big obvious ski line visible in the distance when looking south from Wye saddle, I’d been wanting to ski this peak for years before finally getting round to it. Beautiful north facing spring corn in a striking couloir from the highest peak in the range make this a very worthwhile outing. It makes a great day trip from Lake Hope, or a big mission with a very early start from the Remarkables. We skiied the line marked in the photo on the North East aspect. A slightly steeper couloir on the North face looks excellent, but had a bare rock step that would have required a rap when we were there

Alex on the summit, with double cone visible in the background

Length – 600m (300m main line, further 300m bowl to bottom of valley)
Steepness – 35 deg average. Steeper at the top before opening into a wide open 35 deg bowl
Exposure – Nil on descent.
Aspect – North East facing. Perfect for spring corn early in the day
Extras –
Difficulty – 3.2 E1
Equipment – Crampons, 2x tools (1x will be ok if your climbing the ski line and your confident on your crampons. Traversing from the West is a bit more involved and 2 tool was nice.) Snow stake, rap tat if your taking the central couloir as it may need a rap. Otherwise no rope needed.

Approach

We did this as a day trip from Lake Hope, where we were camping for a few nights. This is the easiest access – its a quick skin from the lake up to the ridge East of 2080. Its then straighforward to gain the 2000m contour and climb up the gully from the West, traversing the peak and then gaining the coulor. It took us 3 hours from the camp site to the summit.

Climbing the NW face, the line we took from Lake Hope marked in red

The alternative is to skin out from the Remarkables – I did this route on a seperate trip, and have attached the GPX file below. You can do this as a big day trip but you have to start very early. It took us about 4 hours from Remarks base building to the bottom of the face, and leave at least another 1.5 to 2 hours to climb the face. When we were there the corn was good to go 10:30-11 so you need to be at the summit around then. Skin to Wye saddle then point it down to the ridge west of point 2046 , then sidle up to the col between 2115 and 2122. The cruise down the the Doolans Left Branch and then head up to the small lake between 1964 and 2130. Climb the small headwall above the lake and then its a short ski down to the bottom of the face.

The approach from Remarkables ski area to the bottom of the ski line. Doolans creek left branch on the right of the photo. Point 1986 the peak in the middle of the pic (looks like a sick ski line!)

The climb is straightforward – even more so if you just climb the ski line. Just boost straight up the face and you shouldnt have any problems. Coming in from the Lake Hope side is slighlty more involved as you have to traverse across a couple of rock steps on the way to the summit. Once on the sumit its a short easy downclimb to the start of the skiing.

Traversing across from the NW face towards the summit

Ski Descent

A short downclimb from the summit puts you at the top of the snow field. From here you can blast down a 40 degree couloir for the first 500m or so, before the angle mellows to around 30 deg and it opens up into a wide open snowfield. From the 1700m countour we had to pick our way down a narrow strip of snow to the large flat area at 1500 where there was some much needed running water. If you time the corn right thiis is a super fun cruisy descent and you can really open it up and point it.

A short easy downclimb puts you onto the ski line, visible just to the right of Alex

From here, its easy to get back to Lake Hope – head up the river and round the back of 1911 then up the ridge to the col between 2087 and 2080. Be carefull as these slopes are also North facing so if youve timed the ski line right these slopes are going to be getting really soft. This ridge is pretty low angle and also when we were there you could actually stay on a rock rib almost the whole way and avoid the avvy risk completely.

The ski line. A shorter variation is posisble from the shoulder on the left, and a harder steeper one from the summit straight down the middle couloir. Check if the rock step is in or not – would have required a rap (or hero send) when we were there

Option 2 is to or start the long skin back to the Remarks. When we skinned it we took a slighlty different route back to the way we came in, which is visible on the GPX file. Same we loose risk applies as your crossing a bunch of north facing slopes late in the day. We started the same way over the col just west of 1964, but then went down north to the left branch. We then skinned basically up the river bed following the low angle slopes to the 2115/1967 col. We followed the ridge past 2020 and 2046 – this puts you on top of some super fun couloirs that drop from around 2017 down to upper Wye Creek. If you time it right these makes for a super fun short ski to end the day.

Doing this as a day trip from Remarks is a big old day – around 3000m of climbing and 25km distance. I’d expect the whole trip to be around 12 hours.

On the skin back to lake Hope. Taken from just above 1911 looking north. 2130 in the background (another fun looking south facing ski!)

Standing at the flat area at 1500m looking back up at the line. The thin stip of snow we took down to the base in the middle of the shot.

A really fun zone just out the back of the Remarkables in Queenstown. Wasn’t really on my radar, but in Sept 2021 Alex Bewick and I had a week off work and wanted to get some skiing done. We had been planning on going up high somewhere but the forecast looked pretty terrible everywhere apart from Queenstown so we looked a bit closer to home. Lake Hope offers a large safe easy campsite with a ton of easy to moderate terrain of every aspect in the immediate vicinity offering 200-300m faces and couloirs. Also gives easy access to the biggest peaks in the range, Mt Tuwhakaroria and Ben Nevis

Taken from the top of 1986 looking north towards Lake Hope showing the south faces just to the north of the lake – all with excellent skiing!

Approach

We went for fly in hike out and split a heli in from Frankton airport. For this kind of trip this makes it a lot more comfortable as you dont have to skimp on gas, food, beers and can make your campsite extra comfy. We split the heli 2 ways for $170 bucks each, would be even cheaeper with more people. If you skin in, start up Curvey chair and up to Wye Saddle. On a subsequently trip I’ve skinned to the base of Tuwhakaroria from Remarks (GPX attached). Follow the Wye Creek route down to the lakes then stick left aiing for the col between point 2115 and 2122. Drop down towards Doolans Left Branch then head up aiming at the col between 2130 and 1964. You drop down the other side of this col into the valley just one over from Lake Hope (my GPX track goes from here to Tuwhakaroria). Aim up towards point 2087 and cruise down to Lake Hope. This is 11km and 1000m of vert, and would be pretty savage with a weeks camping supplies – I reckon the flight is a no brainer! The other options would be to stay in the Wye Creek valley and stay high and sidle the whole way along to Lake Hope. Ive never done this route and think it looks pretty tough the further along you get.

We were expecting some NW winds so found a sheltered spot to the south of Lake Hope behind a big boulder, pretty much where the two tiny lakes on the map are, and dug the tent in. By staying south of the lake your also comfortably out of avalanche paths for the surrounding peaks.

Super fun line from 2080 heading South West down to Lake Hope. We also skiied a couple of the south facing couloirs in the shade above our tracks which were holding some good cold powder

Skiing

So many options! Is quite similar to the area around Lake Alta, but less steep, with excellent skiing on all sides. We had a good freeze overnight and were skiing in corn and so chased the sun all day. We started with the east and north facing slopes from 2090, and once that was getting too warm worked clockwise around the slopes surrounding the lake. There were some excellent south facing couloirs down from 2071 and 2087 that were still holding good powder. Then to finish of we headed back across lake hope heading south east and up towards the col south west of 2096. We traversed along the ridge heading towards point 2071 to access the top of a west facing couloir that dropped all the way down to the Wye Creek South Branch underneath our campsite. It was afternoon by this point and the west facing slopes and nicely softened up for a 500m corn descent down to the river. It was shady and cold down in the valley and the snow was starting to lock up so we cruised back up south branch back to the campsite to get dinner on the go and celbrate with some beers.

Alex in one of the couloirs from 2080 down to Lake Hope

The next day with skiied N face Tuwhakaroria which Ive written up seperately. It gave us a view of the south faces in the next valley, esp of 1986, which looked super sick – ones for the next trip! Things were getting pretty dangerously soft on the north faces by the time were coming back up towards camp, but we were able to find a line up to the ridge between 2087 and 2080 which was entirely on rock and kept us safe from the afternoon loose wet.

Sadly the weather window was closing at this point and we had to hike out the next day. But theres easily enough skiing to keep a mixed ability group occupied for a week, especially if you venture into the Nevis Burn or Stewarts Creek. Will definitely be back!

Checking out some epic stars from the campsite

On hike out day it was bluebird and scorching (before the afternoon storm came in), and having recently re watched game of GNAR we saw a perfect oppurtunity to fulfil a life goal. We skiined up the east facing low angle slopes above lake hope and smashed out a few butt naked laps in some creamy corn. Cant recommend it enough! The stoke was at an all time high at this point (thankfully nobody took a nut busting bail) and put us in a good mental state for the hike out

Slash on one of the south facing couloirs

The Hike Out

From the lake we skinned west up to the col halfway between 2090 and 2103, which was a bit of a grunt with heavy packs. From here your above Wye creek and need to descend down to the valley floor to hit the well marked DOC track that takes you down to the carpark. It seems to make sense from here to try and traverse skiiers left as far as you can to save yourself some distance. We ended up regretting this approach because we got bluffed out at the west end of the valley. Thankfully we did find a way down through a gully but it was pretty heinous, with steep muddy slippy tussock and we both stacked it repeatedly and the gear took a bit of a thrashing. If I was doing it again I would head right from the high point and keep trending right. From where we turned left theres an easy scree slope going right and down to the valley floor. While it adds a few kms too the walk out on the DOC track Im sure it would have been way faster than the sketchy traverse and down climb we ended up doing.