Sabre Rattling
There is a big map on the wall in Homer Hut. It shows the myriad valleys and peaks of the Darran Mountains, all in such close proximity to one another. This close proximity gives the illusion of ease and begs one to ask the question "how hard can it be to get over there?". The equally intimate proximity of the contour lines to one another answers that question for you. My friend Adrian and I had spent hours staring at this map, trying to work out which peaks were the ones that had inspired us from afar as we climbed things close to the road and wondering "how might we go about 'walking' to them?". It turns out that our topographical talents are not great and we struggled to identify anything much and were left at a loss as to how we would turn our excitement into an adventure.
There was a man from Canberra packing up to head home. His name escapes me but he had a big white beard and looked like he knew a thing or two. We made friendly conversation and I mentioned that we sought adventure beyond the Milford Highway. "Phil's Bivvy is pretty magic" he told me. I had never heard of Phil's Bivvy but have an ongoing interest in that which is pretty and that which is magic. And whilst it is true that Phil is not a name that typically evokes images of adventure, questing out from Homer Hut to climb a mountain called Sabre Peak seemed like an endeavour that may have had a place in the tales spun in the book I was reading at the time (Circe), even if it were just a device to demonstrate the folly of man.
Adrian and I returned to Homer's Big Map and found Phil nestled between Lake South America and Lake Adelaide. We would be joining the hordes of tourists up Gertrude's saddle before continuing on to Barrier Knob, over the other side, and into the Adelaide Cirque. We would spend the night in Phil's Bivvy, arise early to climb the mountain, return to the bivvy for a second night, and then back to civilisation on day three. It seemed like a tidy way to spend the last three days of good weather and the last vestiges of strength left in our legs before we had to return to Australia.
First, however, as is so often the case, there were logistics to see to. The party of five we had spent most of our trip apart of was splitting up. Brecon headed for home and Tommy and Shanti had dues to pay at Tommy's parents houses. This meant a trip to Queenstown to drop Brecon at the airport followed by a detour to Cromwell to collect the Chariot of Dreams (Tommy's 1992 Isuzu Big Horn) before Tommy and Shanti headed off and Adrian and I returned to the mountains.
Despite appearances, the Chariot of Dreams was more boat than car and, as I drove alone from Cromwell to Queenstown to collect Adrian, it was clear the the Isuzu wished to be reunited with the river that ran alongside the road. The car was devoid of many of the things that you might associate with modern transportation but it had a stereo with one Johnny Cash CD stuck in it and it really felt like we could take it anywhere.
I picked Adrian up and we drove back down to the Darrans from Queenstown. We acquired food along the way (Adrian bought a block of cheese), and set our alarms for 6am. We had quite a lot of packing to do and, as we had come to New Zealand on a big wall climbing trip , we were not particularly well equipped for multiple days in the alpine. We burnt the midnight oil trying to sort this out. We had packed for the trip in general with comfort as one of the priorities and so I had brought my Colo 55 pack for our cragging days. Now, for all its many fantastic qualities, the Colo 55 is a hiking pack and not really designed for alpine rock climbing, but with no other option and the psyche for an alpine escapade being very high, I packed all of my gear into it and that was that.
Our alarms went off the next morning and whilst we did get up not that long after six we somehow weren't walking until 10am. This proved to be a blessing in disguise though as it was absolutely baltic hiking up Gertrude's Saddle. Surrounded by inadequately attired walkers who seemed to be managing better than we were, Adrian and I shared a moment of doubt as to the wisdom of our plan. We made it to the saddle and stepped off the track to don more layers and investigate the best path from there to the top of Barrier Knob, laughing about how we could finally complain about the cold as we had left the tourist track and were in the 'real mountains' now. We were immediately punished for this moment of humour as the 'real mountains' chose to show us the reality of that which we mocked.
Maybe 15 minutes after leaving the tourist track we encountered exactly the kind of snow we had been hoping to avoid on this trip; steep and solid. We had no ice axes or crampons and were relying on our positive attitude and sense of adventure to overcome some of the more mountain-y obstacles we might come across. This snow slope put the aforementioned to the test. Running laterally across the mountain we sought ways through the band of snow that was thwarting us but to no avail. What we did find though were two sharp rocks and a spot to build an anchor. I slotted some cams for the belay and Adrian racked up for the first big lead of the trip.
Armed with a 70m rope, a sharp rock in each hand, a pair of approach shoes, and a belayer who thought he could pull slack in at a similar rate to that at which a person may slide down a 60 degree snow slope, Adrian quested up the hill, cutting steps with his rocks and just generally being quite brave. It was a long lead. It ruined a pair of gloves and dampened clothes if not spirits but Adrian triumphed where anyone adequately equipped would have deemed success a given. I followed on top rope, far faster without the fear and we continued to the ridge and began our descent down the other side.
The rest of our approach occurred with barely a hitch. Rapping down the steep grass slope of Gifford's Crack was straightforward and the hours we spent tussock bashing across the Adelaide basin were painful but, with the little cave of Phil's Bivvy in sight, went by quick enough. We arrived at the bivvy to be greeted by our friend's from the hut who had been less tardy than us leaving that morning and also the three resident Kea who live nearby. It says in the guide that Phil's Bivvy sleeps 15 and this is no hyperbole. With two separate rooms, straw bedding, and ample space, well, suffice to say I have paid far more for far worse accommodation. We set up our beds, made some noodles and settled in, ready for another alpine start.
It is important here to note that, when you're in the alpine, any start is an alpine star.. We began walking up the hill to Sabre Peak at 8:30am. It was a lovely morning and we still hadn't quite decided what route we were going to do but we figured that we would get up there and see what our friend's were climbing and make a judgement based on that. The approach was relatively straightforward in a mountaineering kind of way. Lots of soloing up steep tussock (Alpine Grass 3) and some rock in the latter stages with some tricky route finding but, as Adrian and I have similar comfort zones for this kind of thing, it went by joyfully. Adrian even found an old ice axe. Arriving at the base we saw that our friend's had only just started the second pitch of the North Buttress Direct and were not moving quick due to their having bivvy gear with them. Not wanting to crowd them on their alpine adventure, we opted to climb Sabre Rattling, or a link up of this and the TV Route, depending on what looked better. We wandered round the corner and went rock climbing.
We decided it would be simpler to climb Sabre Rattling in its entirety rather than the link up and, after accidentally 'walking' half of the first pitch we found a spot to stop and rack up. Our route choice meant that the theme of the day was going to be wide cracks with inadequate gear and Adrian's first lead was no exception. We had brought a bunch of medium cams, some wires, and a #2 and #3 yet somehow continuously found ourselves in dirty #4s cracks, all of which Adrian ended up on the sharp end for. I would lead some runout slab, then Adrian would climb a wide corner, then I would lead some more wandery weirdness, and Adrian would climb a wide corner. This pattern repeated itself until we finished the route with a brilliant 150m simul block that was about as good as this sort of thing gets. The route description didn't mention nearly as many wide cracks as we climbed but we also didn't read it very carefully so that might have been our fault. From where the simul block ended we climbed some more low angle terrain to the summit and congratulated ourselves on a fine alpine romp.
As is so often the case with this sort of thing, the rock climbing was by far the most straightforward element of the outing. We have since been told that getting down is a very easy series of raps so perhaps once again our lackadaisical approach to topo study granted us greater adventure than necessary, for adventure we did have. The 'abseils' began with some easy but scary down soloing, trusting that the mountain would act in good faith and reveal an anchor of some kind sooner rather than later. Eventually it did, a great mound of tat that required an optimists eyes and some reconfiguring to be considered an anchor, but at least we knew folk had been here before.
From here we began a cycle of rapping to the end of our rope, not finding an anchor, perching precariously on a ledge to pull our ropes, downclimbing hopefully, and eventually finding another anchor. We passed some true monstrosities this way - ancient pins, nuts with frayed wires, and tat that would have looked more appropriate mooring a tall ship than slinging suspicious blocks. Quite a lot of this we removed and replaced with more modern hard/software so that hopefully those you come after us may find their optimism a little less tried.
When we finally made it to the col it wasn't clear how straight forward navigating the bergschrund back to our packs at the base of the route was going to be as the mountain on our left was quite steep and the ice was, well, a wall of ice. Tiredness was beginning to be the predominant feeling and the sun was more down than up so I decided to plan for best case scenario and sally forth, presuming that egress should be granted to me. I chimneyed down into the gap and, initially, made fairly steady progress. Chimneying between the ice and the rock was cold and slippery but quite effective. However as I went, the gap began to widen until it reached a point where this technique no longer served and I was left on a little ledge with a large overhanging drop off in front of me, a very dark ice tunnel beneath me, and walls of ice or rock to ether side.
This left me with a few options. Attempt to downclimb: not appealing (hazardous), leave gear behind and rap: not appealing (expensive), descend into the ice tunnel beneath me and hope that it led to salvation and not cold doom: not appealing (cold abyss) but novel. With the latter option being the only one with a positive qualifier (novelty), I chose this. Remembering my many laps of Arapiles' squeeze test and the inimitable Mr Chicken, I steeled myself and burrowed down into the ice. My mild bravery was rewarded with safe and easy passage through the snow and the comfort of having made it back to our packs. Adrian followed suit without a hitch and we considered the mountain climbed.
From here we still had a fair bit of faff to contend with. I am much worse at downclimbing than its opposite and reversing all of the grassy soloing was relatively tedious. We managed the steepest of it in the light but eventually even Southland's long summer days come to an end and darkness came knocking upon our door. With the sun set we struggled to find the path down from the terrace we were on. It was a big grassy slope with few landmarks and we had a single bolt anchor we were supposed to find somewhere in the proverbial haystack.
I would like to say our innate sense of direction guided us to this bolt, and maybe it did, but really it just felt lucky when we came upon it in the dark and began our final descent. We had a few hiccoughs on our way down. Rapping too far, not rapping far enough, down climbing the wrong way, down climbing the right way but thinking it was wrong. And all of this was compounded by the growing fatigue. Despite this, we eventually reached the base of the descent and stood face to face with the snow bridge that we had crossed that morning to gain the cliff. It had collapsed. Left behind was a jumble of snow blocks and rock that didn't really seem like an environment we wanted to enter, so we continued down the creek that the snow had bridged to try and find a way back on to the meadow.
After another hour or so of tricky down climbing we made it to the creek, crossed it, and climbed up the other side to gratefully find ourselves situated on horizontal land. After resting a moment, with our beds so close, we carried on. Almost immediately however, as we tramped through the tussock, we became aware of the fact that we had followed the creek quite a ways down into the meadow and that we didn't actually know where in this expanse of grass our bivvy cave lay.
We had commented earlier to one another that navigating the tussock field after dark shouldn't be too troublesome as the previous night's moon had been near full. We expected that once the moon rose we would be able to see large features and use them to guide us back to Phil's Bivvy. It was thus with some confusion that we noted how dark it was. I looked to the sky and all that greeted me there was a previously unnoticed dark red orb. The magic of Phil's Bivvy that our bearded friend had mentioned manifested most obviously as the blood moon rose above the meadow. What it lacked in useful illumination it made up for in ominous portents and we couldn't help but laugh at the silliness of our situation; lost in a field, so close to our bed, and with an apocalyptic sky overhead.
We trudged on, ever optimistic that we would find the cave and, just like that, we did. I walked straight over the top of it, paused to turn to say something to Adrian, and there it was. We gratefully collapsed on to the straw beds and enjoyed a well earned rest.
The next morning we started late as is our wont and our retreat from the Adelaide Cirque went by without a hitch. Knowing where to go meant we moved quickly and soon enough we were back on Barrier Knob rapping down the snow slope and practicing our glissading with the iceaxe Adrian bootied. Running down the granite slabs from Gertude's saddle was joyous and the comfort of Homer Hut divine. Going into the mountains with a good friend is truly one of life's greatest pleasures.
