Mt Taranaki
Robert with ski poles ascending
21 - 23 September 07
Another chance to climb Egmont? “hell yes”! I thought, looking at the upcoming club trips on the sections web site it was the perfect opportunity to make up for the last weekend of the AIC 07 course.
With the weekend getting nearer the E-Mails sent from the trip leader Marc Heatley revealed the original party of eight was getting smaller by the day and so by the time of departure we were down to an uneven number of five. Or a tight five as Marc preferred to call it. The tight five were: Wellington contingent: Marc Heatley, Mark Macdonald, Robert Pamer and from the Wairarapa: Alec Dondertman and Glen Millar.
After meeting at the North Egmont car park we proceeded to make our way up the notorious 4WD track, a 600m walk that had us heavy breathing, puffing and sweating all the way to our destination - Tahurangi Lodge. If there was any highlight from that walk it would be that it was a very mild night with great visibility from the moon so we walked the whole way to the lodge by moonlight. On arrival we were amazed to find that there was no one else staying there so we spread out accordingly and made the most of it.
Saturday morning we woke to find a clear fine day with little wind and a view right to the top. Knowing the mountains reputation for rapidly changing weather there was no time to waste and we quickly got our gear together and headed up the mountain. We pushed as far as we could up the lizard before it became too hard under foot and we stopped to make the transition to crampons. From then on it was nothing but a slow but steady slog up the unrelenting slope of the North ridge. At that angle you know that it can’t go on forever and before long the lip of the summit entrance came into view. The hard work had been done and we pushed on over into the crater to find that we weren’t the only ones on the mountain, a couple of locals were having a bite to eat in the sun and preparing to do some ice climbing on one of the many icy outcrops that surround the crater. They had summited via the East ridge.
From there it was a quick five minute climb up onto the summit. A steady cold breeze up top meant we didn’t hang around for long, time for a few quick photos before heading back into the crater for some lunch.
Before heading back down we reminded ourselves of the icy conditions and the consequences that a fall could bring but to our surprise the warm day had softened up the slope and the walking was very fast and safe. In fact the conditions were just right for a couple of our party to perfect their bum sliding technique, a practice that I’m sure is frowned upon by many pure mountaineers. Naturally no names are mentioned. Robert had his own method of getting down fast and so took his crampons off quite high up and equipped with two ski poles proceeded to ski down on his boots! A skill he no doubt picked up back in his native homeland of Germany.
So after a quick descent taking only one hour we were soon back at the lodge. Obviously after having not received enough exercise Robert headed out again to explore the ski field over to the East while the others were content enough to put their feet up and savour some refreshments that had laboriously been hauled up the night before.
After another night in the still empty lodge we packed our gear early, donned wet weathers for the now bleak conditions and headed back down to the car park for the five hour return journey home.
Egmont/Taranaki was a most enjoyable weekend trip which can be described as being a relatively easy walk but a good chance to practice the alpine skills learnt from AIC on the mountains steep slope and mixed conditions.