This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
As’ nobody: “ae fired a climbing trip report: the’ Editor’ S way, he thought he would get off his butt and try, Cook ° in a sWSekend from Wellington. ae
ee ee
ae ee
Its been done before from Christchurch, but never the Capital City. Foley was joined by Lawrence: Tye and Soler McGuire and we chartered a six-seater Cessna -from New Plymouth... With Kathie © Foley and a Radio Windy reporter we.flew to Mount. Cook Friday. afternoon in perfect weather, landing at the Hermitage at ~ 6,30 p.m. - Bryan Carter, one of the local Alpine Guides, gave us a lift to the chain. across the Ball. Road. Bice the Blue Bakes and“at°7.20 p.m. “we were: ores ‘on foot. ho , We cut out the 2% hour road walk in Lhr 40m and began the ‘moraine Wall: ae ae fhe ‘Ball Glacier to-.Cinerama Co] on dusk, We had paikea on ciiibiting, by moon ieet cs ie we hadn't. reckoned on the moon being on one side of the Anzac Peaks, and us on. the other. No freeze and knee deep snow was another problem, and instead of reaching the Col at 1,30 a.m. (Saturday), Lite “was 3. 30 a.m. by the. time T: wandered across it. f Originally we had ennad to climb Book™ via the zurbriggen but ice recession has left the start of: the climb badly cut by shrunds and avalanche debris and the top part overhung by green ice cliffs. The access on to the East ridge is equally. as bad. We had eo head for ‘the. Linda ‘corner anyway, 30 we put off ‘making a final route decision till then. As we jumped over and fell into numerous pressure cracks and slots on the Grand Plateau, a warm wind (about 15 amoks biew from the Nw, creating I a very eerie feeling. Bolow the» Safa acetee, we gaw. two parties. “aborting” an. attest ‘wWia the Linda. As the snow was deep and ominous hogs’ backs wére building up in the Tasman valley, we Jlecided to head for the tracks we knew must exist in the Linda. By mid-morning the _ “weather signs looked bad and the wind, had sprurig to 25 knots. ° We tossed the climb in and headed out via Cinerama Col and ‘the Ball. From Blue Lakes and return, 25 hours in all. — On Sunday rain cleteian opscured. the mountain and the. valley disappeared at times behind swirling dust’ clouds formed by a 50 knot. wind. . : The local planes. were grounded so we did the only. sensible ‘seinen = went rubber rafting down the Tasman ‘River with Gavin Wills. ee er a net aiioiiin As manyiamay: already. eta Radio. Windy ‘sponsored the ‘climb which. created some publicity. Although none of the climbers liked the idea of outside sponsorship, it was a means to an end. We felt no undue pressure to continue past the point of reason- “table safety just because somebody else was footing the bill, yet the sponsorship did allow us to spend . A. .great weekend n> Fal . great pee eae goes os the, Fditor