This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
Mr Carol McDermott (a Tararua) and I fléw.into Plateau on January 9 and proceeded to the Fox Névé via Governors Col. This was supposed to be.a straight forward although high (9300+) crossing but turned into a 2 day epic involving a very. cut up route and:a N/Wester gale. We arrived at Pioneer Ridge and spent 2 days sitting out the storm in ne loo - the. hut having been dismantled last year. , After several days of inclement weather we made an attempt ‘on the west I face of Mt. Haidinger . buts. were ee but len ay rae snowfall and miser=able cold conditions,. qe I eg Two days: later we drossed the Fox Névé and proceeded up the Heemskirk Face of Mt Tasman. The Facé is a 45-65 slope of straightforward but substained ice climbing, ° The views in the initial stages were superb but deteriorated to zilch as a southerly cloud system set in, We reached the bottom of the summit ridge at 4pm in deteriorating weather. It was 02/2
fairly much a knife edge but composed of soft powder on a firm base - not pleasant travel. The ferrule of my ice=axe broke off at this stage and given the time and conditions we decided to forget the summit as a night out would have been very unpleasant. The descent was more difficult than the ascent at times - mainly because of the strong cold winds and lack of visibility. After climbing down to Engineers Col we took a gully back down to the glacier which involved some fairly steep ice and several waterfalls that required abseils. After flaundering around in a crevasse field we got back to the tent at Zam - but that's only half the story! Ea - I would be very interested to receive any reports of climbing trips, So please send them in, including you, Dave Wills, in Dunedin!