Ruahine Grand Traverse Ruahine Grand Traverse - New Zealand ...

The Twelve Summitsof Ruapehu in a day. by Marcus BaiIt was nearly three years ago whenI last attempted this challenge. Thattime, Kevin and I knocked off 11 ofthem, but by the time we got to thebottom of our last peak - Girdlestone,the clag was rolling in and we wereboth pretty shagged. After much soulsearching, we reluctantly let this onego. And after that, I swore never again.However, almost three years later, thememories of the pain and anguish hadfaded and I found myself toying withthe idea once more. Of course, startingfrom the hut or high up on the mountainas it is traditionally done, was not anoption. As in the last attempt, it had tobe done from the carpark and back.Only this way could it qualify as thesuitably stupid and pointless challengethat it had to be.This time the other idiots who camewith me were Craig and Scott RimeRat.Both young, keen and crazy enoughto want to give this a go. The onlydownside was that they were also veryfit, which meant I spent most of the daytrying to keep up with the buggars!We decided to start from Turoa side,same as last time. All accommodationwas booked out at Ohakune so weended up staying at National Park. Avery noisy night gave us a couple ofhours sleep before we were up at 2.30am and driving around to Turoa afterbreakfast. We had our pick of parkingspots - in fact, a very pretty young ladydriving a very big truck was the onlysign of life up there at that time of themorning.We set of up the deserted ski field at4.15 am, conditions were cool, clearand we had a good moon to guide ourway. By the time we were putting ourcrampons on at the top chairlift, thetemperature had dropped to minus 8degrees and it never really seemed towarm up all day. We had great conditionstraversing across the MangaehuehuGlacier in the dark and goodaccess along the ridge found us summitingour first peak just before sunriseat 6.45 am. This was Craig and Scott’sfirst summit of Girdlestone, and aftermy last experience I was relieved to getthis one out of the way first! Wedescended down a nice gully as ashortcut on our way to Mitre (Ringatoto).The rocks were starting to throwchunks of ice at us and Scott and Iwere beginning to wish we’d broughtalong our helmets like Craig had done.we summited Mitre at 8.30 am. It wasfunny to think that normally we’d onlyjust be leaving the carpark about now,and yet here we were standing on oursecond summit!We plugged up towards Tahuranginext. Fortunately Craig took the lead onthe steep ascent, heading directly upto the top, and made it an easy job forScott and me following. It was now only9.30 am and we’d already done theclassic three. It would have been easyto go home now and I’d still have beenNovember MeetingCome along to the Novembermeeting to hear CNI memberCliff Ellery give a talk withsome great images from hisrecent roadie around Tasmania.Cliff and his climbingmates (Kevin Barratt, GrantPiper and Richard Knott)visited 8 crags over a 2 weekperiod in May this year. Hedescribes Tassie as a tradclimber’s mecca with excitingfeatures such as an 80m jam crack, sea stacks andgreat slab climbing.Tea and bickies provided -gold coin donation please.happy with what is normally considereda ‘good day out’.The next leg was where the fun started.We descended to the saddle and decidedto continue along the ridge a littleway, bag Te Ataahua, and then comeback. However, this peak proved a littlemore elusive than expected. We sidledaround to where we thought it mustbe (it didn’t look far on the map afterall.), only to see it was much further onagain - and there were a few obstaclesto get around in between. We hadn’tcounted on this part being so long anddrawn out, should we skip this bit anddeal to it on the way back? We eventuallydecided to persevere and get itcontd.Cliff Ellery - ‘Tasmania -a Trad Climber’s Mecca’3