Adventure #238

After topping out the Statue Wall, Rich Turner and Richard Thomson relax on the ridge amid the peaks above Te Puoho glacier.
I climbed back up to where a scar on the rock betrayed
what had happened: my right foothold had sheared off
as I’d transferred my weight onto it. All the excitement
had flashed by in a hurry. Only now did I understand
how easily the death block could have sheared through
my ropes, which would have seen me plummet all the
way down. Instead all I had to contend with was a dull
ache in my butt cheek, and a bruised ego.
I continued up the corner to a spectacular overhang,
which, thanks to some joyfully enormous holds, was
easily overcome. Thomson then led the fourth pitch up
a steep corner to a large slab, which was so luxuriously
roomy that I promptly lay down for a tramadol-induced
siesta.
Turner took the ropes to the spectacular views at the
top of the face: the Lake Turner basin to the west,
bordered by the undulating ridgeline from Mt Patuki in
the south to Mt Madeline to the north; the Te Puoho
cirque to the east, with granite giant Mt Taiaroa
dwarfing the glacial lake below, and, in the distance,
the meandering Hollyford River.
We took our time. It was still early afternoon and,
though clouds were hovering, there seemed to be no
need to rush down from the exquisite solitude and
natural beauty encompassing us. These mountains,
never crowded, are as enchanting and majestic as
any in the country, and they should always be inhaled
slowly.
Eventually, we traversed carefully and delicately along
the ridge to the north, towards Te Wera, and then down
a low-angled slope to the base of the wall where we
gathered our packs before returning to Turner’s Eyrie.
It’s always a unique blend of feelings after succeeding
at a first ascent. Until that day, no one had touched
the rock on that part of the wall, and trying to climb it
is shrouded in nervous uncertainty about whether it is
22//WHERE ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS/#238