Christchurch, June, Friday

At this time of year in Christchurch it’s not light until 8 o’clock in the morning. There are no birds to be chirping and in the city there’s hardly a hum to be made. It’s fresh, and I’m still cloudy from the mornings hostel dealings when I throw my rucksack in the hull of the bus.

The knee-high buildings of a recovering city are a pre-dawn wash of blue and magenta, and as we break through the suburbs I see through the window the sun rising over grass paddocks and pines. The white Southern Alps are cut with deep hue lines, and I’m reminded of what brought me to this country alone.

Where I’m headed, Mount Cook Village in the Southern Alps holds claim as being the training ground for many great Himalayan alpine expeditions for a swathe internationally reputed climbers. And I’m surprised to hear on my the way that the particular mountain I’m about to climb was indeed the first introduction to alpinism in 1939 for a once young Sir Edmund Hillary.

Mount Cook Village, Friday Evening

When I arrive at the village at the base of Mount Ollivier and look up the Hooker valley to Aoraki, and with a day lost in transit, it’s again under a changing sky. My hopes were to be here and starting sooner but from the DOC Ranger I hear there’s a small party just ahead of me, and so with the prospect of a mid-night rendevous I started under the cool twilight gaze of a shining full moon.

Gravel gives way to snowy steps at the base of the climb guiding you further and further upwards, away from the dwindling yellow pinpricks of the village. There’s an eerie roar from across the valley once you stop and still your breathing, a rockfall it seems; soft and constant as a breeze. Further upwards on the face a trail of bootprints lead the way, I follow them left and right in my torchlight, growing steadily used to the squeaky crunch with every foot-stamp that swallows up to my knee.

The night air feels thinner, crisper as I climb. A little brittle. It stings like a frost on the edge of each breath. Moonlight shines all back at me as a thousand glinting eyes in the snow. And on either side, weaving trails from skis slip unimaginably down now sheer faces of frozen snow. All my flat-lander familiarity left behind on those steps well below me now, I’m high and for a glimpse exposed.

But persistence pays, and as more and more rock begins to appear I find I’m looking other ranges in the eye, and behind a rounded corner on the final ridge I glance the hut and the other party’s torchlights little glows.

It’s 2200 hours by the time the three South Island natives, and I retire to Meuller hut’s bare-bone bunk room. Mat’s are inflated and bags unpacked, pesto-scented mist now blown from our mouths and flowing noses. Acquaintances made in our shared hilarity of circumstance in this room in this moonlight with this view. Scuffling and capsuling for any kind of warmth, we make loose plans to be up again for sunrise, kicking-on the slow building sentiment that this walk, turned climb, turned entry grade “summit attempt” was to be a little higher line experience than for what we were prepared. I slept cold and still exposed by a fogged up window, wiping blurry glimpses of immense faces in the night.

Meuller Hut, Saturday Morning

It’s still night when our crampons crunch the snow again, nursing-grad Becky and I the only two to surface. With thick throats and puffy eyes we started hollow legs together through the unbroken snow, further upwards on exposed ridge. My nerves aren’t eased as we hear and turn to watch an avalanche pop and cascade down the dawning face of Mount Sefton behind us.

Pre-dawn is beautiful and it’s familiarity sweeps us as we round and summit. The eastern sky glows as we face west to watch violets fade pink and erupt in golds and orange that wash faces like dye with the life of day. Our pinnacle on Mount Ollivier is but a centrepiece in an amphitheatre of range and peak and face that surround us over glacial valleys on all sides. The whole world is being lit up for us. A world of the alps, a world of the South, the world of the mountaineer and mountain craft. A world lit in a moment for a flatlander looking around thinking,

“Yeah, this is a world for me.”

Intercity Bus Network offer lines from Christchurch to Mount Cook Village, and for a lesser fee to Twizel where it is possible to hitch a ride to the Village. Lockers available for small fee at the YHA and rental alpine gear available at Alpine Guides. All movements required to be reported to Department Of Conservation (DOC) at the Alpine Centre, where Meuller Hut camping fee can also be paid.

By Dan March

2018

Map here.

www.danmarch.org

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