Words & images: Alastair McDowell
Participants: David Chen, Elisha Nutall, Alastair McDowell
There are only a few days each year when the many suns, stars and moons that govern perfect mountaineering conditions at Mt Cook line up. To be there ready, with a climbing partner, feeling fit and primed to pounce at this very moment – the chances seem impossibly slim. But on one such day in mid-December, the impossible happened.
Good weather was moving in for the weekend, so we made our move to advanced base-camp – Plateau Hut – on a miserably wet Wednesday. Although my climbing partners Elisha and David were quite keen, as most are, to fly from Mt Cook village up to the Grand Plateau, I was determined to make a clean ascent from the road-end, and eventually convinced them to join me.
Continue reading “A Journey to the Top of New Zealand – Aoraki Ascent”