Date: July 20 - 21, 2015
Location: Twenty Five Mile Range, Queenstown, Otago, New Zealand
Total Trip Distance: 8 mi / 12. 87 km
Total Elevation Gain: 5,000 ft / 1,524 m
Trip Duration: 2 days
Team: Sam Gallup
Field Notes: Park at Paradise Wharf along the Queenstown Glenorchy Road. Climb through a brief section of scrub to gain the grassy slopes heading Southeast to Point 1313. Continue following the broad ridge up towards Point 1845 where it narrows. Care should be taken here. Follow the ridge South to the summit. This is a climb in winter and a simple scramble in summer.
Rating: I, 1
Authors Note: This is a trip report from 2015. Please note the beta provided is relevant and up to date.
It was nearing the end of my visa and only six weeks remained. 2015 had been a pivotal year in my life yet I still had feelings that I didn't climb as much as I would've liked. The majority of my winter was spent drinking beers, partying, and skiing laps on Coronet Peak.
It's funny how priorities change as one accumulates more life experience (or they don't). When I look at my trip log for 2024 there are around forty total big trips with zero nights spent in a bar. In 2015 I probably went on under ten trips and with at least two to three nights a week spent out drinking. What one focuses on one receives.
Sam had recently fallen in love with a beautiful Chilean woman and found it difficult to get away into the hills. I don't blame him, the woman is now his wife! But the forecast was perfect, we had the same days off, and decided upon a simple mission right near town. Mount Crichton is easily climbed in a day, but we needed a night out in the hills to reset our internal rhythms.
Off we went, following Danillo Hegg's route up the North West spur. We smashed through a bit of scrub at the onset, then eventually found easily travel up the tussock spur. Higher, around 1100 meters, we found an incredibly scenic campsite for the evening.
It's difficult to recall the finer details from that evening ten years ago, but I remembered Sam going out to pee in the middle of the night and waking me up because the stars were unlike anything we'd ever seen. I knew I was always going to come back to these mountains.
We were up before sunrise and continued up the North West spur. There was not a breath of wind and not a cloud in the sky. Suddenly, we walked into a winter wonderland and donned crampons near the summit ridge.
The ridge was spectacular, fun, and airy. It gave the feeling that we were deep in the Southern Alps rather than twenty minutes outside of Queenstown. It was a surreal winter day - perfect temperature, bluebird sky, and a snowy alpine ridge.
We took care as we sidled obstacles along the ridge, plunging our ice axes deep into the snow. Finally, we stood atop the tallest mountain in the Twenty Five Mile Range at 1,870 meters. Sam congratulated me with his classic, good shit. I think we both knew this was the final climb together. We've been on other adventures since, but this was indeed the last climb together in the Southern Alps.
Happy days...
Comments