Wye Creek - sport climbing near Queenstown. Rare clear skies.
Vanessa on some 19 or something sport route at Wye Creek.
Waterfall - hydro is big business in this part of the world
Walking on sunshine...
Quartz bands with clay in between. Yay.
Walking in the 2 hour approach to Upper Wye Creek multipitch area. Note blue sky.
Wye Creek upper crags - multipitch fun.
Nice hiking
New Zealand shit, sorry shiest. The guide kept referring to it being quality shiest - we questioned what sort sort of quality??
The bivi rock. No dead sheep here.
Vanessa up the grass at the end of pitch 1.
Vanessa being sandbagged into a chossy 24 pitch - I told her it was 18.
Vanessa not impressed by my sandbag.
Vanessa on the awesome corner pitch of Centre Fold (22)
Traddy goodness on Centre Fold (22)
Vanessa - pitch 2 of Lambs to the Slaughter. Remember that name...
Vanessa 2nds the crux 40m grade 23 pitch of Lambs to the Slaughter. I got the lead of this one - which was badly bolted and very runout on the crux move. Lucky I onsighted it.
Vanessa 2nds the crux 23 pitch of Lambs to the Slaughter. I got the lead of this one - which was badly bolted and very runout on the crux move. Lucky I onsighted it.
Descent across the grass ledge system
Checking the weather from the bivi cave at Wye Creek upper.
Weather craps out - for the rest of the trip.
Wye Creek upper - a bit wetter.
Wanaka cragging - some 23?
Walking in to the 'summer' rock-climbing east face of Double Cone on the Remarkables.
Lovely alpine scenery
Natural rock bridge - cool.
Single Cone on the left and Double Cone on the right.
Our route was the 350m wall in the centre of the middle peak. Notice snow.
Alta Lake - with the Remarkables ski field in the background
Nice sunny summer conditions for rock-climbing?
A couple of 50m pitches up Double Cone
Vanessa seconds a random pitch on Double Cone. We got off route pretty quickly - guide was useless.
I'm wearing a double layer windstopper and a goretex and i'm still cold. Not exactly summer.
Queenstown is behind this.
About 200m up the wall.
As we got higher the moss got thicker.
The camera decided to not work on the summit - honest! This is Vanessa rapping down the delightful 'waterfall' descent - i wonder why it was called that?
Waterfall rapping
We rapped down this... it was rather wet.
This is a nice ice climb in winter. In 'summer' it was a waterfall.
No crampons meant we had to cut steps up this slope
One slip and weeeeeeeeeeeeee to the valley floor.
Is life about climbing in melting snow and falling waterfalls?
Woke up to sun in Queenstown...
4 hours later we reach the Darrens where its raining.
The lovely doorstep of the hut
Our delightful dry camp
