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Pickelhaube

Type
Mountain
Altitude
2265m
Part of
Main Divide

‘Is it a new sauce invented to make rabbit stew more palatable?’ mused Mr Explorer Charlie Douglas back in 1891. Ingenious but wrong, the name in fact refers to a distinctively shaped German helmet.

Lat/lon
-44.320799,168.832607, NZ Topo Map
Accessed from
Matukituki River East Branch
Add Place Add Route

Routes

Reference Title Grade Length Pro Quality Alert Operations
 North East Ridge, II,2 II,2 0m
0

Follow the ridge up from Pearson Saddle, for a time sidling on the Matukituki side until the ridge can be regained by a steep rock couloir. A mixed snow and rock ridge then leads up to the summit rocks with a final steep snow slope below the peak.
The climb would probably take about five hours from the saddle. The North East ridge could also be reached by the subsidiary ridge rising from the Wilkin-East Matukituki saddle.

  • P1
  • Alpine (Commitment) II
  • Alpine (Mt Cook) 2
 North West Ridge, II,2 II,2 0m
0

The North West Ridge may be reached from Pearson Saddle by climbing scree and snow slopes to reach the ridge between Pickelhaube and the unnamed peak to the west. Although the ridge does not appear to have been climbed, it looks a straightforward rock ridge and would probably take about five hours from Pearson Saddle. The ridge could also be reached without difficulty from the Volta Névé.

  • P1
  • Alpine (Commitment) II
  • Alpine (Mt Cook) 2
 South East Ridge, II,2 II,2 0m
0

Begin by climbing the North East ridge from Pearson Saddle before sidling
across snow slopes on the Matukituki face to gain the South East ridge via a
steep rock couloir. This ridge then leads up to a rock step and the final
steep snow slope below the summit. This ridge can be easily gained from the
Volta Glacier.

  • P1
  • Alpine (Commitment) II
  • Alpine (Mt Cook) 2
Comments
jmthornton

It appears to me that the first ascent party didn't climb the last couple of hundred metres of the North East ridge but in fact sidled across the east face at about the 1900m contour to the SE ridge which they then climbed to the Summit.

Sun, 02/03/2014 - 21:49 Permalink
Attribution
Allen Uren & John Cocks
UUID
 
f1bf851a-5ef5-4e49-918c-f5ea9d740ecb