Follow the rock buttress from upper Cirque Creek on the left side of a gully,
crossing to the right and up a snow couloir higher up to gain the North
Ridge. Reasonable rock, but grassy.
Starting as for the Original west face route until the first cleft, moving
into a broad gully where possible. The route trends left out of the gully at
points to avoid steep ground but never strays from it entirely. At about half
height traverse some bulges, committing moves left, before regaining the
gully and summit. A long 1200m ice climb. Descend via the Original Route;
note that this involves tricky route finding and unstable snow late in the
afternoon. "For my level of fitness and understanding of the Darrans this
route was probably pushing it a bit. Diving home I woke up hitting marker
posts and had to sleep a few times. Looking back with a bit more knowledge I
probably had trashed blood sugar levels and was a bit hypothermic.“ –
Merv English.
Five pitches: 17, 16, 17, 18, 17. Climb the standard route out of Cirque
Creek to the high basin left of the Skyline Buttress. To reach the start,
head leftwards up into a rocky gully to the base of the West Face. You will
see a pillar towering over the top of the gully. Scramble up and head rightwards behind this
pillar and continue along a ledge system, bypassing a wide crack until
reaching a nice hand-crack approximately 3m further on. Rope up here. At the top of the hand-crack, the face opens up to series of beautiful parallel crack systems. Bridge upwards between the cracks and angle towards the sensational 40m long V groove feature visible from down in the gully. At the top of the V groove, climb over the bulge above and beyond to open country.
The arty cascades that you scuttle around in summer on the way up Christina.
Four pitches. Two pitches had amazing clear ice, so it felt like climbing
directly on top of the rock and tussock. Descend by rapping off of the top
pitch, and then sidle off the ledges on the true right. The winter of 1992
was exceptionally cold and these falls froze good and solid. They may not
form that often.
