Skip to main content

Mt Underwood

Type
Altitude
2222m
Image
Lat/lon
-44.673768,168.0037567, NZ Topo Map
Accessed from
Add Place Add Route

Routes

Reference Title Grade Length Pro Quality Alert Operations
 South Ridge, IV,10 IV,10 2200m
1.02

From the Milford Road take the track to Little Babylon and then climb steep bush to the tussock ridge. You can also reach this point from the upper Donne but it’s not necessarily quicker. The crux section is the buttress leading up to Pt 1825m. The first ascent party took four and a half hours to gain the summit, returning to Homer Hut via the Central Darrans and Moraine Creek in seventeen hours. More recently the route has been used as direct, technical and exposed access to Lake Turner.


  • P1
  • 10
  • Alpine (Commitment) IV
  • 2200m

 Donne Corner, 16 16 500m
0

The prominent buttress above the Donne valley leading to Pt 1825m on the south ridge. Galen Rowell in the AAJ: We climbed long overhanging bands of rock solely on vegetation. The rain forest just kept going up and up for countless thousands of feet above the river. We reached the base of the route at two in the afternoon, cached our bivvy gear, and decided to push on. I led pitch after pitch of 5.4 to 5.8 climbing on good rock. I had a choice of going unprotected on slabs or sticking close to cracks where the rock was coated with vegetation. For the most part I stuck to the slabs.


  • P1
  • 16
  • 500m
  • Trad

 Donne (South) Face 1300m
0

The climb takes the left of two prominent ribs to the ridge north of the summit. Scramble up a small snow chute down-valley from the most prominent one. Veer left across tussock to the first rock slabs, then climb a mixture of wet slabs and overhanging snow grass to a prominent shelf. Climb the snowfield to the foot of a left-tending rib which leads to the second prominent shelf. Climb the first buttress (a mixture of aid and free climbing) to another snowfield then climb a second buttresses of poorer quality rock. Climb beside the third buttress of rotten rock exiting via a snow gully leading to the summit ridge.
Five days were spent on the first ascent, much of it in marginal weather. Legend has it that the climbers utilised their cutlery as pitons.


  • P1
  • 1300m

 East Ridge, II,1+ II,1+ 0m
0

A simple climb from Patuki Col, up the Taoka névé to the col and then traversing below the east ridge and up to the summit.
In December 1955, Lloyd Warburton, Gerry Hall-Jones, Lindsay Bruce and Reg Scott repeated the route by gaining the Taoka Icefall from the upper Donne valley, but glacial retreat means the lower icefall is currently extremely broken and dangerous.


  • P1
  • Alpine (Commitment) II
  • Alpine (Technical) 1+

Comments
Attribution
Craig Jefferies
UUID
 
2bfd6e6d-e1e6-4dda-9680-d41c65ae1dda