North Ridge

Long route (2200m of ascent), with rotten rock at the beginning and improving along the way, with sustained steep scrambling until circa 2500m of altitude. Pitching of crux moves in places might be necessary even for good climbers. Steep until the glacier start (2500m), crux moves at about Alpine UIAA grade V to VI- / French 5a to 5b (Ewbank 16). It is a steep route with few opportunities for good anchors to rap off if you need to retreat, making it a committing route (NZ Alpine 4) with sustained steep downclimbing on greasy ground in places. Approach: The route starts around 700m 15-20mins after the Douglas Rock Hut climbing left (East) of a fairly obvious ice gully (see picture), which requires a bit of bush bashing to be reached from the track. The ascent is about 2200m going all the way to the summit through steep (rock) slopes until flattening at around 2500m of altitude where the glacier starts. The route: Route finding is OK in good weather but requires careful navigation in places, in foggy condition could require a GPS . Follow the stream from 700m to 1500m then begin an ascending traverse leftwards to acquire the left side (N-East) of the buttress at 1700m. The ridge is well defined by a sheer drop on the whole of the left (N-east) side all the way to the summit. This obvious line could be used as a guide in case of tricky navigation conditions, the scramble alongside it, is regular and fairly good rock overall. Bear left (northwards) until about 2200m, then going more rightwards (SW) towards flatter ground on approaching the glacier start (2500m). Note: The first part of the scramble is fairly greasy and grassy with lots of loose rocks, not the most pleasant, then above 1700m it really improves while it still gets even steeper but the rock quality dramatically increases and giving you good grip, making for a much safer and faster scramble. Then the glacier features on average 40 to 65 degrees slopes, but really we felt the difficulties were in the rock scramble/climb before reaching the glacier. Bivvy likely required, for the route is long even in good conditions, even for a fairly fast party, especially since the glacier can turn out to be really broken with huge crevasses (it was the case for us, our attempt was early April). Gears snow stakes, 2-4 ice screws, 50m rope, 2 axes, bivvy gears. Photos: 1) The route seen from the Valley 700m 2) Route from circa 1500m 3) Route from 1650m 4) Scrambling steep but good rock circa 2000m 5) Scrambling steep but good rock circa 2070m rope required in places 6) Scrambling steep but good rock circa 2100m 7) Scrambling steep but good rock circa 2200m rope requires in places 8) The Glacier from the top of the rock ridge circa 2400m 9) onto the glacier circa 2700m, with the top of the ridge on the left, mount cook in the back 9) Traverse around 3000m toward Douglas Neve 10) Descent towards Douglas Neve circa 2850m 11) Douglas Neve well broken