Icy slopes on the shelf running across the south face, with the start of the cold upper face looming in the shadows. Even now, this picture fills me with dread.

This is an account of a solo winter attempt on the south face of Aoraki Mt Cook in 2004. It was published in the Alpine Journal, so my apologies to those who have read it before. I was going to slip it into the Mountainz archives but when the idea of the EPICS special was proposed, I thought that it should be a part of the series. The following story is somewhat reflective and lacks the edge-of-your-seat action required for an epic tale. However, you can add to its hardcoreness by reading it on your laptop while cycling through downtown traffic; or by printing it out, setting it alight and not letting go until you have read to the end.

The Bivouac
In a word – botched.

I had botched the climb and now I was going to suffer.

Everyone writes about their achievements, so I’m going to write about my failure.

A 1-metre deep bivouac ledge carved out of snow and ice. Eleven hours until dawn. Minus 28 degrees. No sleeping bag, no sleeping mat, a 100-weight microfleece jacket.

My right shoulder was pressed against an ice cliff that overhung 10 metres. At least anything that fell from the face would clear me comfortably. My left shoulder lay centimetres from an 80-degree drop. Five metres lower the ice steepened to 90 degrees. I had no means of tying in.

And Foreigner’s You’re as Cold as Ice looped continuously in some unhelpful part of my inner world.

The Idea
It was during this night I had an idea, with eleven hours to work out the details. Eleven hours of full-body shaking, iced toes, careful rolling and wondering how a search and rescue helicopter winches a climber off a face when there is an ice cliff in the way. The idea was a competition: The Most Epic/Worst/Most Desperate Bivouac of the Year Competition. It would give the poor sods something to hold out for.

Judges would give marks for season, lack of leg room, lumps of ice in small of back, malfunctioning stoves, precipitation, snoring companions (or lack thereof), bivouac gear (or lack thereof), and perhaps most importantly, highly creative justifications for how the morons ended up where they ended up.

The south face of Aoraki Mt Cook rising to Low Peak, with Middle Peak further behind. The shelf on the face can be seen rising up and to the right under the west (left hand) ridge. The bivouac was under the major ice cliff that is directly above the right end of the shelf, at the left extent of the ice cliff above a small band of rock.

The Highly Creative Justification for How I Ended Up Where I Ended Up
Let me first discuss the south face of Aoraki Mount Cook. It is the face you see from Mt Cook Village. A big face, 1100 metres, with six-too-many ice cliffs but a number of stunning ice lines. Only a couple of the south face lines have had winter ascents: the 600-metre White Dream, climbed by Pete Cammell and Charles Hornsby on the left side of the face; and Gates of Steel on a central rock buttress that rises to half height, climbed by Alex Palman and David Baguley. But the face hasn’t seen a winter ascent from its base on the Noeline Glacier to the Low Peak summit. And I was going to change that.

Except I didn’t.

Bill Denz’s Direct Route would have been the ultimate. Winding straight up the middle of the face, under each cliff in turn, it is one of the most beautiful lines I have ever seen. I had wanted to climb it ever since I bought my first Mount Cook Guidebook. Route 2.72 – a work of art.

The issue, as I found out, is that the Noeline Glacier is a bit of a mess – a bit too cut up to encourage solo travel. I considered getting onto the south face snow shelf that runs 300 metres above the glacier, beneath the left hand routes such as White Dream, and then finding a way of dropping back onto the glacier to the start of the Direct. The alternative was to continue up the Slovenian Route from the shelf, which although not starting at the base of the face does head up its guts.

The Slovenian won. I don’t recall why but probably because of laziness. It was not going to be the full face ascent I had been wanting but a first winter ascent of a line nonetheless. And perhaps this is how I got myself into trouble. I had never really decided emphatically which line I was climbing. I thought I would be free to wander on the face wherever I chose. All roads lead to Rome. Or at least, to Low Peak.

I was somewhere between the Slovenian and Direct routes, making increasingly desperate moves – a traverse on 90-degree ice, a series of vertical bulges – always confident the ground would ease if I just kept going, when I ran into a dead end. I was bluffed out left and right with an overhanging ice cliff directly above me. That was my first issue.

My second issue was that it was 8pm and dark. I was always planning to climb at night. My theory was lightweight for speed and speed for warmth. After topping out I wanted to make a Grand Traverse to High Peak and back again. If rest was required the following morning, my bivy bag would suffice in the warmth of the day. Now, bluffed out, in the dark, I couldn’t downclimb the moves back to the shelf. And unless I could abseil off, I was stuck ‘till dawn.

Which brings me to my third issue. I had no rope. My justification was that rope is often dead weight for a solo climber – not needed on a moderately angled climb like this. A rope also means harness, carabiners, slings, pitons, screws and stakes.

Afraid of the Dark
In winter the days are too short. There aren’t enough hours of sunlight to climb big routes in a day and this means either carrying sleeping gear on multi-day climbs or climbing through the night. Whereas climbing at night in summer is quite advantageous, it has its difficulties in July. Temperatures plummet, pitch climbing is hard on the body and ice climbing is hell on the fingers. To breathe is to suck coldness into your core. It is possible to plug steps up snow wearing a balaclava, down jacket and mitts and still feel cold.

Nights in winter are as big and scary as the mountain faces themselves.

Which is why most mountain routes have not seen winter ascents. Not that hard lines haven’t been put up in winter, but most winter climbs these days are on the short and steep ice faces of the West Coast névés; routes that can be climbed in a day. There are more than twenty faces on the 3000-metre peaks that have not seen a winter ascent.

The Dawn
Dawn arrived. I rolled onto my stomach, planted my axes and dropped my feet over the 80-degree ice. Knees don’t work that well after a night knocking together.

I climbed down 5 metres. This can’t be the way; it’s too steep, climb back up. Maybe the left side? No – that’s steeper. Straight down must be the way… Maybe I will have to try the rescue beacon after all, my downclimbing is rusty. Suck it up and just do it. Down the ice bulges, I can bypass the traverse… An hour later, I was on the more moderate blue ice leading back to the shelf.

Briefly, ever so briefly, I considered climbing up the correct line for the Slovenian Route. It would have been a great accomplishment, but I knew the bivouac had left me exhausted and I would run out of energy somewhere on the 800 metres of hard ice above.

That was not true of course. If I’d desperately wanted to, I would have gone back up for another night. If I’d had the drive, if my head was right, if I’d owned the climb. But ‘if ’ is a big word and it is not used to describe reality. Instead I wanted to be with friends, ice crag on the West Coast, drink coffee and enjoy the warmth of the sun.

Being alone in winter’s darkness was something only a younger version of myself could handle – a version not quite so afraid of the dark.

The view from the bivouac the next morning, looking down the Hooker Valley. The Annette Plateau can be seen at right.