Kieran Parsons and I made the first ascent of the northwest ridge of Mt. Burns in December. It's an enormous feature that dominates the head of the Landsborough Valley, a large but fairly isolated valley in the Southern Alps, immediately southwest of Aoraki / Mt. Cook National Park. The ridge is made up of impressive slabs of overlapping schist, which we had expected to climb, but we found the majority of the rock could be avoided by snowfields on the north side. We spent two days approaching the base of the ridge from the west coast via the Karangarua River, climbed the ridge on December 20, and then spent two nights in the hut at Baron Saddle waiting out a storm. On the fifth day we descended via the Mueller Glacier and exited to Mt. Cook Village—an extremely satisfying alpine journey through an awesome variety of terrain. Overall the climb was NZ 2+ (technical), V (commitment).

An extensive photo album of this trip can be seen here.

Rob Frost