Pinnacles 5 x 5 Challenge
By Gregg Beisly
In a few years based in the central North Island I was fortunate to be able to explore some remarkable landscapes, climb quality rock and ice, and ski tour on near perfect spring corn.
One thing I missed though was the long days out on big mountain faces that present multiple and varying challenges. That was seemingly only to be found back down south.
Mt Ruapehu is excellent for honing technical skills on short (1–3 pitch) rock, ice and mixed routes, as there is some excellent and very accessible climbing to be had. A bit of a worry though was the lack of long full day missions, turning me into a bit of a drag on bigger Southern Alps climbs, so manufacturing bigger days out on Ruapehu was a bit of a sport in its own right for me.
There was the round Ruapehu in a day, 12 peaks of Ruapehu in a day, three peaks on foot, three peaks on skis etc. for fitness. Then there were days of trying to get in as many ice routes as possible, or as many backcountry laps as we could.
One of the best missions was the completely arbitrary 5 x 5 challenge. The idea was, in daylight hours, to climb five ice routes, five rock routes, five pinnacles, ski five gullies and climb five boulder problems. It took a couple of goes to get it right, the first attempt failing by leaving the skiing till last and hitting the 4.30pm freeze before completing all the runs, and the idea is always to be having heaps of fun and skiing Ruapehu concrete is not that.
Early September ended up being the ideal time when careful use of a sunny day would yield consistent good conditions with ice being great early, skiing perfect midday and late afternoon, western facing rock warm. So, in order, here is one version of the 5 x 5 challenge:
Arrive at the bottom of Chiming Bells at first light, climb the route and then Traverse of the Gods to Grand Gully. Downclimb the main gully then climb the Neanderthal/Gorilla combo followed by another Traverse of the Gods to the top of Grand Gully. Climb Tequilla Sunrise to the top of Great Pinnacle, descend and traverse again. Down climb Grand Gully to the bottom of the north-west face of Second Pinnacle and climb this via the obvious gully and steep steps. End up on top of Second Pinnacle. Then traverse to the other peak of Second Pinnacle and on to First Pinnacle. Descend to Pink Floyd Buttress (AKA Numb Buttress) and climb Hokey Pokey to the top.
That’s five ice routes and five pinnacles down. Next up is skiing. Stashing skis at the bottom of Chiming Bells would save a trip all the way down to the carpark. Skin to skyline ridge and ski down one of the gullies on the eastern side till underneath the Pinnacles' ‘Super Gully’. Boot pack this to the top, ski to the valley bottom, then skin/boot pack to the top of the next gully. Repeat for one more gully then get to the Pinnacle Ridge again and ski the western-facing gully of your choice, then continue to the car park.
Hopefully the west face of Meads Wall is in the sun still, so get yourself over there and crank out fie rock routes, followed by bouldering in the Happy Valley boulder field. We decided the problems had to be the steeper and longer ones, but whatever your feet can handle at that stage of it would be acceptable.
Some alternatives to make it easier are to climb five pitches of ice instead of five routes and to not ski all the way down to the Wairere valley bottom. Options to make it harder are endless. You could climb harder ice lines, add Te Heuheu (main picture) as one of the peaks and ski descents, ski steeper gullies, swap the bouldering for mixed routes in Whakapapa Gorge and Broken Leg Gully, climb harder and longer rock routes on the east face of Meads Wall or Whakapapa Gorge etc.
Challenge laid down, so get training all you North Island alpinists.