raggles.kiwi

Aicken-Blimit-Cassidy Traverse

After the outstanding success of the Ice and Mixed Festival the week before, I was psyched to get out into the mountains.  Unfortunately nobody else wanted to come play despite the outstanding weather forecast, so I was stuck with a solo mission.  I set my eyes on the Aicken - Blimit - Cassidy Traverse in Arthurs Pass. The route description almost put me off:

"From the summit of Mt Aicken the long tortuous ridge that encloses the Punchbowl Falls Creek catchment is visible. Continue along this ridge. Towards Blimit the ridge rock rises in 30-60 degree slabs, some with extreme exposure. Protection is sparse, but the rock grades are easy."

I set off at 5am up to Aicken.

From Mt Aicken, there was some fun climbing on a mixture of rock, but it was good where it mattered.  Most of the steeper sections can be bypassed, but why would you?  A great way to warm up in the winter sun.

Further on, I got a pretty good view of the ridge, and realised why it might be described as torturous... many narrow sections, gendarmes, steep rock sections. To make it worse, the snow was all over the place - a mix of crunchy, powder and crusty.  This all added up to slow progress, the ridge along to Blimit taking almost four hours.

Towards the Blimit end there was some more funtastic climbing, along with some delicate negotiation of powdery cornices and other snow features, and one particularly steep and exposed down-climb that made me utter a couple of naughty words.

I shared the descent down via the Cons Track with a dude (despite discussing a wide range of subjects, I never caught his name!) who topped out on Blimit from the Cassidy side at the same time, making good time back to the carpark for a total trip duration of 9hr30.  A fantastic route for those confident on steep and exposed terrain. A bit rough on the crampons though.