Mt. Somers

So this weekend it was off to Mt. Somers climbing for the weekend – with Glynn, Mark (flatmate) and his friend Blair. The walkin was quite long for climbers – at 3 hours or so (we had to do the last 1/3rd in the dark). Glynn cursed me most of the way, but the climbing more than made up for it (at least, he says it did) The hike started off with a climb up to – 843m I think it was (ooooh) to the top of Dukes Knob.

It’s definitely one of the best places that I have climbed in NZ. The rock is split (at least where we climbed) into two distinct types. One has these awesome basalt columns, and the other a weird sort of rock that looks like it’s a pile of cement with lots of loose bits in it, but is actually really stable..

The first crag we climbed (quite the hike up from the hut) was Christian Principles crag. I must write down the names, but they were all pretty nasty! (climbers have an odd sense of humour sometimes) All the routes on this crag (except one which we didn’t do) were trad. Glynn leading them all.. like I said, great to have him along.. I’m not quite confident enough yet .. but I’ll get there. I just lead one climb later on – on the Meat Grinder slab… just an easy one – but freaked me out enough! just not used to climbing trad any more.

It was quite nice to get back down to the hut in the evening. It had become quite cold up on the hill as the cloud came down. Still, apparently it had lashed rain all day in ChCh (as our friend Steve informed us when he joined later on in the day)…

Dinner was a delicious curry (I’m going to invest in lots of small containers for different curries ‘n spices!). It wasn’t quite a perfectly sound sleep following though… See the hut (lovely hut!) had space for 15 people. One of which snored. A lot. And happened to be in the next bunk over. I made sure he woke up a few times in the vain hope he would shift himself into a less snore-prone state… but to no good! Even with my earplugs in it was too loud! One more night of that and it would have been over to Holmes..

Anyway, next day dawned with a nice blue sky, so back to the crag – this time to the concrete looking pinnacles. Steve and Glynn led up a 3 pitch 19 (Glynn leading the 1st and 3rd pitches with Steve taking the long exposed middle (19) pitch. Great views from the top – and a really quality climb.

Finally, a very happy birthday to Glynn. It makes such a difference having a friend like him around when so far from home! Shame I’m up in Wellington and can’t head out for a pint – that will be put right when I get back though…

On the Wellington front, all the tests so far have gone really well, so looks like all the integration with the other systems is going to work out ok. Which is a nice relief!