Parkhurst and Rethel

                                    Parkhurst and Rethel Mountains- September 15th 2013

After doing the traverse from Mount Cook to Mount Weart the previous day, we woke up had our breakfast and soon started hiking towards the outflow of the lake.

We tough that it will be easier to cross it in the morning and the water level won't be too bad but we had to try 2 spots to cross it.

Once we crossed the outflow we started our way towards the col and slowly gaining elevation.

Once we got below the col we reached some blue ice with boulders on top, which made that section harder.

Soon we got to the gully that leads up to the col and started our way up.

The gully was pretty loose but not as long as we tough.

Once we got at the col we went towards Parkhurst Peak first and then went back down to the col from where we went towards Rethel Peak.

Our way back down wasn't too long and in no time we were back to the lake from where we packed our overnight gear and started our way down to the parking lot.

Cook-Weart Traverse

                                             Cook-Weart Traverse- September 14th 2013

Another beautiful weekend in Wedgemount Lake area as overnight.

On our first day up there we decided to do the classic traverse of the two peaks and we decided to do it from Mount Cook side.

We left parking lot pretty early and started our way up towards Wedgemount Lake.

Once we got there found a empty camping spot where we left our bivy's with all our camping stuff and started our way towards Mount Cook.

As always not that fun to go up towards Mount Cook, seems endless.

Pass Mount Cook we started our way following the ridge towards Weart Peak.

In some spots we had to skip some of the towers along the ridge and go around them.

The ridge doesn't go above class 5, mostly it's a sustained class 4 with some class 5 moves along the way.

About half way we saw a goat on the glacier that was just relaxing on the snow and in few minutes the goat was gone, our guess was that he fell in a crevasse.

Closer to the summit of Weart Peak is where the things got a bit more technical and stayed mostly class 5 with exposure.

Getting down the last tower into the notch just before the summit was pretty hard, probably that was the hardest move of the traverse.






Once we got on the summit we didn't stayed too much time since it was already pretty late and we started our way back to the hut where our gear was waiting for us.

Here is a video of the traverse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNZh0Pte_M4