Ascents as alpine by Vanessa Wills

A fun rest day afternoon.

Nice to revisit this classic route on a day that wasn’t blowing snow horizontally. If you are feeling underwhelmed, the second half of the route has more climbing sections and good exposure, and is probably more grade 5ish.

Sea kayaked to narcissus, walked to Geryon campsite day 1. From Geryon campsite Walked to north summit via ascending scree on opposite side of creek, to labyrinth, then eventually finding the walking track to north summit. ( just under 4 hours). Cold westerlies led to snagged rope on abseil from north summit. Abseiled down west side of Foresight to base of south summit pitches. Nice pitches once we figured out where to go. Long exposed descent to scree chute. Where there are beeches seeming to block the way, just push through. About 12 hours at a leisurely pace, but 2 hours of that were navigation errors. Day 3 walked back to Acropolis rail and then up Acropolis, tried Astroboy, walked back to our boats near Narcissus, got up early and seakayaked out. An excellent 72 hours

Not sure where the 6 c + bit was, there were some run outs, it felt maybe grade 20 max. Lovely direct line. Alt with Dave, went right to the top of the west summit. 9 pitches, plus the summit scramble

The climbing is slightly more involved than Federation peak, though the exposure isn’t as sucking. Fun trip for someone with a tweaked A1 pulley. Another glorious day timed to perfection with mountain forecast.

In 60 mph winds and wind chill of about minus 5

Did as 7 pitches and soloing from upper boys out lake. Damn cold with a bit of snow to freeze the feet

Descent. Horrible scree. Maybe nice in winter

Great day, just wish we had pushed on to summit, though it may have been a cold night!

Did 14 pitches of technical climbing, including nearly 200m of ice to 50 deg to get onto rock, and turned aroud 1 pitch below final snowfield to summit. Guide does not count traverse pitch (about grade 5). About 5 pitons on crux pitch.

Glacier canyoning on approach after 2 hours of scree. Got to top of 8th pitch (the one past the crux) when clear daylight wasgoing to run out. Crack in shade and cold most of route, sun teasing 1m away. Great day

4 hour approach from Nipponino with some technical scrambling and a lot of scree. Beautiful weathered flakes of granite and nice to summit on perfect day.

Unfortunately didnt get as much sun as we had hoped, but pitches 6 and 7 on upper wall superb. Turned around on pitch 8 to get down before it was too dark. Lots of snow on route.

Full value in snow and mist! Set off about 230pm, dark at 540pm, back before dark.

full on snow conditions in January- couldnt even drive to the carpark

3pitches to where the 2 couloirs meet, 2 nice rooflets, always scary in alpine boots and an alpine rack

led pitch 2 and 4, bailed after 4 due to blizzard

dangerous mountaineering choss

led 4 0f 6 pitches

full on alpinism in plastics. Scary as hell

chossy alpine rock, some superlative bits and an offwidth!