Ascents in New Zealand by John Pitcairn

Date speculative

Date speculative, sometime after man up day, possibly after shoulder dislocation too.

Most of the bolts have been removed (good stuff Guillaume), making this a great single pitch trad line. There is pro near the bolt in the upper quarter, if you have brass offsets...

Tricky start leads to fun moves through the roof. Terry pulled a jug off seconding through the roof, I hadn't discovered it on the way up anyway.

First pitch great, second pitch runs over a few ledges. Grades may be incorrect?

We asked Guillaume where we should be going and he indicated straight up, but he was further up the boulder field and parallax was in play. What James started up was definitely not DB Eh, it was somewhere well left of that. After some desperate runout slabbing, not much pro, a #5 cam in a creek, and a sketchy directional-only anchor at about 50m, I climbed up 20m while still belaying and taking in so I could lower James through gear, then we downclimbed to lick wounds. Dodgy-as. Must revisit.

Nicely run out. Demoralised and running out of daylight after a horrendously and hilariously off-route FAIL on DB Eh?, had to bail without doing the top pitch. Rats.

Enjoyable enough. Grant led it first.

A bit of a sit at the 2nd or 3rd piece before angling right. Should have toughed it out. There is plenty of gear low down.

Was aiming for Self Directed Learning Tool, placing gear, but took the (somewhat) cleaner exit. Really grubby at the top.

Nice bridging in the chimney until halfway. Exit before the roof and move right then up, whereupon it starts to feel like some old Arapiles classic.

I think this is the 15 we did.

Accidentally attempted a direct start, straight up out of of La Belle Vie. Ha.

Current guide claims it's 17

First climb of the trip after flying into Queenstown. Details a bit hazy. Grant forgot his rock shoes and climbed Get Up, Stand Up in Dave's approach shoes.

If you can't layback, don't get on this.

I must have been on this before surely?

Pretty easy until the end. Mind the gorse!

Guide says 16

Slipping small wires onto naked bolts...

Large drumming flake...

A very tight squeeze indeed, but don't exit the chimney before you clip the 4th bolt. Lots of lichen after that. Not really selling it, am I? But I guarantee you will have a real sense of achievement!

John & James' man-up day. Took a good fall at the crux then got it. Look for the foothold at far left and your life will become easier.

No time to do the second pitch. Got to use the #5 cam!

Balancy to the first bolt.

Balancy start, neato face climbing thereafter. The feature on the upper face resembles a bee if you have good drugs.

Watch the rope drag

Enjoyable 3D climbing. Got about 8-10m runout through the centre section - doubles or triples in medium cams would be useful. Take long slings to manage rope drag at top.

Don't bother with pitch 2. And maybe pitch 1...

Didn't have any big gear for the top and had to improvise with funky cammed small hexes and tricams in fissures in the crack. "Tree" belay is optimistic, it's a small wobbly bush - back it up with gear in the top of the crack or traverse to better anchors.

Nice easy trad, decent gear, a good beginners' lead

It really is brilliant, but it's still a sport clip-up.

Sometime after man-up day...

The nasty ledge-fall was late 2011 so first success early 2012 I reckon.

Heel hooks! Otherwise it will be a lot harder.

Lost on the approach, we were looking for Shelob! Turns out we did the first pitch of Flytrap but more direct, didn't move right to the rib, run-out and crumbly, then used about a mile of rope to build an anchor in the white streak just right and below Bishop's Rib roof. Then up something resembling P2 of Centaur, devolving into a bush-bash at the top with massive rope drag. Abseiled down Bishop's Rib with bolt-envy. Figured out where we'd been later from this photo. Epic. Terrifying.

Pretty sure I had led this before sometime.

Face a bit strenuous on sharp pockets, arete is nice

Date speculative. Thought we would check it out, plenty of loose stuff being kicked off the top by feral pukekos.

Harder than it looks.

Good but not as good as it looks. Richard is better.