Two skiers have pulled off a breathtakingly audacious first descent on an insanely steep line on New Zealand’s tallest mountain.
Canadian Christina Lustenberger and Guillaume Pierrel, from France, risked their lives to ski the icy, nea- vertical 1,000m east face of Aoraki / Mount Cook.
Lustenberger described “unforgiving icy-snow conditions” and revealed the pair, who met during a North Face team trip, had to “push each other out of our comfort zones”.
In an Instagram post, which you can view below, she wrote: “[We were] committed to the exposure one turn at a time. [It was] a line requiring precision in every movement, demanding a true collaboration of your partner and the wild surroundings you are playing in. After jumping over a huge bergshrund, we escaped the face, safely looking up in awe.”
First a technical climb – then a daring ski descent
The skiers had tried the route six days before but Lustenberger revealed that gale-force winds that turned snow into ice forced the pair to retreat, skiing an easier line in a different direction.
Finally, a favorable weather window, which coincided with the Hunter’s Moon on October 17, offered another opportunity.
Before the ski challenge, the pair, who had never previously skied together, needed to climb the technical Jones route on the 3,727m tall peak in the Southern Alps, on the country’s South Island.
They started up the grade 4+ face at 2 a.m. below a sky tinted deep purple by the Aurora Australis. After almost six hours, they reached the summit of Aoraki’s middle peak and looked down on the precipitous top section of the route that plummets and links together a complex system of ramps and gullies.
Not only is the route incredibly steep but the skiers found the snow conditions patchy and icy. They also needed to navigate the correct route from photos they had taken on their cell phones prior to the challenge.
One wrong line or exit in the highly exposed and complicated route could have been fatal., but the pair made it, describing the extreme test of skill as a “very rich experience”.
They had opened up a new route, which they're calling Hunter’s Moon line, entirely on skis and without rappelling. Only during the middle of a gully on pure ice did the skiers secure 30 meters of rope with a nut on a crack to provide extra hold if needed.
