Mt Hopeless (2278m), Nelson Lakes National Park, via the Hopeless Creek Route (Grade 2).
2021 has been a tough year for budding alpinists with COVID restrictions derailing several winter trips and meets. The subsequent cancellation of the July Ruapehu Summits trip meant there were several members with a diagnosis of severe FOMO (i.e., Fear Of Missing Out). The obvious and only treatment for this is a trip. So once that nasty virus called Covid-19 permitted, we had a WhatsApp group established and a plan to climb Mt. Hopeless (2278m) in Nelson Lakes National Park via the Hopeless Creek Route (Grade 2).
Spring weather and snow conditions can be highly variable, so I (Nina) appointed a group of weather nerds at our pre-trip dinner (Juergen, Calvin and Seb) to monitor the weather in the preceding week. Stephen, from his role at MetService, was able to offer us a personal up-to-date forecast for the area around Mt. Hopeless (we are still awaiting the invoice!). Our weather window was tight, however monitoring of the weather forecast in the week leading up to the trip by our weather nerds – the main conclusion of which was that the forecast for the summit day changed little over the 7-day monitoring period and was overall fine – gave us some confidence that the weather on the summit day (Saturday) would be suitable for the ascent. Importantly, two windless and warm days (one pre-trip and one on the walk in to Hopeless Hut) allowed the snowpack to consolidate after the preceding front.
We flew via Sounds Air to Blenheim and used Trips and Transfer as transport to St. Arnaud (highly recommended) to coordinate with Hamish who is a water taxi operator at Lake Rotoiti. We enjoyed a stunning blue-bird day on the lake and up the Travers Valley, leaving Lake Head Hut at about 11.15am. We arrived at Hopeless Hut about 4.30pm.
The lower part of the Hopeless Creek Route is a bit of a bush bash. Juergen and Ben did a “reccie” in the evening light on the lower part of the route to ensure we didn’t waste time with route finding pre dawn – I would recommend this on future trips. Over dinner, we discussed the route, avalanche risk, gear and logistics and decided on a turnaround time of 1.00pm.
We left the hut at about 5.00am and made our way through the bush and the initial slabs and picked up the obvious cairns through the tussock slopes, and rocky ridges up the valley to the snow basin. The snow conditions offered perfect cramponing with no obvious signs of recent avalanche activity. We elected to continue fully equipped.
Once through the snow basin we headed to the ridge line on a steep rising traverse (maximum slope angle about 50 degrees, measured with AvyInclinometer app). We had a few solid snow pluggers with Sol, Seb and Juergen making a solid path. We hit both the ridge line and the wind at noon but gained breathtaking views of Lake Rotoroa.
There are two peaks on Hopeless: the true summit and a lower peak some 100-200m horizontal distance to the north of it, connected through an airy ridge traverse. We decided not to go to the true summit because the ridge was partly snow covered and more exposed. Our decision was based on the combination of potential wind chill and a belay of 7 of us across the rocky, partly snow-covered ridge within the hour left before our predetermined turnaround time.
The descent was trickier than I anticipated with softening snow on slippery snow grass on moderate to steep rock. Hoping to find a better descent route, Calvin, Sol, Ben and I had an interesting descent with an unintended bush-bash over some rock steps. I had been dreading the descent over the slabs but Ben put in a hand-line so we could lower ourselves safely. Thanks especially to Calvin for taking the rope down and Ben for being the last to down-climb it. Well, we had carried two ropes all day, so we needed to justify using one of them at least! Thanks everyone on the trip for being great team players. Calvin’s inReach meant we could call the water taxi earlier and spend the extra time having beer and pizza at the Alpine Lodge in St. Arnaud.
Our next planned trip is Kehu Peak (named after Thomas Brunner’s Maori guide Ekehu) from Travers Hut, planned for late summer 2022.