girdlestone peak mt ruapehu

ghaniman · **Posted:** Thu Sep 10, 2009 9:35 pm

stoked really enjoying the summer tr s on the site, what a beautiful world we live in (some parts anyway)

well the winter has been very lean on the powder days this year, we started with the coldest may on record and some good early snow, june was normal and july was cold but dry, and now we have just got thru the warmest august on record, rain forecast to 3000m this weekend with no snow in sight, spring gales have started and i am just hoping for a stable october to get some end of season lines in..

so last week after 50 cm of storm snow that fell with 60knot winds we were left with a mountain with exposed icy ridges and gullies with 5-15cm of wind drifted snow, patrol had closed the bc off due to the icy conditions which gave us a lot of space to play in, the previous day we had skinned up in the blizzard to check conditions out

blowing snow skifield closed

windblown on trail

freshies on the main trails

our goal today was the girdlestone peak which we assumed could have some nice sun released snow from the storm, KB shane and i set off with ice axes and crampons

blue line ascent ..red line descent

icy ridges gave way to soft snow on the traverse up

looking down from the skyline ridge

our intended descent

girdlestone peak

looking back to the mt ruapehu summit

mitre peak..hopefully we will get out there this season

kb enjoying the view

half way down the peak

next turn..go kb!

slope is about 35-40 degrees in places..kb slowing down

shane scoring some nice snow in the glacier

shane hiking back out of the glacier

the ice that kept everyone away

our exit ridge..wind drift on blue ice...yuck

a great day and the girdlestone delivered, nice sunreleased snow up high and windblown on the glacier...stoked...

aliasptr · **Posted:** Fri Sep 11, 2009 10:14 pm

Wow! Looks awesome! Thanks for sharing! Can't wait for the season in the North to get cranking!

bcrider · **Posted:** Sun Sep 13, 2009 11:37 am

Sweet stuff man! Looks fun. :rock:

ps. I used one of your pics on the cover too. www.splitboard.com

nzbl · **Joined:** Fri Apr 10, 2009 11:03 pm **Posts:** 21

Nice ghan, my splitboard arrives from canada tomorrow :rock:

Will have to do some touring sometime next season

bones get broke · **Posted:** Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:31 am

Jealous????
You bet your ass. :thatrocks:

Thanks for the stoke.

fullers2oh · **Posted:** Thu Sep 17, 2009 2:49 pm

ahhhh so refreshing to see mtns and snow - oh yeah! keep those southern hemi TRs coming pls.

some nice shots/views from up there and it seems like you guys scored despite conditions.

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girdlestone peak mt ruapehu

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