Pikirakatahi (Mt Earnslaw)

Mount Aspiring NP ● 11 – 13 February 2022

In 1882 Reverend W. S. Green, Emil Boxx, and Ulrich Kaufmann made the first attempt to climb Mt Earnslaw. They failed. In 2022 I made the attempt with my sister. We summited in one day.

Route

Friday (45 mins)

Muddy Creek carpark → campsite
In order to save ourselves a bit of time on the Saturday we walked in a few kilometers with torches on the Friday night. Followed the 4WD track up to where it crosses the river, then the track for ~500m further, to just past the first clump of trees.

Saturday (12 hrs 30 mins)

Campsite → Start of Earnslaw track (1 hour 20 mins)
After a quick breakfast swamped by sandflies we mainly followed the track, except to avoid some bogs. Shortly before the site of 25 Mile Hut the track gets close to the river, so we forded and joined the 4WD track on the other side. We followed this for just over a kilometer before cutting across a paddock to the start of the track.
Bottom of hill → Earnslaw hut (50 mins)
The Kea Basin Track had been recently cut. Very recently. But whoever had cut it had no interest in clearing the debris... but we made good time zig zagging up to Earnslaw hut.
Earnslaw hut → Esquilant Bivvy hut (5 hours 30 mins)
A good track continues up to the rock bivvy above the hut, and along the side of Kea Basin. We lost it for a bit when beginning to climb, but found it again on the spur. The rest of the way is relatively well marked by cairns. We stopped for lunch at a small tarn by pt 1445, where someone had obviously been camping recently. Pushing on, the terrain changed to loose rock around 1600m, and good, grippy rock around 100m above that. I lost the cairns multiple times, but Anna was excellent at finding them, and I got the feeling that any route would take you in pretty much the right direction. At the Birley glacier we could follow the footsteps of people before us, although it was still still farily dodgy. About halfway across we thought we were on a small scetion of terra firma, but it turned out to be rocks on top of the glacier. After the glacier there was a small climb up some snow to Wright col, and then an excellent view of Pluto peak and Esquilant Bivvy hut.
Summiting East peak (1 hour 50 mins up; 1 hour down)
There are descriptions for multiple climbing routes on the wall of the hut. We opted for the easiest one after a brief rest. From back at the col you head up through a pass in the first of the bluffs, then head diagonally up to the west, mostly following some cairns. The route through the second set of bluffs is fairly obvious once you are in them, as long as you enter at roughly the right point. There was even a permenant rope at one point to aid in getting past a trick spot. After that it is a straight forward climb to the summit, and glorious views down on the Earnslaw glacier. We spent almost an hour at the summit, then headed back down the way we came.

Sunday (6 hrs 30 mins)

Esquilant Bivvy hut → bottom of hill (4 hours 15 mins)
Heading back down we just retraced our route from Saturday. The only tricky parts were on the glacier, which was noticeably more solid after a cold night. Maybe we should have brought crampons... We stopped off at the upper rock bivvy for a break. I had been told it wasn't very good, but apart from a distinct lack of easy access to water it seemed prety good. But not as good as the lower bivvy.
Out to the car (2 hours 15 mins)
Rather than heading back along the track we followed the 4WD track down the river bed. This involved fording the Rees a few times, and getting divebombed by protective birds. My biggest take away was that it would have been nice to own a 4WD to avoid 7km of tedious valley travel.

Disclaimer: GPX route has been drawn from memory
GPX file can be found here