French Ridge

I went down to Aspiring National Park near Wanaka to do some tramping with my mates Dale and Mary. This was certainly my favorite tramp that I've done in New Zealand so far. I've included lots of images and videos so I'll try to keep text to a minimum and let the images speak for themselves.

The majority of the photos are Dale's. In general, mine are washed out and his are more vibrant. If you wish to know exactly which ones are his please email me.

What we did:
day 1 Carpark to French Ridge Hut
day 2 Up French Ridge to Quarterdeck Pass, back down to Aspiring Hut.
day 3 Out to Carpark and up the West Coast.

Here's some Google Earth shopped by Dale to show what we did. Click to enlarge.


Starting the walk, group photo with Dale's tripod.


The walk starts by going along this river into the park.



After walking on the flat for ~3 hours the trail climbed steeply for 2.5 hours up to French Ridge hut.




Victory photo with a kea in the background. Also, mountains.


Day 2 we head up the French Ridge. We started pretty early to get more time on the nice frozen crust of the snow from the cold night. When hiking in the snow you often want a frozen crust as it is good for crampon walking which is often faster than pushing/sinking into the snow with your boots.




Where we came from:


A video of Mary and Dale going up the Ridge. Not a good video really but it can give an idea of what some of the walk was like.




Stopped for a bite to eat... Funny story: I was eating one "One Square Meal" bar as a breakfast but it turns out that it is actually two OSM bars = 1 meal so that explains why I kept needing snacks at ~ 9 AM. Oh and the funny hat is Dale's. Because I did not bring sunglasses he suggested I wear it to try to protect my eyes. I was very gracious.


After 2 hours we reached the top. Here's looking across Bonar Glacier (in cloud) to Mt. Aspiring itself.


A Panoramic Dale put together of us standing on the Quarterdeck Pass with French Ridge just above us, Mt. Aspiring in the back, the Bonar Glacier in the middle, and Mt. Avalanche on the right.


And we headed down.



A video of Mary skillfully coming down the hill. This was her first time using crampons on a snowy walk (she'd used them on the glaciers on the West Coast before) and she was worried it would be difficult to go downhill. She did excellently of course!



Glissade! Yes, that means sliding down where it's safe because it is faster and easier.

What took us two hours to go up only took an hour to go down. From French Ridge Hut it was another ~3 hours to Aspiring Hut where we intended to stay for the night. The views were beautiful but very similar to the ones from our trip in.

I must reiterate that this has been my favorite tramp in New Zealand so far. It sparked my interest in Mountaineering which I hope I can get into sometime soon. Getting up to that saddle and looking across the glacier to the top of Aspiring (only another 900 meters to the top!!) made me wish I had the skill to A) walk across the glacier to the base of Aspiring and B) climb it safely. Maybe next time.