Distance: 4.6 km (5.0 DOC hours) - Unmarked route, hard - Hard terrain
Altitude: 1404m to 1695m. Gain: 411m. Loss: 146m . Gradient: 7 deg
Skills: Mountaineering (6/7)

Unmarked route, hard (8/9)
Unmarked route, no clear geographic features to follow

minor (5/5)
A viable route, not widely used

Unknown (difficulty: 0/5)
Not specified

Hard (difficulty: 5/5)
Thick scrub-bash / continuous river boulders, waterfalls, or gorges

Mountaineering (difficulty: 6/7)
Mountaineering route - technical equipment & skills required

Unknown (difficulty: 0/6)
Not specified

Unknown (difficulty: 0/7)
Not specified

Traverse the wide tussock shelf past tarns to reach Lennox Creek. The creek is a deep gorge and it requires scouting to find a route across and down the other side. It also requires climbing and abseiling ability is an exposed situation. We ascended 100-150m to a rocky buttress, stepped across the gorge, followed by a 5m belayed vertical climb to another rocky outcrop. Then two abseils (one about 20m off a wire, second about 30m off some boulders) to reach the walkable tussock shelf/slope. We then kept the height and traversed until we could make a rising traverse to Lennox Pass. It would probably have been smarter to descend 100-150m on the slopes below pt 2026 to avoid some steeper craggier sections.

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

No description