Mt. Sealy

This weekend (May 11^th) I joined forces with a crew from CHCH (Rose, Lauren, and Chis)  for an attempt on Mt Sealy in Mt. Cook NP.   We drove down Friday and tried to do the approach on Saturday.   The trouble is that despite what my internal clock says right now, it’s fall here, which means that the conditions are touchy at best.  The weather was locker, but a meter of new snow had fallen.   This made the traveling through talus a nightmare and turned the glacier into what I would describe as potato chips—never know when you’d pop through.   As such we decided to just hang around at a bivy about a km from the Mueller hut, watch serac falls, and wish we had brought along a flask.   It’s the way fall mountaineering goes.   I was quite happy to get up high after a week or two of bad weather and I’m now very sore from the 2000 plus steps down from the Sealy Tarns. 

A cloudy Mt. Cook from Sealy Tarns.

The death seracs off Mt. Sefton,  so much ice fall!

Chris' girlfriend Sally joined us up to the Muller hut.

Rose, turning the corner towards the Muller hut.

Just past the hut.  Mt Sealy dead ahead and the Muller glacier down right.

Lauren getting flummoxed by his borrowed sleeping bag...
Seriously who makes a sleeping bag without a zipper.
Chris and Lauren decided to Bivy outside while Rose and I tented it.

Mt Sealy at first light.

The Frind Glacier coming off of Mt. Sefton.

The Muller Glacier heading up to the Welch Glacier.

Rose acting fancy in stripes and sunglasses for Mt. Cook.

The crew minus Rose (photographer)  just before the
quad killing decent down to the Hooker Valley.