Pinnacle in the Leatham

Pinnacle, in central Marlborough's Leatham valley, is one of the 'top of the topo' peaks and it looked like one worth doing. When I heard it spat out epic hard man Joe Nawalaneic last August, it made me keener to go have a look. (Waihopai O29 329 326)

I put it on the Christchurch Tramping Club programme last October and six others came along with us. However bad weather meant we didn't get up the mountain. We didn't even come away with an idea of what the climb was like as the peak was swathed in cloud the whole time.

Honora and I were back to sort it out. We walked in to Boulder Stream Hut after driving up from Christchurch on the the Monday. A professional hunter from Nelson was there with and his two sons.

On Tuesday the weather wasn't looking good but we chanced it and set off up the valley to Krushen Stream. However we only got as far as the bottom of the scree before we accepted the day wasn't going to deliver.

Back at the hut the others were gone.

We got the fire going and spent the afternoon reading.

Wednesday was our walk-out day but with a pre-dawn start we were going to give Pinnacle a big push.

In the head of Krushen we climbed the big scree. The summit pyramid was still in cloud so route finding was still just guess-work. The deep loose scree led up beside the sheer rock face to the south ridge.

The south ridge seemed to just run abruptly into the unfriendly looking buttresses. However a groove couloir gave access higher. From there Honora climbed slabs and I took to a couple of short chimneys to get us onto the summit.

Yahoo.

The tedium of struggling the 600 m up the scree were fully rewarded by the magnificent 600m run back down.

We were back at the hut for lunch.

After that we packed and walked out to the road end. The plan was to drive to the West Coast for a few days tramping. Heading west heavy rain on the windscreen dampened that idea so we turned back to Marlborough.

Our problem now was where to spend the night. I'd long wanted to spend the night in the old Six Mile Creek cob cottage and this was the chance for it. Another goal achieved.