New Zealand's Arthurs Pass National Park is littered with mountains. Many of these peaks provide exceptional winter mountaineering experiences, so choosing which one to tackle is difficult. For this particular weekend, Trailcutter was keen to take on Mount Philistine after seeing one of her friend's pictures from the prior day.
The weather on our chosen summit day could have been better, with rain in the afternoon and thick clouds in the morning. But with the cloud cover laying low enough into the valley through midday, it seemed that the summit would have some views for us to enjoy—or at least that was the hope. So, with fingers crossed, we left home at 3:30 am and headed for the Otira Valley Track. We arrived at 5:30 am, hopped out of the car, and headed for our summit attempt.
The first section of the track up to the footbridge only took us around 45 minutes, and then we were on our way up the climber's track.
After crossing the footbridge, the first section of track heads directly up a steep hill made of scree and talus. While there is a faint climber's path leading up to the top of the scree field, it wasn't easy to follow in the thick fog at 6:00 am. About halfway up the scree field, we lost the track and headed straight up the scree and talus (not recommended).
On our return trip, we discovered that the climber's trail up Mount Philistine crosses the scree field to the climber's right, rises to the ridge, and has a solid footpath to follow. While returning, Trailcutter left a cairn at the spot where we lost the climber's trail, so hopefully, the next group won't suffer the same fate.
Past the scree field, we traversed across the east face of Mount Philistine, mainly following the tracks of others. We did need to check the topo map a few times, but most of the traverse was easy to navigate.
Once we started to make our ascent up the east face, we located a set of footprints that (mostly) led in one direction. So, from here, we followed as we rose uphill. The only thing that slowed our ascent considerably was the snow. Much of the top layer was made of icy crust, while the snow underneath was essentially powder from the previous week of snowfall. This made the post-holing, even in the previous climbers' tracks, a tough go.
As we approached the summit base of Mount Philistine, the clouds slowly swirled around and cleared up, giving us a view of the summit face and the remainder of our climb. From below the summit, it does not look like it is very steep, but about halfway up, the slope increases to around 45 degrees. The slope angle, combined with the fact that the snow was icy all the way up the face, made crampons and ice axes a necessity.
Mount Philistine's summit treated us to some incredible views for the day. All around us, the clouds sat low in the valley, exposing the tips of many surrounding peaks. We were also lucky enough to have the summit and the climb to ourselves for the entire day.
After some photography, a small lunch, and some hot tea, we descended back to our car. Our timing for the day was perfect. Rain was supposed to be rolling in at around 2 pm, and we landed back on the Otira Valley Track around 2:30 after a light rain started falling.
Mount Philistine was an excellent first climb to experience winter mountaineering in New Zealand.
