Elevation: 2516m

Route: North West Ridge – Alpine Grade 2 – 4th class, glacier travel, steep snow, terrible rock.

Access: Brewster Hut Track up Haast Pass.

Description:

I would say to the average person Mt. Brewster’s Glacier is more famous than the mountain itself. The tarn has become an absolute instagram sensation and it is attracting hoards of people now. I won’t describe the track to the glacier as I’ll have other posts that discuss it.

We boosted up to the tarn after work and set up camp. We ate a little snack and tried to scope the route out for the following day. There are three distinct snow slopes on the West Face of the mountain. We saw what we thought was a track on the middle slope but a bergschrund had obviously obstructed that face. The leftmost slope looked the most enticing. No serious cracks on the face. With our route decided we headed off to bed. We aimed to leave camp at 4:30 the next morning.

There used to be an easy way up on the right side of this cave.

I remember laying there in bed wondering why I do this sport. It’s not uncommon for me to get a little anxious before attempting a new route. I spent probably an hour laying in my tent thinking about it as I tried to fall asleep on my lovely inflatable mat.

I dozed off for what was probably an hour and then my phone started buzzing and lighting up. Feeling well rested from my siesta I got up, sucked back a watery Radix breakfast and got on the track. We followed the river on the right side to where the big cave is in the glacier that everyone takes pictures at. There used to be a snow ramp that connected the glacier to the rock slabs but the last I saw it had collapsed.

Once you step onto the Brewster Glacier it expands into what feels like its own, icy world. Mt. Brewster falls back into the distance and you move across it, feeling like you are gaining no ground. Some may find it unnecessary considering how mellow the glacier is but we decided to rope up. I’d just hate to be a statistic and the last season’s snow was still covering the glacier so it’s hard to say what the risks were.

After an hour of what felt like endless walking across this moonscape we were finally pushing up the face. Slope started off quite moderate. We front pointed and kicked up the snowy slope, skirting around the occasional crack in the ice. As we moved up the mountain, this slope expanded into a steep bowl. The headwall at the back was steeper and taller than we had initially thought. We found an exit onto a rocky spur climber’s right. We climbed up the rock as far as we could but it eventually petered out. We were left with a steep, hard slope in front of us. I had only brought one axe and, to be fair, I believe that was still the right call. The slope was maybe 30-40 metres tall. We took it slow and kicked up the slope. At the time it felt like our bellies were basically grazing the snow.

Sam ascending the steep snow on the snowy face of Mt. Brewster.

Happy to be on the top of the snow slop. We followed this ramp to the peaks of Mt. Brewster.

The face ended on a narrow snow ramp that connected the lower edge of the ridge to the higher features. We followed this snow ramp, feeling much more at ease. We hit the first rocky ridge to the middle peak of Mt. Brewster. The rock is shocking. It’s a mix of dirt, pebbles, and loose boulders. It is easy climbing though. We were up the middle peak in no time at all. All that was left was this narrow ridge that cuts across the mountain and abruptly drops off before the high peak. We worked along the ridge, bypassing all difficulties on the North face. Where the ridge falls off you can rappel. We ended up just finding a pretty straightforward route leading down and around the cliff so we were able to avoid the headache of setting up a rappel. As we passed the cliff we were shocked at how easily rocks flaked off the face.

The rock ridge on Mt. Brewster.

From the bottom of the cliff to the high peak it’s very easy scrambling. 3 hours after leaving camp we were at the summit of Mt. Brewster. We were treated to clear views in all directions. You could see all the way to Aoraki. Mt. Aspiring also stick out to the south.

The boys on the summit of Mt. Brewster.

Ascending the snow ramp to reach the lower ridge of the mountain for our descent.

The only notable thing about the descent is that we followed the rocky ridge the whole way back, rather than descending the steep snow. It was far easier and probably saved a decent amount of time. It was 6 hours from camp to camp.

A long walk awaits us as we make our way back to camp.