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Mt Princess
A long, but not unreasonably long, very satisfying day trip from Christchurch
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Mt Princess
We set off from Christchurch around 5, and got on the track around 9am. Forecast fog didn't appear, and we set off into a cool clear morning toward Mt McCabe
Princess Bath hid just out of view as we traversed McGabe. Snow was thin on the ground.
We took in the view, snacked, and then pushed on up the ridge towards Mt Princess.
All pretty straightforward travel, though the snow was a bit tiring to get through.
Now we could see Princess Bath, covered in snow below us.
The ridge looked a little spicy further up towards Mt Princess so we dropped to Princess Bath down a snow gully to rejoin the standard route.
A slow, tiring sidle across variable snow with sometimes deep postholes.
Then a slow boot pack up to the ridge, where we had a quick cold lunch and took in the reward of the ascent so far.
We got cold fast at our windy lunch spot so we packed up and set out towards the summit. I stopped at the false summit and Alida poked onto the true summit.
Lake Tennyson was far below us now.
We descended back down the ridge to our lunch spot.
Now it was time to descend to Princess Bath.
We tentatively walked on the frozen lake, gently, gently, and it felt like it would hold, so we carried on - much more pleasant than postholing.
Can't say I'd recommend the route we returned on in the valley where we sidled at around ~1360m. It is a slow tiring sidle and you have to drop down into two steep gulleys. I think it'd have been faster to just go down the river - but don't know how boggy that would have been.
We made it to our final downhill just as light was leaving the tops.
We got to the car on dark, and drove back to Christchurch, feeling like we deserved a good sleep!
Route Notes
We needed crampons for one section, was well worth taking them. Nowhere on the route felt particularly exposed, but it was a long day out, and navigating down through the bluffs around princess bath would be unpleasant in poor visibility. In that instance it looked like sidling under pt1906 at around the 1800-1750 contours and then dropping down a broad spur looked like a better option.
Great straightforward mountain if you can manage time on your feet!