At around lunch time Chris, Emily, and I set off for a Forne Alpine Start with the intention of climbing Single Cone in the Remarkables above Queenstown. Just to spice things up Chris was keen to ride up the Remarkables ski access road. So we packed all the climbing gear and some food onto two mountain bikes and a road bike and headed off in the sweltering heat. Some way up Chris used a sling to tow Emily on her road bike. I continued to slog up well off their pace. At some point Chris sent Emily ahead and put me on the tow line instead and I was pulled up towards the top.
We left the bikes at the ski field and walked up to Lake Alta where we devoured a late lunch before setting off up the mountain at around 5:30 pm. Alpine start! Despite my whining that it would take too long and it would get dark the ascent was just a scramble. I was imagining some trad climbing but we didn’t even unpack the rope. The route may have been something like a NZ rock climbing grade 6?? The friction on the rock was good and there were many hand holds. No problem. Still, if it were wet or there were snow it would be quite different.
The summit surprised us. I had been imagining a long drawn-out technical ascent but it must have taken around an hour to reach it from Lake Alta.
We took many posy photos at the top before walking down the ridge to a number of fixed abseil stations. This section could have been carefully down climbed but we decided we should make use of the rope since we had it with us. So we rappelled our way merrily down taking more posy photos before descending on easy rock to Lake Alta.
We grabbed our bikes and had a fun 30 minute descent down the road back to Queenstown arriving as the sun was setting.
