There`s nothing like the human tongue to put you in perspective (or cut you down to size, depending on how robust you`re feeling at the time). Mattheus Schreiber and I knew we hadn`t broken any speed records on the east ridge of Mount Cook, but we were a couple of greenies and, what the heck, we had done it! We had left the Grand Plateau Hut at midnight on Sunday and didn`t roll back in until 5 o`clock on Tuesday morning, having been more or less continually on the go for 29 hours. After a while we had ceased to care about speed and efficiency and had begun to be perversely proud about the number of hours we had managed to keep going. Imagining ourselves to be the only hardcore alpinists in the range at that time, we felt a tad upstaged the following evening when two climbers also rolled in, glassy-eyed after a 40-hour ascent of neighbouring Mount Tasman. One of these was a diabetic! The note-swapping afterwards felt like a rerun of the Monty Python sketch: "When I was a lad, we used to live in a shoebox on t`motorway." "You were lucky. We used to do that, and our dad would beat us with a stick at the same time".
Back to Christchurch to stay with my Kiwi turk alpinist friend and for onward travel to Australia. "What, you took 29 hours on the east ridge of Cook? What did you do, take up tables and chairs for a picnic?"

Traversing east ridge of Mount Cook

East ridge of Mount Cook

Serac on Caroline face, Mount Cook

East ridge of Mount Cook

Mount Tasman from Cinerama Col

On Middle Peak, Mount Cook

Low on east ridge of Mount Cook

Mount Tasman from west ridge of Malte Brun

Looking down east ridge of Mount Cook

Waterfall Milford Sound

A waterfall near Rainbow Springs

Lake Quill and Sutherland Falls

Sunrise low on east ridge of Mount Cook

View down east ridge of Mount Cook

Beetham Hut beneath Malte Brun

Elie de Beaumont and Minarets

Middle and Low Peaks, Mount Cook

Moonset over Mount Tasman

Storm-clouds an hour`s drive
inland from Christchurch

The tough go shopping at
Auckland airport

River on west coast
of South Island

On the Caroline face of Mount Cook

Triumph on Mount Cook

Descending Malte Brun

Mount Tasman at sunrise

The Minarets from Tasman Glacier

Malte Brun from Tasman Glacier

Mounts Dixon and Haidinger,
Minarets and Elie de Beaumont

Looking south from Cinerama Col
before sunrise

Mount Cook`s south face from
Mount Cook Village

Sunset from summit of Mount Cook

East ridge of Mount Cook

Minarets from Malte Brun

Elie de Beaumont from
the Tasman Glacier

The Minarets behind landing
strip, Mount Cook Village

East face of Mount Cook
from Malte Brun

Descending Malte Brun

Grand Plateau Hut and toilet

Mount Cook from above Beetham Hut

Storm-clouds over Tasman Valley

Malte Brun`s north- western aspect

Storm-clouds over Tasman Valley

Moonset behind Mount Tasman
and hut toilet

Mount Cook behind Beetham
Hut on Malte Brun

South face of Mount Cook from
Mount Cook Village

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