Mt Anne VS Federation??

[samh]

Does anyone have information on the current weather situation at Mt. Anne, I plan to have a night at the Mt Eliza plateau this week sometime. Has anyone camped up there apart from the site at shelf camp? After some bad experience I would like to avoid camping on rock.


thanks, sam

[ILUVSWTAS]

Plenty of good camping areas up there! Probably alot of snow still about though which would be my only worry unless you were suitably prepared.
Just before Eve peak there is a lovely little tarn with reasonable shelter..

[eggs]

A long time ago - and back on page 1 of this thread, Tasadam put up some aerial photos of Federation Peak.
There followed some discussion of the direct ascent route.
Neither Tasadam nor myself have ever done this route (but we can dream).

Since then, Tasadam has kindly lent me the photos and by pouring over photos and videos from the web and with assistance & comments from scrubmaster (who has been several times - sometimes preferring the more "interesting" routes) and klaashartman (who recently did a 25 hour return ascent) I have marked up where I think the Southern Traverse (yellow) and the Direct Ascent are (red).

This is put up with acknowledgements to Tasadam as the photo owner, and with the disclaimer that this is not to be taken as an accurate description, but is a guestimate. I believe the route is cairned and people should trust their own judgements when attempting this route.

However, I will gladly take comments if people wish to provide known corrections to the route shown.
The photo is quite detailed - click on it to drill down and enlarge.

Aerial photo of Federation Peak with approx path of Southern Traverse in yellow & Direct Ascent in red.

[ILUVSWTAS]

Top job eggs! Looks pretty good, What it doesnt show is how steep Geeves Gully is though....

[eggs]

Yes - after posting this I was just admiring a photo looking down the gully
- could the Southern Traverse actually descend further past the shoulder jutting out before heading back up the gully? Or does it head up Geeves Gully directly from that shoulder?
I believe the route prior to Geeves Gully which descends to that point has a chockstone in it - which you can actually see in the photo. Which is why I show the track disappearing for a while as it runs down that groove and under the stone.

[ILUVSWTAS]

Yeh im not actually sure. It's very hard to tell from this angle, and the day we went through the southern traverse it was pretty foggy so we couldnt see anything! It does go UP a fairly long way though, then drops down to Bechavise (?) Plateau

[eggs]

Well I have done the climb now, and while I am not confident this is exactly right, I believe it is more accurate than my earlier musings.

I think the climb is along the red line

[Mechanic-AL]

After looking at a few of these shots my admiration for Jack Thwaites continues to grow.
He was 75 when he finally signed his name in the summit log book after having had 3 failed cracks at it previously.

A true legend ( with teflon coated knees it seems !! ).

[beardless]

The day after climbing Federation Peak, a group of three fit blokes attempted to do so but they could not find the route. We spotted them when we were scrambling along the Southern Traverse. We could not make out the correct route to shout out advice other than to follow the rock cairns.

One of the guys kept exploring around to the right.

I took a few photos. It looked super airy where they were.

I am interested if anyone can discern how close they were to the actual route. They said that ended up with some really dangerous climbing but could not make it up.

Federation Peak can be as hard as you want to make it, particularly if you make a wrong turn.

After climbing Anne this year and Federation Peak last year, I would say that the first part of the real climb of Anne across the ledges is as as exposed as anything on Federation Peak. However, I think Federation Peak along the direct ascent is a longer climb and a slip would lead to a much longer fall.

[eggs]

They lost the track low down.
I have attached my map showing the direct ascent in red [but I still have difficulty plotting this lower section ?? hence a couple of lines? - my photos do not make it clear - but I seem to remember the cairns being fairly straight forward]
- the alternative via Geeves Gully which has a technical rock climb to start out of view on the other side in yellow, and the place your group is photographed at as an orange star - with orange arrow.
Click on the photo to drill into detail.

The route they are taking looks obvious initially, but the direct ascent route climbs up some rock faces early on to exit the gully and works up to traverse back and forth across the face higher up.
Note that your photo does not cover the faces for the direct ascent.
My photos from Geeves Bluff were better, but the lower sections are still obscured. Tasadams aerial photos which I have used above are about the only way to get a really clear view of it.

[beardless]

Thanks Eggs. That makes sense. We could not help with the route as it was not in view. It is a good thing we did not suggest a way.