“On a Mish” #9 It’s Bigger Than (Part Three). Cecil Peak(1978m). Cecil Peak Station. Eyre Mountains. 15.3.2014. Some mountains play tricks on people by hiding their true identity. What can be seen from the base might not be the same story when approaching the top. Cecil Peak near Queenstown is a perfect example of this. The fact that a lower summit is all that is seen from the town makes many think the peak is an easy stroll. But with a little bit of study and then a whole lot of sweat, you will find that the mountain’s true summit is much bigger than what is seen from the town fit for a Queen…
The route up Bare Spur is made very obvious by the animal tracks that all follow the same path. It is a testament to what mountain goats can do and the places that their skinny and yet incredibly powerful legs will take them. I’m positive that my girlfriend and I weren’t traveling at the speed of a mountain goat, but we were following the same path they use to get into the high hill tops.
After a good morning grunt, we arrived at the saddle at the top of Bare Spur. The view back down to Lake Wakatipu was mind blowing and we could now see the mountains’ true summit and the challenge we would face getting up it. After catching our breath, we clambered over the piles of schist rock to get to the base of the final climb.
I spotted a gully / gut which looked like it would get us up onto the summit ridge. From a distance it looked unstable, and when we were close up to it, it looked even worse. For safety’s sake it was one at a time while tackling this part, and after accidentally dislodging a rock and watching it tumble, I was reassured that one at a time was a good decision.
The summit ridge provided a couple of minor challenges and some exposure, but apart from that it was reasonably straight forward. We had climbed 1670 metres since leaving our bivouac on the shores of Lake Wakatipu and now we were on top of a mountain I had wanted to climb ever since moving to Queenstown in 2008. It had been a long time in the making, and I guess that added to the epicness!
From the top we could see so many places we were familiar with. Normally most see views like this as they depart Queenstown in an aeroplane, it is amazing where your feet (and hands) can get you sometimes. While we were immensely proud of ourselves and what we had accomplished, we knew we were only halfway and still needed to get ourselves back down to lake level before we could relax. It is at moments like this that you sometimes wish that the mountain you had just climbed was not much, much bigger than those viewing it from a distance think…
