Description

This popular circuit provides a short day of mountaineering from the Plateau hut, perfect for your first day based from the hut or after a morning helicopter journey in.

The route has a bit of everything and is a great way of gearing up body and mind for more the more challenging objectives hereabouts.

It has some steep snow, rocky scrambling, optional abseils and glacial travel.

It can be climbed in either direction although most popular way of doing it is in an anti-clockwise loop. Head easily up the broad ridge behind the hut to a short but steep snow slope leading to a steepening before the first summit.

The next section often requires some icy front pointing and a little rocky scrambling to reach the summit of the first peak.

You can also climb, with greater difficulty, up the snow slopes to the left/west of the ridge.

There's usually some abseil tat in place so that you can abseil or lower down the short gully on the other side to re-gain the ridge which is descended to a wide snowy col. The second summit is a continuation of the ridge and provides a short but punchy rocky scramble with protection in the form of slings and cams.

This brings you to a broad summit where you can decide upon whether you'd like to extend your day and do a return journey or go for the walking route back along the glacier.

If you choose the latter, descend the other side easily to the flat of the glacier which can be followed back to the hut.