Description

If you are hanging out in the Queenstown area and looking at the topo maps long enough you will spot Lake Hope.

Being quite aways from the Remarkables ski resort it is easy to turn this into a multiple day trip.

When we did this we didn’t have a lot of time so we ordered a helicopter to take us there.

While you can choose either way I will write this up so you know what to expect if you decided to check out the area. For us this trip started at Hope Lake where after looking at the surrounding terrain for awhile our attention focused on point 2090.

Seeing that there were numerous good aspect we decided to put in a single bootpack which would allow us 3 separate runs.

Leaving from the lake we started skinning up the northwest shore.

Getting into the upper basin there is an obvious couloir which when climbed with crampons makes its way to the summit ridge before arriving on the summit.

For our first run we rode back down where we had climbed making sure not to go over our bootpack back to the upper basin where we used our bootpack to get back up to the summit.

Standing on top of Point 2090 we rode a small ways down the north ridge before once again dropping into the west bowl.

Arriving back at the upper basin it was time for one final hike to the summit to ride the southeast facing slopes.

Riding down from up top you need to follow the southern ridge a small ways before riding onto the face.

After around 100 meters of fall line turns make a hard traverse to the skiers left where once almost reaching the next ridge you can ride fall line where the moment it starts getting flatter you need to do a hard traverse back to the shores of Lake Hope. Exiting is a challenge no matter which way you choose but for us it was via helicopter so I would just go back via the way you came in. For more pictures and the full story check out this link https://www.whereiskylemiller.com/new-zealand/hope-lake/