Jono and I went for another weekend of battling snow and ice on Victoria's highest mountain. This time we brought ropes and gear and found some exceptional ice and rock mixed routes.
Pollux Outcrop, a three hour uphill slog from 600m altitude to 1800m in Victoria's alpine region.
The view as we approached the outcrop from below. The large gully at the base had recent large avalanche debris.
We dug our tent into the steep sides of the mountain. There was good ice bouldering just outside our tent!
Neil soloing a short ice problem on the right side of the outcrop.
Jono summits the classic gully route 'Deep Throat' on the Central Butress in fading light.
Jono climbs 'Slippery Dip', a compact ice gully.
Neil ponders an easy snow ramp in the Big Gully.
Neil fights his way up 'Finger of Fate', a route which climbed steep rock and ice and involved slinging a finger of ice as pro.
Jono seconds the dry tooling corner of pitch 2 of 'Finger of Fate'.
Neil leads the hardest route of the weekend 'The Freak' which involved overhung drytooling and ice climbing.
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