Got an absolute banger of a backcountry skiing mission for you this Wednesday morning.
The video below is of skiers Joe Collison, Will Rountree, and Sam Smoothy skiing the Caroline Face of Aoraki/Mt. Cook in New Zealand. Mt. Cook is New Zealand’s tallest mountain standing 12,218′ above sea level.
Loved how the editor showed their progress by referring to a picture of the face throughout the video. It really helped me to understand their route during what looked like an absolutely intense mission.
Joe Collinson: “The second descent of the iconic Caroline face of Mt Cook on 21/10/2021. Riders – Joe Collinson, Will Rountree, Sam Smoothy. We gained the E ridge after skinning in front of the E face and climbed to middle peak, 9 hour total (the last 300m or so was WI2/3 ice so we pitched this section). We maed an 80m rappel from porter col onto the face and we super stoked to find perfect stable boot top powder the whole way down the 2000m face. A further 80m rap through the cetral serac band to the lower face. Here the overhead hazard from seracs was huge, so we skiied out to the exit as fast as we could. So stoked to get this line done, many years of planning and waiting for the perfect conditions to line up!”