Terra leads through the corner on the Craig route, Pyramid Face of Mt Lloyd.

In the baking hot summer of 2008, Canadian-Kiwi Terra Dumont and Jeremy Haines ventured up Fred's Stream in the Ben Ohau Range, which runs along the western side of Lake Pukaki. At the head of the stream, the buttresses and slabs on Mt Lloyd and Mt Cran offer multipitch rock climbing in summer. Many of the summer rock routes were first climbed in the mid-90s, though climbers did venture into the area well before that, with Samuel Turner and Frank Milne climbing the south face of Mt Cran in 1918. (Read about winter climbing done in this area here.)

After waiting nearly a day for the rain to clear, Jeremy and I head up Fred's Stream with ropes, slings, a full rack, ice axes, crampons, six-days worth of food, a Microlight tent fly, half a toothbrush and a spoon. An hour later darkness falls, so we pitch the fly in the stream bed.

The next morning we continue upstream, reaching the junction leading to Mt Lloyd a few hours later. The sheer face jutting into the sky makes my stomach do a few somersaults. I begin to wonder if I should check myself into a mental institute for even thinking of climbing it. Clouds are pouring over its summit, smattering us with rain, so we decide to snooze in the sun on the other side of the valley until the weather clears. When we reach the base of Mt Lloyd a few hours later, we set up camp on the scree ridge to the true right of the mountain, where we will descend from our climb.

We decide to do a few pitches of Craig, the route up the arête on Mt Lloyd, before dinner. I have previously done a grand total of two trad climbs no longer than two pitches.

Jeremy takes the first pitch, a steady 15 finishing at a nice ledge 50m above, with big rocks to belay off – something we will happily find at the top of most pitches. The next two pitches are easier, just steep scrambling. I end up with the fourth pitch. It has a nice little crux of about 16 with no protection through the crux, and then thankfully eases off to about a 13. After finishing that pitch, we are hungry and so abseil off, excited about the prospect of completing the route tomorrow.

Craig, 4+, Pyramid Face of Mt Lloyd

Jeremy takes on the gendarmes on Mt Lloyd.

After the sun begins to beat on Mt Lloyd – sun is one of life’s necessities for Jeremy – we head back up. We carry one pack, containing our boots, food and water, and we keep switching so that it is carried by the seconder. This time, I take the first pitch so I don’t have to lead the dreaded fourth pitch again.

We arrive at the gendarmes on the sixth pitch. The climbing looks good but I feel there is a lack of protection so I give it to Jeremy. Following him, I am certainly glad I did!

We climb the gendarme then drop down before heading up another. After belaying me down the second gendarme and onto a ledge, Jeremy then loops the rope around the gendarme and abseils off. A pitch of rotten, damp, moss-covered grade 16 rock follows and I talk Jeremy into climbing it. The guide book says to follow the line of weakness, but Jeremy decides to head straight up and slightly left, as this gets us back onto the ridge much quicker.

We reach a corner of supposedly grade 15 climbing. The person who decided this was a grade 15 pitch must surely have been climbing something else or perhaps we are in the wrong spot. In my experience, grade 15 is not two smooth walls joined at 45-degrees with a little hold every few metres! Luckily, I can shove cams into the crack joining the slabs, so it's easy to protect. The corner ends in a roof comprising boulders jammed in a crack. Yay for awesome sling placements! I then run out of rope – time for my first hanging belay on loose rock. I shove in every piece of gear I have left and call 'safe'.

We regain the main ridge and follow it to avoid the final grade 18 pitch. Scrambling up a pile of large boulders, I realise – to my relief – it is the summit! I have thoroughly enjoyed myself, and am knackered.

The dynamic Miss Dumont on the summit of Mt Lloyd, with Lake Pukaki in the distance.

We work our way down, then up and over the next mini peak on the ridge to a scree slope, where we put on our tamping boots. As there is still plenty of daylight left, we decide to summit Mt Lloyd proper – the Pyramid Face is actually quite a way from the true summit and connected to it by a broken ridge. We dump most of the gear, minus our harnesses and one half rope, and walk up. We only need the rope once when crossing over to the other side of the ridge. The view from the summit is fabulous, looking over to Mt Cook, the Nuns Veil and beyond. After taking a few pictures and gazing at the view, Jeremy finds out what happens to me when my lunch is withheld until 5pm... By 10pm we are home, sweet home.

The next day is spent flat out – in the Microlight. I manage to entice Jeremy to explore some short climbs in the evening. We can't find any of the routes in the guide book but do two fun climbs anyway.

Deep Purple, 4, Mt Cran

Given that Mt Cran is substantially higher than the Pyramid Face and the SAR guys said they had trouble getting off it (though we don't know which route they tried), we decide an early start is required and by 8am we are on our way. This time we carry two packs as we also have crampons and an ice tool each, but we keep one pack lighter for the leader.

Deep Purple was first climbed by Bill McLeod in 1994 and is described as 'Two pitches of about grade 14, then 450m of make-you-think climbing. A further 250m of easy angle terrain leads to the summit'. The first two pitches are as expected but then it doesn’t ease off into anything we feel comfortable soloing so we keep pitching. And the rock keeps disintegrating. So, for future reference, Bill's 'make-you-think climbing' translates to grade 14 rotten vertical rock for us mere mortals. I’m not sure if I will ever look at rock the same way again, or use a hold before thoroughly testing it. The climbing involves wiggling every hold as hard as I dare, then weighting it gingerly. Protection consists of a few cams interspersed with creative sling placements. A sling placed on a small flat ledge with rocks piled on top of it is considered good gear. Three runners over 50m is a well protected pitch. The best runner of the day goes to Jeremy. I was cleaning a pitch and got to his third and final runner, which was a wire. As I started to wiggle it out, the rock fell away!

Terra descending Mt Cran.

After half a dozen or so of these pitches, the exposure decreases and the grade eases off so we simulclimb for a while to the next lot of dodgy pitches. By this point, there is really no way we can get off the mountain easily so the best idea is to keep going up. At last, from the best belay of the day – a nice big hole – I realise we have completed the steepest section. We take off our climbing shoes, put on our boots and begin walking, dragging the rope between us. A little while later we put the rope away and scramble to the lower summit. The gradient is easier, as Bill had said, but only compared with what we have already climbed.

It's getting toward evening so we decide not to bother climbing the true summit – especially as we don’t know what the descent has in store for us. We take the ridge on the Mt Lloyd side down and to our relief, we encounter no difficulties and the rope is never needed. It keeps looking like the easy terrain could peter out any moment but it just keeps going. We even see some little deer-like animals and wish we could run up and down cliffs like them.

Soon enough, we reach the snow slope, where we follow the 'schrund as far as possible, then Jeremy belays me down the steepest bit. He makes an anchor for himself by poking two holes through the 'schrund, then threading the rope through. From here, we walk down snow then scree to the ever-patient Microlight fly, which we don’t leave the comfort of for a good 36 hours.