NZ Alpine climbs in Feb?

[JDCH]

Howdy-

 

So I'm going on a 2.5 week honeymoon in New Zealand in February. My lovely wife has agreed to a couple of days of alpine climbing, but I need to figure out a good objective that is:

1. Easy-Moderate(read 5.7ish or WI3ish)

2. Takes 2 days or less

3. Is super fun.

 

Any suggestions?

[EastCoastBastard]

I assume you're going to the South Island? try posting on www.climber.co.nz Feb is the end of summer here (I live in NZ) and most things with a glaciated approach are very dicey by this time. If you want, you could fly in and skip a lot of the lower ice-fall type stuff and that would open up some more options. I doubt you'd be able to get much done in 1-2 days. NW ridge of Aspiring might be a good option, Cloudy Peak is non-glacieated and has some decent alpine rock. It's also in the rain shadow so it tends to have better weather than the west coast. Those would each take about 3 days. If it's not raining in the Darrans there is good alpine rock to be had there too that could be 1 or 2 day missions. BE FLEXIBLE. Most of the time the weather will shut you down. I wouldn't set aside x and y as your alpine climbing days and be able to bank on x and y having good weather.