After a botched attempt to make it to the island without ferry reservations Friday afternoon, Francis, Andrea, Ashley and I were scrambling to find something to do for the weekend. We were craving alpine rock. Someone threw out the Tantalus, Francis called and found Heli availability, and just like that we were booked (feel free to mock us for flying in).
The original plan was Francis and I were going to go for the SW Buttress of Dione. However, our pilot took the scenic route in and flew us by the Red Tusk, which looked amazing and rugged, with craggy spires and ridges jutting through an inversion layer. We had discussed doing this infamous peak before - not too much beta online, reports of difficult climbing and chossy rock, all made for an intriguing objective, but we were craving alpine rock and were leaning towrads Dione. However, after seeing how rad it looked in person we immediately changed plans to go for it as the primary objective of the day.
Our helicopter dropped us off by the Haberl Hut around 0920h and by 1000h all of us were hiking towards the Seratus - Lycia col. Ashley and Andrea were planning to climb the NE Buttress of Ionia which the guidebook claimed was some of the best rock in the range at mid 5th, with no fixed gear / rappels.
With each of our objectives in mind, Francis and I took off and gunned it down the Ionia glacier. We climbed up to the Pandareous col and went over a bit of rock onto the snow on the other side. We then gained the col with the Red Tusk. The clouds were swirling and low so we couldn’t really see where we were going, but knew we were on the ridge now, which seemed to be 4th class slabby rock.
We decided to switch to rock shoes, and then started scrambling up, taking a ramp on the climbers right to bypass a steep gendarme / prow on the ridge and gain the crest more easily. Once on the main ridge crest, we found the scrambling generally very easy, so long as you are comfy and experienced on loose rock. Never too difficult, and without too much deviation from the crest necessary to dodge gendarmes.
Before we knew it, we were staring up the summit block. There was a low angle tech slab below a chimney feature that looked the easiest way to the top. We debated roping up, but decided to at least scramble the slab first, and then found ourselves in a bay below the chimney. The rock here was actually of good quality now (reminiscent of the gabbro type rock you find on the North Shore), but this chimney was not really protectable, so we both soloed the ~5.6/5.7 moves (not long lived) and then were on the summit!
Low clouds meant not too many views, so we quickly built a rap anchor and did a 30m rappel, depositing us above that tech slab. We downclimbed that, and then reversed the scramble until we were back at the Pandareous col, where we got back onto the Ionia Glacier.
Overall, this peak is very aesthetic and is the crown jewel of this little cirque in the range, but it’s reputation definitely overstates it’s difficulty if you have some chossineering experience.
We wanted some alpine rock pitches still, so went to join up with Andrea and Ashley on Ionia. The route turned out to be mega sandbagged and more involved than advertised, so we ended up bailing to make it back to camp before dark. Will be back for it, but don’t follow the GPS I put on peakbagger for that track portion obviously.