The First Ascent of the West Face of Mount Grave

The west face of Mt Grave as seen from Cascade Peak, with approximate route and first bivi site shown in red. Dotted line indicates unroped travel.

Team members Tanja de Wilde and Rose Pearson ventured up the rarely visited Bowen Valley and made the first ascent of the West Face of Mount Grave. The ascent was made over three days. The first day they hiked and waded up the Bowen valley then simul climbed through the access slabs at 1000-1200m to reach a high bivi on lower angle slabs at 1400m. They next day they climbed the 700m upper face to top out on point 2135. The climbing began with 300m of grade 12-15 along a right trending ramp (simul climbed), then up a corner system (five pitches of grade 15-18), and then right (80m grate 12-15 simul climbed) onto the prominent upper buttress (two pitches of grade 18), before continuing to point 2135m via 150m of grade 12-15 (simul climbed). Here they were met with some involved ridge travel as dusk approached, so they dropped just below the summit ridge on the upper East Face to find snow melt and a good bivi spot. The next morning they continued along the ridge to the summit of Mount Grave. They descended via the NE ridge with 4 rappels, then took the slabs descenders right of Graves Couloir accessed from point 1901m.

The team named their route 'The Pregnant Porter' after some banter about the hilarious size miss-match between the leader and seconder packs, and the physical condition of one of the party during the ascent.

Access beta: Up the Bowen Valley see Strava link, our actual climb see Strava link, and for access over Mt Grave and down the Tutoko valley see Strava link.

Rack and Equipment Beta: We took 60m half and triple rated ropes, simuling on just the triple rated. We took a double rack to #3 and a single #4 with a single set of nuts and two micro-traxons. We carried but didn't use some knifebalde pitons incase we needed to retreat. We open bivied both nights using the Macpac summer weight quilt, and an MSR windburner. We took 3L of water capacity and relied on snow melt at our bivis. We used the Macpac pursuit packs - 25L for the leader and 50L for the seconder - and used the foam back mats to sleep on.

This trip capped off an excellent summer season for Tanja with three significant first ascents (others see: DJ Wilde, Donne Face of Resolution) in the Darran mountains!

Entering the corner system

Climbing in the corner system

One of the grade 18 pitches on the upper buttress

View down from the upper buttress

Moving along the summit ridge as sunset looms close

The ridge from point 2135 to the summit of Mount Grave

The ridge travel

Our second bivi spot on the upper East Face just down from pt 2135

Summit!

The abseil descent off the summit of Mount Grave down the steep North East Ridge.

The route viewed from the bivi spot above the access slabs