I presume you’re going in via the Hodder, which is an easy day in to the Hodder Huts as long as the river isn’t up, but with heaps of river crossings.

From the Hodder Huts, head upstream across the big scree slopes, then cross the river and head up into Staircase Creek. Avoid the gorgey bit at the entrance to the creek by following a track up the slope on the true right through all the spaniards. After that it’s an easy walk up the valley to the basin at the head. From the head of Staircase Creek, head up to the broad saddle between Alarm and a towering rock outcrop on the skyline to the left. (if you’re going up Tappy, the easiest route is up the snow slopes and broad snow gully immediately to the left of this rock outcrop.) From the saddle, the easiest route up Alarm is straight up the leading ridge. The first two thirds is straightforward – it’s not as steep at it looks from a distance. Towards the top it steepens up into more of a face. Here you can clamber straight up through the rocks on the ridgeline, or else head out across the snow slopes to the right for 20 or 30 (?) metres and up a bit of a gully. Both times I’ve done it we went up the ridgeline and down the gully. You’d probably want to belay this section. Above this steep section it eases off a bit for the last short bit of ridgeline to the summit. There’s a massive vertical drop off the back from the summit, so don’t take any careless steps backwards while taking photos!

Thanks Harry, that’s great information

Not a problem.

If you haven’t been up the Hodder before, here are a few points to note.

You can do about the first 3 (?) kilometres on the farm vehicle track on the true left, as long as you get permission from the farmer beforehand (although it’s not really much slower down in the riverbed itself). If you take the farm track, you drop back down into the riverbed just after it turns a sharp corner and just before it starts climbing steeply. There is a cairned track down through the scrub into the river at this point.

The farmer is also usually happy for you to sleep overnight in his hay barn at the road bridge, as long as you’ve arranged permission first. (Sorry, I’ve forgotten his phone number.)

If you go up the riverbed from the road bridge, watch out for a major fork in the river about 3 (?) kilometres up. You want to take the branch coming in on the true left, but the branch coming in on the true right appears slightly bigger. This fork is unfortunately just off the top of the map of the Tappy area, and some parties have been known to take the wrong branch! If you take the farm vehicle track it doesn’t matter because you drop into the correct branch a couple or hundred metres upstream of the forks.

There’s a major waterfall in the river about three quarters of the way up. To avoid this there’s a track which climbs out of the river several hundred metres downstream of the waterfall itself, up a scrubby, grassy gully on the true right, then sidles around through the scrub, across a sidestream, and back into the river just above the top of the waterfall.

A few hundred metres upstream from the top of this waterfall, the track goes up onto grassy, scrubby slopes above the river on the true left, in order to avoid a gorgey section in the river. This track then leads pretty much all the way to the huts.

Regarding climbing Alarm, you definitely want to take the north-east ridge. I remember somebody (John Thompson, I think) telling me that they had climbed it via the north-west ridge and it was absolutely horrendous.

Hi Yibai

As Harry says, avoid the north-west ridge. It is incredibly loose – I got a rock in the face – I’ve got the scar to prove it just above my lip. Should have been stitched but it takes so long to walk out that it was too late by the time we got to the hospital. The funny thing was really that I made a terrible blunder in the mist and darkness – we had intended to climb Tappy but missed a 1m cairn somehow and by the time we realised the mistake decided to continue with Alarm rather that go back to go up Tappy the right way. We were there in Winter and there was a lot of ice about (not enough to hold everything together though). From memory there is a very nice looking couloir up the front of Mitre that looked worth while exploring.

John Thomson

Harry/John,

Thanks again, that’s a good advise, , by the way, John, your scar doesn’t look that bad…

Yibai

A couple of us checked out the Mitre couloir a few years ago. Just head up river past the Staircase stream turnoff. From big open flats at head of river its a very straightforward and obvious plod up the couloir if there is enough snow. It takes you up to a small mini saddle on a side spur (the main ridge looked impossible). From there it is a steep 30m drop to a steep sidle across a head of a steep gulch/bluff and sidle across small snow slopes to base of final rock scramble up rock ribs and gullies. We couldn’t find a comfortable way up thru the rock, nor could we see the top (which didn’t help) but i’m told its straightforward (so Gary says, but accunts in the hut books suggest otherwsie – the words “chossy” and “grovel” are used frequently). We turned back after scouting around in the steep rock covered in loose snow and a bit of ice to no avail. We carried rope and basic gear but didn’t use it