An aerial shot of the west face of Mt. Lendenfeld (3203m), the sixth-highest peak in New Zealand. On December 12, Allan Uren, Julian White and Tim Robinson established the nine-pitch route, The Mutant, visible as the very thin white line just inside the shade in the middle of the photo. [Photo] Allan Uren
The prolific New Zealand alpinist Allan Uren has been at it again, this time on the west face of Mt. Lendenfeld (3203m), next to Mt. Tasman in the Mount Cook National Park, South Island. Alpinist readers will remember Uren from Issue 5, which included Uren’s note on Natural Gas, the new route he established with Dave Vass and Rich Turner on the west peak of Haast (3081m) in the same area in an eighteen-hour push. On December 12, Uren, along with Julian White and Tim Robinson, returned to the Tasman area to establish The Mutant on Lendenfeld, the sixth-highest peak in New Zealand. Uren described the nine-pitch line as “one of the most aesthetic new routes I’ve put up.” The route includes five very steep and technical pitches, most of which went free (aid was used after a fall during an attempt to freeclimb the crux). The typically understated Uren says of the route, “It will become a classic, I reckon.”
Allan Uren on the first ascent of The Mutant. Uren is on the pitch before the crux in this photo. [Photo] Allan Uren
The first five pitches of The Mutant, west face, Mt. Lendenfeld (3203m), Mount Cook National Park, New Zealand. [Photo] Allan Uren