Tanja de Wilde and Peter Le, January 2025
Over the summer Peter and I climbed a new route on the 700m tall Donne Face of Mt Revelation. The face is an excellent steep wall of good quality rock that rises from the Donne valley into the heart of the central Darrans, topping out between Karetai Pk and Mt Revelation. There were a few routes on the face already; a couple climbed in the 70s and then Richard Thomson and Dave Vass’ route ‘The Big Easy’ (2012). Peter had previously climbed The Big Easy and found it excellent. We were keen to climb another route this middle section of the wall because it looked to have the best quality rock, and lots of it. Our route is 16 pitches long featuring many fun right facing corners and some really great crack pitches.
Trip report
The first day we hiked up the Donne Valley, mostly boulder hopping in the river bed - thanks to the record low rainfall this summer this was pretty straightforward. We continued up the first section of the approach slabs, trending left until it flattens out, and stayed there for the night - there is a great bivy spot with running water below a large snow patch.
On the way up the valley we had good views of the wall and had scoped out our dream line: a series of small sickle features in the lower part of the wall and a very appealing crack in a shield of good rock in the middle of the wall. From afar the features looked so small and we weren’t sure if they would all be climbable, but we decided to give it a try. In reality, we soon discovered that everything is much bigger than it looked.
The next day we climbed most of the route, 13 of the 16 pitches. It was a bit difficult to pick where exactly to start, and half way up the first pitch it had to be down-climbed to start again. We moved over into a big corner and that went a lot better. From here on it became much easier to choose the way to climb - at the end of every right facing corner the next one would appear not too far away! After a few of these I realised gleefully that all these large corners were indeed the same tiny sickle features we had spied from the valley floor. We were on our dream line and it was climbing well, with good pro!
We met the ledge and traversed right until we found our ultimate goal - the crack system in the middle of the shield. What had looked like a splitter hand crack from the valley floor was actually at one point a stemming box between two wide cracks! We enjoyed three excellent pitches with cracks of varying types - stemming, wide cracks, a tight hands crux and then finally a 25m finger crack.
Just as it was getting dark we popped through a chimney to find a perfect bivy ledge. The ledge slopes inwards and is sheltered - it looks like a diagonal slot in the wall - although not the flattest sleeping surface it felt very reassuring and safe.
The following morning we were treated to a stunning new dawn as we looked out over the Donne valley from our bivy cave. Inspired by the beauty of this moment (as well as Peter’s American accent which makes “Dawn” sound like “Donne”), we named the route "A New Dawn”.
After drinking our last 200ml of water and sadly skipping on coffee, we climbed the last few pitches trending rightwards around the steep upper headwall and up a wide gully to reach the top of the wall. (For future parties with a bit more time and water - the steep headwall looks epic!). We walked down the Te Puoho glacier, with a couple of rappels over a steep rock steps, then stopped at the lake for a long lunch and a much needed coffee. We continued out that day via rainbow lake to moraine creek.
Route beta
Pitch lengths approximate and of course you might choose different belay spots.
Pitches 1-6: Link together a series of fun right facing corners with grades 16-19.
17. Right facing corner. 45m
16. Traverse left along grassy weakness, up another R facing corner, to belay under left side of roof. 40m
17. Awkward step left and down over some grass, to find jugs leading up to another R facing corner. 35m
19. R facing corner with a rooflet. 30m.
18. Rightward traverse along large undercling/flake, then up another R facing corner. Fun! 40m.
18. Up and left to find yet another R facing corner, continue up this to meet the big horizontal ledge that goes across the entire face. Beware of hollow flake. ~45m.
Pitch 7: Traverse right along the ledge (about 60m) until standing below the shield of best rock with cracks in the middle of it.
Pitch 8: Easy climbing up broken gully to reach the cracks. 40m.
Pitches 9-11: The crack pitches.
19. Initial hand crack through bulge, made a bit more difficult by the lichen. Then delightful parallel cracks with plenty of options - stemming, off width, wide crack, pillars - choose your adventure! Belayed on large block. 45m.
22. Cruxy steep 0.75 thin hands to a moss jug, into off width through overlap. After this you’ll be rewarded with a nice hand crack in left facing corner. 25m.
23. Great finger crack climbing - initially only fingers but becomes more variable in size towards the top. A sustained pitch. 25m.
Pitch 12: grade 14. Easy ledges. 50m.
Pitch 13: 16. Up the cave chimney behind block and step right onto ledge. 30m.
*Bivy ledge/cave here - quite good shelter, spacious for 2 , could fit 3 people, but not flat.
Pitches 14-16: Rightwards to exit up the gully.
18. Move right along the ledge. Climb up and right to meet the gully, aiming to join it higher up where the rock quality improves. 50m.
18. Up the gully. Crux step is a bridging corner with two wide cracks. 60m.
Easy climbing up the rest of the gully (~60m) then scramble up and right (~100m). There is a final 15m step to get onto the ridge which is steeper and required a short pitch. Could be climbed in several places. We chose the prominent wide crack/offwidth.
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