When Raff asked me to climb Mount Warspite on Tuesday, I had my doubts. The Scrambles book made this sound like a serious endeavour: 8-12 hours and Raff wanted to start in the afternoon! But Raff had heard from Frank Nelson that it was a moderate scramble that could be done in a short time. He clinched my interest when he told me Tuesday was the last nice day before the weather turned cold and wet. I agreed to join him.

We arrived at the Black Prince trailhead and set off at a brisk pace at 2:45 pm. It was warm and the weather looked promising although smoke haze dulled distance views. We moved quickly up the trail to the hanging valley. Mount Warspite sat at the end, commanding attention. It took longer than I expected to cross the valley and reach the gully leading to the col. Ascending the gully was not easy. The soft dirt mixed with loose rocks was worse than scree.

We hugged the right side as it afforded some solid rock but it steepened considerably as we ascended. We ended up in a narrow side gully that wasn't safe: a loosed rock could funnel down to a partner below. The broad main gully is safer to ascend for parties.

When Raff appeared directly below me, I was able to slip over to the next gully on my left. In this gully the rock was even more crumbly and I inadvertently launched debris harmlessly down. I worked my way left hoping to get into the main gully but the ridge of rock I was on dropped down steeply. I continued ascending and hoped the ridge would flatten out. It did and I made it to the edge of the main gully. I gave a thumbs-up to Raff to let him know the way was clear.

From there we followed a sheep trail in the soft, black scree that led to the col. From the col Warspite looks stately, like a towering cathedral. It didn't look possible to scramble up so when Raff said, "Let's check it out," I mused that he might have said, "Let's chicken out ." We went to check it out.

From the col, Kane's route description was clear and accurate. We ascended left of the chimney. After reaching a shoulder things began to look better and we did much of the ascent simply by following trails in the scree, but a couple of tricky spots merit a difficult rating. The worst section is a crumbling rock band, but searching around we found solid rock to scramble up.

At one point, where we failed to consult the description, Raff scrambled up a steep rock section. He was already committed to climbing up but I turned back and hiked up the ridge to meet him. A few minutes later we were on the summit.

We spent maybe 20 minutes taking pictures and looking around before deciding it was time to go. We retraced our steps to the col. From the col we followed the animal tracks until they disappeared. Then we made our own tracks in the scree of the main gully until we reached the bottom. Daylight had faded to the point my camera baulked at taking photos. We reached the trail and left the hanging valley.

To our surprise it rained for a while. Soon after the rain had ceased, it became too dark to see well and we brought out headlamps. For the next 45 minutes, they would light our way back to the car.

Mount Warspite is not the long, difficult scramble I expected. Except for a couple difficult sections, it's largely an enjoyable, scenic hike and a short one at that.

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