Tititea Mount Aspiring - North Face

The only 3,000m peak outside of the Aoraki region, Tititea stands head and shoulders above most other peaks in the Otago Alps. With four distinct faces and a striking pyramid shape (when seen from a certain angle), it is sometimes dubbed the Matterhorn of the south - though with significantly better rock than its Swiss counterpart.

This is one of 5 posters of Tititea, showing all of its faces during a late summer sunrise. You can find the other ones there:

• South Face I (from a different angle, showing also the massive Southeast face of the Popes Nose, under the Bonar glacier)
• South Face II (from a different angle, showing a lot of the West Face as well)
  
• Northeast Face (very rarely climbed, a massive shield of almost impossible
• West Face (the route of the first ascent in 1909, but mostly showing the Northwest Ridge and all its variants, by far the most commonly used route to climb the mountain)

Download: Medium resolution, personal use only

Route List

1: Northeast Ridge of Aeroplane Peak, III, 3+, D. Dick, D. Lewis, H. Stevenson, 12/1936
2: North Face of Aeroplane Peak, IV, 5, D. Druce, A. Palman, 07/1995
3: West Ridge of Charybdis, II, 2, R. Barrowclough, G. Bishop, H. Stoddart, 12/1961
4: East Ridge of Scylla, II, 2+, D. Innes, L. Kennedy, 02/1969
5: Northeast Ridge of the Popes Nose, III, 3, D. Innes, L. Kennedy, 02/1969
6: Coxcomb Ridge, III, 3, R. Beedham, S. Holmes, 01/1953
7: Surgeon Spur, IV, 3, I. Bagley, L. Bruce, R. Scott, B. Wilkins, 01/1955
8: Been on a Bender, IV, 5, M. Edgar, B. Weedon, 03/1981
9: Bogie-Hyslop, IV, 3, D. Bogie, K. Hyslop, 01/1978
10: North Buttress, II, 3, D. Irvin, P. Robinson, R. Rodda, 01/1956
11: Rowntree-Smoothy, III, 3, W. Rowntree, S. Smoothy, 03/2021
12: Northwest Face, IV, 5, B. Dare, D. Murphy, S. Skelton, 01/2016
13: Northwest Ridge, III, 2, H. Hodgkinson, J. Murrell, G. Robertson, S. Turner, 03/1913

Sources

• “Tititea Aspiring and the Otago Alps,” Neil Sloan and Nick Shearer, NZAC Guidebooks, 2024

• “The Mount Aspiring Region, A Guide for Mountaineers,” Allen Uren and John Cocks, NZAC Guidebooks, 2009

• “New Climbs in the Aspiring Region,” NZAJ, 1983

• ClimbNZ.org

Updates

Oct 1, 2024: First version published.

Feb 9, 2026: Minor graphic design and caption update