Dauntless Point

A full traverse of Dauntless Point has not quite been achieved, but all sections have been covered. It is quite short, but very serious, due to unpredictable conditions and big cliffs.

A number of short sections of this point were traversed by Hamish and I in the early days of climbing development in the area (early to mid 1990s). About the only sections of rock not covered in these early days was the section between the Furnace and Hades, and the long section from the join with Mt Brown out to the climb Inferno. Later (I'm not sure which order this happened), Nick Hancock traversed the Land's End section around to Hades, and Hamish and I attempted a full traverse, starting from where Dauntless Point joins with Mt Brown.

The attempt by Hamish and I was eventually aborted at the tip of the point (which Hamish had earlier traversed in the mid 1990's) after a series of problems, including being tumbled for a good 50m along a rocky trough by a freak wave, a whirlpool, a shark and severe cold (wetsuit hood only, in May, in the ocean). Possibly the shark and whirpool were not as dangerous as they seemed at the time.

The seas here are extremely exposed, with only a small minority of days being suitable for safe traversing. It has a real ocean feel: the day of our attempt was amongst the quietest conditions I'd seen in dozens of visits, and yet freak variations in the swell was still capable of washing us off the cliff several metres above the usual sea level. The cliffs are quite high (around 90m), with big features. There are a number of smooth sections and caves, where swimming is essentially forced. Generally the rock quality is superb, although the rock is of variable quality on higher sections of the cliff.

The even more intimidating traverse of Mt Brown also awaits ascent.

Only the first photo shows actual traversing: the others just show the coast that is traversed.