Dubious Expectations on Mount Douglas
On November 6, 2024, Sam Smoothy, Christina Lustenberger and William Rowntree made the first ski descent of Douglas Peak, New Zealand, via the east face, dubbed “Scooter Boi Direct.” Jim Ryan was supposed to join the mission, until an unfortunate entanglement with an electric scooter wrecked his ankle and sent him packing. Hence, Scooter Boi Direct. Photo: Ross Mackay
Words: Sam Smoothy
Two alpine bananas and a stick of rouge lipstick perch just meters below the summit of Douglas Peak in New Zealand’s Southern Alps. The fractured pinnacle high above the Tasman Sea is cloaked in more rime than snow. But we’re carrying skis. And now one less axe.
Assumptions are the death of curiosity. On a recon flight years before, I found a weaving line of weakness on the overlooked east face of Douglas—a diagonal couloir snaking through two rock steps onto a steep and planar wall. Yet another crux in my XXIV Project to climb and ski all 24 of New Zealand’s 3,000-meter peaks.
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