Good well cairned trail from the power line. Around 1980m a bigger than usual cairn indicates trail for Escargot Corner - don’t get suckered down left into it, carry on to the ridge in sight. From here copious amounts of 3rd class on grippy slab and good textured features. Crux of the day is the impenetrable buttress which involves 2 technical pitches of climbing to conquer - traditionally the west face offers two 5.4/5.5 gear pitches. Covered below. P1 - 30m - Rings at base of the chimney for belayer - piton offers first protection for climber next to rings. I climbed to the chockstone and placed the only piece of pro (C4 .3) on the chockstone - pull over the stone and continue left to bolted anchor station - no rings. P2 - 10-15m - Great vantage point and the climb goes over a bunch of large boulders with a continuous crack seam to climbers left that protects quite well - managed to thread a rock just before the hardest move for bomber protection - 2x 60cm slings linked up did the trick. Bolted anchor at the top with no rings. Great photo op of the 2nd coming up. Placed C4 1, .75 and Z4 .2 Other options at the buttress involve 2 sport routes - I don’t have beta on these. But these routes are used for descent. No more climbing after the buttress - after more 3rd class scrambling you’ll encounter the via ferrata route all the way to the sub peak of Mount Norquay East Peak - gaining the sub peak involves a short high 4th class move - working your way up a short slabby gully you’ll be met with a fairly high chock stone to pull up and over on, plenty of foot placements for stemming. Slog to Mt Norquay East Peak for great views. We chose to return the same way, 4th class down climb off the sub peak was a little reachy, some careful down climbing needed when out of the gully to mainly prevent trusting poor rock. Once back on top of the buttress - due East you’ll find a rap chain, and see a series of bolts leading off to the West. Rap down 20m and keep to the right away from the bolted line - to find a another chain station - from here you can almost see your 60m touch the ground - I chose to rap to my knots and do a tiny walk off BUT there is another station if you wish to get to the ground proper. I couldn’t quite understand the sport routes - if they shared stations or not but in this case - it works as the descent. In any case, there are bolts all over and the rappels are never overhung. Stations have good ledges for two people. Retrace copious amounts of 3rd class down climbing back to the power line. Alternatively, continue to Mount Norquay true summit and descend the South Ridge or descend via the Via Ferrata walk off (need two cars).
