Mountaineering Pics: The First Wave

The potential for high alpine mountain climbing in New Zealand is, in a word: Limitless. There is everything from the ballsy classic to long ridge traverses for the peak bagger. It doesn't matter where you are on the South Island, you are almost never little more than an hour or two's drive from some awesome 2000 meter (or even 3000+) peaks. The mountains here definitely deserve some respect. The rock, much like the cascade volcanoes, often has the structural integrity of potato chips, and the snow conditions are frequently soft. As Owen tells me, you end up using snow stakes more often than ice screws for protection. The weather is predictably unpredictable. All this adds up to high potential for some adventurous times way up high. Don't let me discourage those of you thinking about coming here for some mountain climbing. The South Island peaks have a savage beauty, and when you are amidst a sea of them as we were, you can hardly observe any evidence of humankind's passing save your own footprints. I'm heading back there someday to be sure, when I have a bit more experience. Success is anything but guaranteed but with a little luck, a head as cool as a cucumber, and great..."testicular fortitude", there are some epics here just waiting for the next hardman and hardwoman.

Owen and Kristin on our first day out in Arthur's Pass

(L to R) Inga, Stephanie, Stephan, Ingrid, Tom and Kristin. This is on our first half assed attempt at Mt. Rollestone. We ended up playing with gear and making anchors. All in all a great day.

Owen gearing up

The beginning of the real meat of the route. It's basically a steep ridge climb, and yes it is pretty classic.

Back down in a great lunch meadow below snowline

Avalanche peak

Our high point that day

Our S. Island snow school

Some curious keas came up to check us out. A well timed snowball can make for some great shots. I love the orange under their wings.

some descending climbers

Daybreak on our second attempt (Owen, Inga and myself)

Rackin' up. Awesome scenery

Looking over at Goldney ridge

Inga on our way down

Our last rappel before some downclimbing. Inga was the last to come down on what was a slightly dodgy anchor.

I wish I had a shot of my miner's helmet

A few Pics

I'm super busy, but here are some of Inga's Pics from our trip.

Inga's Photos

South Island Shin-dig

We spent the large majority of our time in the Arthur's Pass area, which is close to some pretty spectacular mountaineering and a scant half hour drive from the bouldering mecca of Castle Hill. The weather made planning anything in advance tough, so we would head to the Department of Conservation (DOC) day by day to find out avalanche conditions and the weather forecast.

We um... stayed here most days, at an enclosed shelter in town

We spent a couple of days closer to Castle Hill at the Cragieburn hut. NZ has a plethora of back country huts and shelters for the wilderness enthusiast. This possum was chilling when we arrived the first night.


This is how much leg room Owen's car had with Kristin, Owen, Ingrid, Inga, myself and all our gear.

We were lucky to have Stephanie, Stephan and Tom and their Mitsubishi van to cart around our stuff. Here's a picture of Stephanie and Stephan on a rest day around noon (Note: not early risers on rest days)

Keas are beautiful, playful, intelligent, and a pain in the arse when they go for your boot liner or destroy your windshield wiper blades. Tourists feed them because they are cute, and they use all the fuel from these high energy meals to destroy things when they would otherwise be out searching for food. Tents, ropes, and even dirty socks are not safe. That said, they are funny to watch. When a new camper van pulls up, a squadron swoops in and immediately begins to inspect the sunroof for weaknesses. They wrestle with each other when there is nothing to destroy as well. When we dried clothes off after rainy days, someone was given 'kea watch' duty.

A really cool church for alpinists in Arthur's Pass. The window faces the high peaks with a view of a gorgeous waterfall.

On a rainy day we amused ourselves on this slackline for a bit.

Some beautiful clouds on our way to Christchurch

More clouds with some dude in the way

Yehaw

Hey guys! I just rolled back into town early this morning and as expected the S. Island was a blast. Our group was a lively bunch, the scenery superb, the climbing incredible and the weather... well that was less than amazing, but it was pretty decent for NZ and the "roaring 40's" latitudes. Now I'm back at Uni thinking about one of the best climbing trips I've been on in a while. Great road trips linger in the mind long after the trip is over, and when you factor in what might be the best bouldering on the planet (though I haven't been to Font' or Hueco), gripping Mountaineering and the free rum left at the shelter for us you have the makings of an epic. Plus, it was a learning experience. I now desperately need to climb in Germany, thanks to Stephan and Tom, and I learned to say cheese in Norwegian ("ost", though the way the girls laugh when I say it tells me I don't have it quite right :P). Oh and I can count to five in Norwegian, en to tre fire fem (sp?). Let us tally up.

Number of attempts at Mt. Rollstone: 2
Number of summits made: 0
Number of summits gained by Tom, Stephanie, Stephan, Ingrid and Kristin in one day: 4
Number of days rained out: 1
Approximate number of grades the climbs at the port hills are sandbagged: 4 (Jake was owned)
V5's "bagged": 1
Mantle's attempted: Countless
Run start problems achieved: 1
V7's flailed: many
Days spent bouldering: 4
Days spent Mountaineering: 2
Number of self arrests: 1
Number of Keas chased away from expensive gear: 34,394,953
Best English word of the day: "Spelunking"
Best Norwegian word of the day: "Ost"
~Close second: "Feig" (Wimpy)
Best Fall: Tom attempting to "jump the river"
~Close second: Kristen's gear ripper at the port hills
Best move: Owen's boot clad high heel hook
Coolest chalk bag: Ozzy climber Jay's chalk stuffed doll "Agnes"
Showers taken: 1

I'll post the pictures when I can, but to those of you back home in the U.S.A. and everyone else: may your adventures be grand and your smiles broad. Cheers!

p.s. Word has it that certain die-hard cyclist relatives of mine are yet again riding their bikes across the Continental divide. You know who you are. My hat goes off to you guys :D.

S. Island remix

Hey everybody. I realize it has been a while since I have posted anything. You'll have to wait on the edge of your seats a little longer, as I am headed back to the South Island once again. Sadly, Victoria isn't able to make it this time. Instead, I'll be traveling down there with a few climbing club "mates", or Kristin, Inga, Ingrid, Stephanie, Stephan (and his friend) and Owen. The plan is to do as much bouldering and mountaineering as is (super)humanly possible. While I want to shred some tips and crank some sic-gnar slopers (kids these days...sheesh), it will be nice to do some mountaineering. It hasn't been since I lived in Washington that I've done any large quantities of mountain climbing, and the people I'm going with are keen to do some cool summits. Even if that doesn't happen, the weather should be fine enough to do some bouldering. I'm hoping for a v5 outdoors, it hasn't happened for me yet.

Anyhow, I just got done with an animal behaviour field trip on sleep loss (tell you all about it later) and I'm about to do a whole lot more. Ugh. We'll be driving down to the South Island in Owen's rig, and taking the ferry across the cook straight after which we'll head straight down to the Arthur's pass area (See map, center of the S. Island). There are a lot of peaks and of course the legendary Castle Hill Basin. Should be a blast. Have fun guys!

Climbing Pics

Some climbing pictures from Frogatt Ledge, a place dear to my heart.

It's always nice to start with a scenery shot: Some tea shrubs above green pastures

Owen on Mr. Daddy Longlegs (22)

Terror from above (have I mentioned NZ is green?)

Claire with Andrew belaying, Ed working an impossible (for us mortals) boulder prob in the back

Owen belaying Inga

Inga on Zoomers (20)

Moony tearing it up on toprope

Some shelter for the belayer

Kenny working the pockets

Jules on the crux of Bring your Daughter to the Slaughter (hard 18)

Climber Jacob Gradek explaining to his belayer the moves he just did 2 seconds ago

Resting on Brontosaurus Theory (24)

The upper el cruxo, establishing a marginal pinch

On a thuggish 27 with sharp pockets

Kenny Belaying Jules at the end of the day

A couple of Jules on a 20, great climbing!

Very Food Oriented Post

This was taken a couple of months ago at a climbers party: Marty's website

Marty Blumen is getting his photography business off the ground, and his work is impressive to say the least. Check his site out if you get the chance, he'll appreciate the interest. In the pic we'd just finished some cake I'd made with a vanilla bean custard and some strawberry guava sauce. I'm going to miss having a guava tree in my backyard. The avocado tree is strictly off limits though, as my landlord harvests them for his personal use. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but my landlord is a retired Law professor and thus, we use the moniker "the professor" to refer to him. I have two other flatmates (not roommates here, which makes sense when you think about it) a Chinese fellow who goes by Tim and Argentinian Marianna. Here's a picture of our "Christmas Dinner" we had back in June. We are a multicultural group of cohabitants.

Timbo makes some good dumplings and the professor introduced me to his "should be famous" bread pudding with brandy butter.

I've heard the food here in "En Zed" described as bad English food, but living in Auckland has it's perks. You can ingest some pretty fine sushi here for dirt cheap thanks to a large Asian population. My favorite are the cheeses. The Brie, Gouda and Colby here are all scrumptious. Lamb is also easy to come by (go figure) but I'm not that into it. I haven't really met I pie I thoroughly enjoyed and I'm going to drink a whole jar of Salsa when I get home thanks to the lack of Mexican food. Damn, now I'm all hungry...

p.s. Wow I just noticed Carl Rove is resigning. These are crazy times back home to say the least.