Of Wild and Wonder

Party: Conor Vaessen and Scott Van Heerden Like any other trip you’d do: Research  Scott and myself during type I fun Read trip reports  Plan  Execute On some trips things happen : Timing of trip plan fails… On the rare occasion during a trip : Continuous failure of trip timing… On our trip : Timing absolutely out the window Butterfly Buttress, 500m of grade 14 climbing, a day of fun! After a lot of debating whether to pursue Butterfly Buttress or Weta Prowl, Butterfly seemed like a good first alpine rock route for both Scott and myself, potentially having a slightly shorter approach. It’d be a solid choice but our ambitious planning was a little off for first timers.  After I’d sent only a dozen or so trad routes but practising trad anchors all the time whilst socialising at Long Beach we decided to pull the trigger on Butterfly Buttress just before Easter. Waiting for a good weather window, we polished up on rescue techniques and s...

Party: Madeleine Whittaker, Torea Scott Fyfe, Shar Mathias, Poppy Mitchell and Darius Mortimer-Webster OUTC was gearing up for their first club trip of the year - Paradise.  This year I was going to be leading a day trip up Mt. Erebus. Thursday - started feeling a bit ergh. Friday   - decided it's just a cold. She'll be right....shivering uncontrollably in the van driving over. Just a cold I told myself. I was determined that I'd feel better in the morning - with a weather forecast like that, ain't nobody got time for being sick. Saturday I have mixed memories of Saturday. There were beautiful lakes and beautiful mountains. The sky was blue, oh so very blue. And there were wonderful people. Valley of the Trolls (Maddy Whittaker)  Somnus (Maddy Whittaker)  Descending from Mt. Erebus down to Lake Wilson, the Darrans behind (Maddy Whittaker)  Lake Wilson made for beautiful swimming (Maddy Whittaker)  The rest is like a d...