Of Wild and Wonder

Crossing the divide into the Landsborough (Easter 2019) (Maddy Whittaker) Our mountains, how they bend and fold. Glaciers flowing from rock to ice to me. This past year I have been mesmerised by the scale, the shapes, the way light plays upon the ice and the patterns the wind whittles in the snow. I used to think it was a strange force that draws us upwards. But now I understand that this force is not so strange at all.  Some moments seem to burn brighter than others. The first time I saw the Bonar glacier, clambering over the top of the Quarterdeck, the golden moonlight and pink rays of first light washing the snow in a magical glow. The first time I scrambled upon warm granite in the Darrans, impossibly steep rock expanses rising straight up out of the sea. My first New Years in the hills, running through golden tussock, my memories tinged with the overexposure of golden hour. My first trip deep in the bowels of the Landsborough. Water cascading everywhere in a wild...

12/10/2019 Party: Tōrea Scott-Fyfe, Tom Hadley The study leave period had just begun at uni, opening up plenty of free time for missions in the hills. Everyone else in Dunedin seemed to want to study, so I hopped on a bus by myself and headed to Queenstown. After about two hours of unsuccessful hitching towards Glenorchy, I’d only managed to get myself stuck in Bob’s Cove in the dark. So, I dropped into Tom Spencer's house, hoping Tōrea would come and pick me up. Luckily she did. The next morning, not liking the look of avalanche conditions in the higher mountains, we put on our running packs and headed up the epic looking ridge that rises towards Mt Earnslaw, running alongside the Earnslaw Burn. Starting out at Lover’s Leap, we made rapid work of the tussocky undulations along the ridgetop. When forming a route plan, we’d both envisioned the ridge being a pretty straightforward mission, with mellow tussock slopes all along. However, soon we came across patches of snow and th...