Of Wild and Wonder

28/12/2019 - 29/12/2019 Party: Conor Vaessen, Tom Hadley I eagerly jumped off a bus straight into Conor’s corolla, parked in the Dunedin Countdown carpark. After a whirlwind of shopping and gear accumulation, we hit the road, headed towards the Darrans mountains, headed towards the granite, headed towards pure unadulterated stoke. After a night spent at some high quality accommodation (camped in a paddock near Gore), we parked at Homer Tunnel and tilted our heads back to take in today’s objective, the Talbot MacPherson traverse. This traverse of between the peaks MacPherson and Talbot is the classic mountaineering day trip of the Darrans mountains and has been enjoyed by generations of kiwi alpinists. As we started climbing towards Talbot’s ladder, the sheer immensity of the Darrans was impressed upon us. The looming granite monoliths around us formed an incredible amphitheatre of grey rock, soaring into the dramatic cloudscapes above. Once the ridge was gained, we made our ...

22/12/19 - 25/12/19 Party: Torea Scott Fyfe and Maddy Whittaker It was 9pm lying in Rowan's lounge in Wanaka, looking at met vu at the stretch of good weather between us and Christmas. My plans to attempt Aoraki had fallen through, but big peaks were very much still on my mind. I turned to Torea, "How about Sefton?" At 4am the next morning we left for the West Coast. Setting off at the start of the Copland Track at around 9am, a cloud of sandflies chasing us and our 30L packs, which we were trying to pretend were as light as they were small. It's beautiful forest and mostly flat track which made a great backdrop for a good long catch up yarn with Torea. Having both been working with DOC in remote places (Anchor Island and the Haast Ranges) for December, it'd been too long since our last trip together. Despite the immaculate met vu forecast, it rained that afternoon. We flew up Scott Creek, didn't find the start of the Bluewater Track, started bushbas...

Traversing from Mt. Watson to Mt. Ward (Luca K) Party: Sam Waetford, Olivia Truax, Maddy Whittaker, Tom Hadley, Luca Karjalanein When a trip starts with Tom breaking into my house at 4am to wake me up after I slept through three alarms - you know it's going to be an interesting one. Hiccups behind us (or so we thought), we made our way over to the Borland road in South Fiordland. Less than an hour after leaving the car, we found ourselves soaked to the bone, standing beside a huge brown raging torrent (the Grebe river as seen in the video below) - which we would clearly not be crossing. Back to the car we went and out came the maps - time to plan a different route. We decided to head up the "elevator" (the powerline road to the Manapouri power station that cuts out any bushbashing) and hit the tops from there. The plan was to traverse the Wall and Townley ranges and meet up with the Dusky at Centre Pass, which we would walk out along. It was Sunday af...

Luca rapping down the North Ridge of Moir's Mate (Tom Hadley) 6/11/2019 - 7/11/2019 Party: Luca Karjalainen, Tom Hadley On a stunning Dunedin day, sunlight poured through the windows of my ANAT242 exam room. The final minute of the exam ticked away and we were all released from the hall. I packed up my pens, picked up a climbing bag and rope and stepped out onto Cumberland street to find Luca’s Subaru waiting. Off we go. Our objective of the day was to try out the climbing at Lover’s leap, an imposing crag of hard graded trad routes on a series of towering basalt pillars. After making our way through the sheep speckled fields, we scrambled down a grassy bank to approach the impressive crag. Luca led the first climb of the day up "Crying Time" (18). He hoisted himself confidently through various hand jamming, smearing and stemming moves up to a well deserved ledge. From here, we lost the route a bit and ended up following a strenuous line up "Triple Thre...