Of Wild and Wonder

30/6/20 - 3/7/20 Party: Owen Daniell, Alastair McDowell, Tom Hadley Author: Owen Daniell Alastair descending the NW Ridge after a successful climb of the SW ridge (Tom Hadley)  “You guys keen for Southwest ridge?” We’d been hinting at it for the last day or so, but neither of us really thought it in the cards. I had known Tom Hadley and Maddy Whittaker would be in Wanaka for some time during the break, and had tactfully based myself there in hopes of an invitation. Tom and Maddy arrived back in Wanaka from a pioneer hut mission and we were soon joined by Alastair McDowell. Maddy unfortunately had to return to Dunedin for some study. Tom and I were originally thinking of Mt. Avalanche, Popes Nose or Rob Roy. The unexpected addition of Alastair’s ice leading experience opened up the Southwest ridge of Aspiring as a potential objective.  The mention of such an objective sent pangs of nervousness through Tom and me. Each of us had somewhat minimal ice climbing experience, and the ...

8/3/20 - 12/3/20 Party: Thomas Hadley, Maddy Whittaker, Torea Scott-Fyfe Maddy and I had “done uni” for an utterly excessive period of about 8 days and both had an itching for an epic. The plan was devised by looking at the expanses of wavy blue contours of the snowdrift range, a series of epic glaciers nestled in the inhospitable olivine wilderness. We created the route the best way possible, drawing an ambitious line on the map with lots of big question marks and hoping for the best. We planned to traverse the entire snowdrift range, a route which had a lot of unknowns for us. Particularly, a steep face of blue contours required to get over Mt Lydia's North shoulder. We knew one party had ascended it in early season conditions, but other than that, we were unsure. We set off at 6.30pm on Sunday evening up the Matukituki valley to Liverpool Hut, accompanied by Torea who planned to stay the night with us then return to Wanaka for work that week. After a few wet dark hours ...

18/2/2020 -  19/2/2020 Party: Torea Scott-Fyfe, Tom Hadley I'd just arrived back in the South Island and Torea had just finished 12 days of fieldwork when we met in Wanaka. There was 2 days of workable weather ahead of us and we were both ready to get stuck into some mountains. Tom: “Hmmm well the Raspberry flat road is open again”, Torea: “Oooh yes we could climb some domes”, Tom: “Hmmm how about climbing the big dome...?”, “Yes let’s climb Mt Aspiring!”. The next morning, we set off with light packs and lighter legs from raspberry flat at 8am, jogging and walking along the expanses of the Matukituki valley. The open grasslands soon turned to beech forest, then to scrub as we carried on. We arrived at the waterfall in 4 hours time and began the push up to Bevan col. After negotiating slabs and bluffs, the expanse of the Bonar glacier spread itself out before us. We moved our way through gurgling blue crevasses to arrive at an empty Colin Todd hut, how good! At 5am the nex...

The West Coast Névés (Lottie Armstrong) Party: Maddy Whittaker, Imogen van Pierce, Lottie Armstrong, Jamie Gardner, Rebecca Vella King and Conor Vaessen Times are certainly changing. It turns out walking from the Fox Township up the Fox Glacier to Pioneer Hut is not what it used to be! On Waitangi Day, six of us set off from the township and 14 hours later arrived at Chancellor Hut, the first day of our four day trip on the West Coast névés. The crux of the entire trip was getting to the start of the actual Fox Glacier - the point where not all that long ago a road used to go to. Now the road has been claimed by the river which runs hard against a series of bluffs - which involve hundreds of metres of vertical bush bashing to get around including a rock chimney in the forest and some pack hoisting. It is certainly an inspiring country. From the swift opaque waters full of chunks of ice in the rivers to the constant rockfall around the glacier - there is no part of this la...