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General Climbing Discussion

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The most dangerous time of your life!!? 17-Mar-2012 At 7:15:52 AM cruze

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While I agree with the sentiment, I think it is a bit black and white to say "mountaineering" is dangerous and cragging is less so. Yes the objective dangers are typically a lot greater, but bear with me: since moving to NZ I have tried to get a solid base in variable conditions in different seasons on quite a lot of grade 1 and 2 peaks (typically with big vertical gains from valley floor, loose rock, variable snow, etc). Some people (possibly those that chopper into huts where grade 1 and 2 peaks are the bumps you go over on the way to get to more technical objectives) will scoff at these efforts. But I have done this to build a base for the future and have become quite sceptical of those that fly over and do a TMC and then start looking for grade >3 objectives for their next season. IMHO that is a dangerous way of doing "mountaineering" particularly in NZ where weather and conditions change so quickly. Perhaps akin to "I climbed a 21 in the gym the other day, now I am off to climb Auto da fe/Janicepts/etc with these shiny wiggly things"