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General Climbing Discussion

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Ice guide/instruction in NZ 26-May-2009 At 9:40:41 PM wollemi

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There was a rock-fall on the Fox Glacier access last month; an educated guess told me
this as I drove up the West Coast, due to the heavy rain and the heavy machinery being
driven in that I passed. If you book to do a course, do remember to give your number for
them to ring you back when they need to cancel - long drive from Wanaka area...

So I zipped up to Franz Josef with my refund and asked there. They had 16 doing the
front-pointing thing the next day, and although I was disappointed to miss out (and even
that was cancelled due to continuing cold heavy rain - even Cook Village had its wettest
day in 75 years or so), it occurred to me that many of the people doing the front-pointing
courses at the glacial snout were the type of tourist that would be inclined to do ice-
climbing once only in their life, as they would a rafting trip down the Zambezi, or a
tandem sky-dive. And be very happy just to try everything. Just once. And I would have
been miserable in the presence of such people.
A young check-out chick told me she was a somewhat-experienced alpinist. When I
asked where she climbed, she stated there were a few indoor ice-climbing venues in
Holland!

As a last resort, I whizzed around the block to do a 1:1 indoor ice-climbing tuitional.
Good to have some bad habits ironed out for a very cheap deal indeed. Laughed to see
the countless ice-tools had bits of rubber glued on the hammer faces. Good to see the
boots were all Asolo AFS thingy's - the same as mine that NZ Customs in Auckland
had seized wanting GST. ('We don't care if you posted it to yourself, ALL imports to NZ
are subject to GST...!'). The main reason I paid $92 to post it from the Blue Mountains
to Lake Tekapo was to avoid the hassles of travelling with so much stuff on crowded
Sydney trains. Postage was the same as excess luggage, based on prior poor
performance from Jetstar.
Got my gear back a couple of days before I flew home. Pacific Blue invited me to take
my heavy briefcase on as hand luggage - I was complimented for describing the
weapons within, but was then told of a clause that allowed up to 15 kg of sports gear to
travel free, additional to luggage. Electing not to tell her of the young kayaker who was
stung for $130 for her playboat jetting out of Sydney to Christchurch a fortnight before, I
agreed for the first time ever... Yes! Mountaineering is a sport!

The last two weekends have seen me drive down to Charlottes Pass and practice
abseiling off anchors of driven-in stakes and creating abalokov threads with ice-screws
from Mt Kosciuszko and Twynam, amongst stuff, such as walking for kilometres in
crampons, walking kilometres in my AT ski boots, and placing food drops. Too bad I
lost my GPS details of the one nearer Rawson's Pass!
Good habits with organisation is the key.