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General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Preparation for New Zealand TMC 30-Jun-2009 At 5:26:12 PM Andrew_M

Message

On 30/06/2009 nmonteith wrote:
>I personally find it a bit strange to launch into mountaineering without
>being an experienced rock-climber first, but maybe that's just me.

You are right Neil, that's just you. A lot of folks who have come into mountaineering from other backgrounds, mostly bushwalkers who want to do "just a bit more" and one good way to do this is through a TMC. I know several people who have had essentially zero rocklimbing before doing a TMC (eg myself who had no interest whatsoever in rockclimbing for several years even after doing an NZ TMC). It's probably more important to have lots of experience above the snowline, either backcountry skiing or snowshoeing, or off-track exposed scrambling and to have developed good movement and judgement skills under these circumstances.

Having said that, basic technical skills ARE directly transferrable from rockclimbing and ARE important and the original poster should do what you say...