Club nights are at Turnbull House, on the first unimpeded Monday of every month. New and prospective members are welcome. Meet for dinner at the Backbencher public bar at 6.30 and on to Turnbull House at 7.30 pm for a catch up. Meetings and talks start at 8.00 pm with club business and tea and coffee afterwards.

AIC 2004 Instructors Weekend, Tukino - Instructors hard at work!!!

Upcoming Section Nights

6th SEPTEMBER:
September's Section Night will be another Short Talks. No walk too long, no tale too short, or perhaps a technical demonstration?
If you have anything you'd like to share with the Club (mountaineering related preferably, but hey we're open minded) please contact Caroline at cd @nzalpine.wellington.net.nz

Taranaki Alpine Club 75th Jubilee

The Taranaki Alpine Club's 75th Jubilee is now being planned for Queens Birthday weekend (4th & 5th June 2005) and will be held in New Plymouth. The theme of the reunion will be Trips-Outings-Events.

If you have any photographs or slides that you would like to contribute for inclusion at the celebrations please contact:

John Jordan
Convener 75th Jubilee Committee
254 Johns Rd, RD8, Inglewood, New Zealand
phone/fax 06 7624752
email jd.jordan@xtra.co.nz

Any material will be returned as soon as it has been scanned. For anyone wishing to join in the celebrations please contact John Jordan. We look forward to your company.

Greg Hall
Taranaki Alpine Club

Section trips news

Please send all your fantastic trip reports to newsletter @nzalpine.wellington.net.nz, so everyone can enjoy your stories.

Everything But The Mountain (QB week)

Thursday 2pm - Cowboy (on the phone): "OK, are they in a position to make me a job offer? I've got another on the table at the moment. I have to leave for my ferry by 4pm. Within the hour….Great!"

3.15pm - Cowboy (on the phone): "That's a good offer but (blah, blah). Great we have a deal!". Now for the train? And how do I get 40kg of gear 700m to the station?
4.40pm - Chitty (on the phone): "I've just got off the plane. I'm thinking the weather doesn't look too good for this weekend?".
Cowboy (in the ferry car queue with Zinky): "Weather looks great! Trust me. It'll cut up rough tomorrow, but fine up nicely after that"
Chitty: "OK see you on the ferry"
Zinky: "Hmmm…Cutting it fine"
Cowboy: "Wouldn't be a proper trip without last minute excitement"

Friday 12.30am - Cowboy (as we pull into the CHCH backpackers): "No Rakaia Hilton for us tonight! I almost feel sad breaking an NZAC 'hard man' tradition"

Friday 1pm - Arthurs Pass. It's pouring with rain and we've put it off as long as we can as we start up the Waimakariri River. Zinky drops us (Chitty and Cowboy) off and then heads to Tekapo for MTB. Anti-Crow hut passes by at 3pm in ankle deep mud and then the real hard work starts. We scramble around the almost indecipherable high water route holding onto bits of #8 wire bolted in above 50m bluffs. 3 major side streams require linking up to cross. It's now 5.30pm and almost dark as we roll up to where my GPS tells me Greenlaw Hut should be. Bugger, it's gone! After briefly deciding that what remains of the toilet can't be bivvied in we take off for Carrington Hut getting there by 7pm. Unfortunately the fire doesn't work properly as the chimney's partially blocked.

Cowboy: "Garth was right, that HW route really sucks!"
Chitty: "It's getting quite smoky in here."

Saturday - It's starting to snow. We trudge up White River to Barker Hut. What should take 3-5 hours takes 6 in 1-2' of snow. It's really cold, and we're doing it in shorts! Suddenly it fines up and the objective, Mt Murchison, is laid out before us.

Sunday - 6am start. It's been snowing overnight and it's a bit breezy with much spindrift as we leave the hut. Knee deep we head up to the White Icefall climbing at just 100m per hour. With 840m to the summit it's going to be a long day. By 8am its stopped blowing and the sun has come up. It's a blue sky day (BSD). Just 1m of waist/chest high powder to wade through. Each massive step you take only brings you 6" forward. At 11am we're exhausted and call it a day at the top of the White Icefall - 350m short but with even deeper snow ahead plus a 70m tricky leeside powder filled couloir at the end.

Cowboy: "I should have brought my ski's."

Monday - 6am. We bail early, hoping to make the road-end to meet up with Zinky at 5pm. Fortunately the low water route is available but there's 1' of snow all the way. Chitty wrenched his knee and I've stubbed my toe. We limp in at 4.45pm.
Cowboy: "Time for the pub."

Tuesday - 9am we're (Zinky and Cowboy) trying for Phipps Peak (1900m, 1100m to climb), past Temple Basin ski field. Chitty's flown back to WN. It's another BSD. By 11am we're flying along too and are at the base of the slope that leads to the Col. Just 600m to go. It's a scree slope with 1' of loose snow on it. The scree is loose too. Progress drags. As we near the Col scree turns to smooth rock too slippery to climb on. We're stuck! As we start to backtrack rabbit tracks are spotted. Zinky: "Must be one hell of a randy rabbit to climb over this Col!". At 2pm we slump exhausted on the Col. Still looks like 2-3 hours along a rocky ridge to the summit. We call it a day. Cowboy: "Bugger, that's 0-2 to the home team. Let's try Avalanche Peak tomorrow, at least it has a track to the summit."
Wednesday - 8am we rip up Avalanche Peak and are back down to the car park by 2pm. We pass a couple carrying a baby in a backpack on the way down. Cowboy: "Hmmm, I think the conditions are getting easier, Rolleston tomorrow!!"

Thursday - 5am at the Otira River car park. There's been a reasonable melt-freeze at last. Yet another BSD. We're exhausted. Part of the plan was to get a rest day due to expected bad weather at this time of year. We promise ourselves the hot springs at Hanmer if we pull this one off. Memories of last October's desperate retreat down Rome ridge as we were overtaken by a front fade away. Conditions this time are hard and fast up the Otira slide. We make the Low Peak by 10am! The rarely achieved High Peak is on. We cross the hidden crevasse field of the Crow past Middle Peak. 6 pitches up the High Peak ridge see us on top of the world at 1pm!! A leisurely lunch and we're back at the car park by dark (6pm). A night-day-nighter.

Friday - Hanmer, say no more…

Trip participants: Cowboy (Kevin Patterson), Chitty (Dave Chittenden), and Zinky (Tom Zink).

Kevin Patterson

Ruapehu Hut: Ice climbing or a surrogate office?

On Queens Birthday weekend Yibai He, Tom Wilson and Mike Peat went up to Ruapehu Hut for a spot of ice climbing. Due to inclement weather on Friday night we elected to retire to the comfort of Tom's family bach at Turangi rather than marching directly up to the hut. This proved to be a useful staging point and allowed Yibai the opportunity to reduce his 50kg of "essential" equipment in three packs to a mere 30kg in one bulging pack. He agreed to leave his kitchen sink behind only once I was able to convince him that the hut already had one. Stuff that actually made the trip included a laptop computer and various hefty tomes from his office!

After dropping our gear at the hut on Saturday morning we scooted out for a climb on Pink Floyd buttress in the deteriorating weather. We were disappointed by the lack of ice, apparently heavy rain had washed all before it, even the steams in "The Gut" and "The Valley" were flowing fully exposed to about 2200m which is quite unusual for the time of year.

With the lack of ice we decided to do the middle pitch (40m) of "Momentary Lapse of Reason" which consists of good solid slabs and crack systems. The icy rain, hail and strong wind that rimed the ropes and froze our bodies drove us back to the hut after completing the route - but at least the temperature was dropping and it began to snow.

Snow continued all of Sunday accompanied by howling gales. Yibai and Mike went out in the murk for a bit of ice bouldering in "Broken Leg Gully", while Tom stayed in the hut to ensure the time switch on the heater was always fully wound up. Tom missed out on some good climbs, but also missed the graft of plugging up to the thighs in new snow, and constantly falling into hidden creeks and cavities between rocks.

Monday brought clear weather with strong wind. With the deep new snow we were not keen on plodding very far, but fortunately the early season provides much greater scope of climbing venues than later on. Good ice was found only a short distance away at the bottom of "The Gut" adjacent to the "Haensli Face". Two cirques of about 10m - 15m height had formed solid waterfall ice at their heads and plenty of quality ice smears around their periphery proving how dramatically ice conditions can change in 24hrs. We found a wandering lone Aucklander of Aussie extraction (another Mike)... but he turned out to be quite likeable so we invited him to join us for the day. Three waterfall routes were lead climbed, which included first steep ice leads by Tom and Yibai. In addition many quality bouldering problems were climbed in the cirques by all of us.

We had a great trip, and it was personally rewarding to witness both Yibai and Tom growing in confidence and ability as the weekend progressed. Roll on the next trip.

Mike Peat

Easter in the Garden of Eden

The annual Don French Easter trip to the mountainous south again was a great success. After an overnight stay at the Rakaia Hilton a party of six assembled at Erewhon for PlanB: an assault on Mt Tyndall (2565m) in the Garden of Eden. On Friday we raced by the Clyde river only to be beaten to McCoy hut by helicopter hunters!! A couple of poor weather days then passed with not much prospect. The call then came at 3am on Monday, we're on! Away by 4.20am we wound our way up the Wee McGregor glacier, through Perth Col, and across the Garden of Eden ice neve. Due to a recent 20cm fall snow conditions were semi-soft/calf deep, although as we progressed up past the ice cliffs above the Garden there were some small patches of bulletproof ice. We went through into crevasses half a dozen times each although usually no more than thigh deep. 2 pitches up a rock buttress and along the ridge saw us summit at 2.20pm on a blue sky windless day. Mt Cook was clearly visible some 50km away to the south. We returned in the dark (8pm) nearly a 16 hour day all up. And walked out the next day.

After the compulsory feed-up at Mt Somers we departed our separate ways. Although one of us (Cowboy) took advantage of his at the time jobless status and the prevailing settled weather to complete a solo crossing of Copland pass, summitting Lean and Madonna Peaks along the way.

Don French (leader), Oli Helm, Dave Chittenden, Kevin Patterson (scribe), Steve Hart, Scott Campbell)

Nank meets an Orc

An Inter Island team, Martin Hunter(Orc),John Nankervis (Welly) and JohnCocks (Dunny) flew into Lake Roe in Fiordland at Queens Birthday,originally with the intention of climbing on the Merrie Range. Humungous amounts of snow put paid to that. They got out to West Arm moisturized and bedraggled a few days later. Although following the Dusky Track most of the way precious little of it was visible, being under either snow or water. The lowlight was an enforced snow mound bivvy in the blizzard on the Pleasant (sic) Range.

WORKSHOP FOR TRIP LEADERS AND ORGANISERS

Its official!!!

DATE: Wednesday 28th and Thursday 29th July.
TIME: 7.30pm - 9.30pm,
WHERE: Turnbull House, Wellington
COST: FREE!!!!

Topics covered will include :

• Communications in the outdoors
• Researching an area to visit
• Legal liability, is it really a big problem?
• Planning for safety, planning for a successful trip
• Computer-based map products
• Templates for planning and documenting a trip, including what your family should do if you're late coming out
• Psychological factors in leadership
• Ideas for good trips - sharing information from all participants

This workshop will be informal, interactive, fun, and suitable for people participating in trips to alpine regions, tramping and rock-climbing.

Anyone will be welcome to attend. We'll have acknowleged experts, lawyers (BUT DON’T LET THAT PUT YOU OFF – ED), experienced leaders, and also bunch of ordinary people like you and I.

For more information or to register your attendance, please email Peter de Joux (pdj@nzalpine.wellington.net.nz) or Rachel Depree (rd@nzalpine.wellington.net.nz). If you already responded to our request for interest and ad in last months newsletter, you'll be contacted soon.

The meaning of (club) life by Steve Hart

Climbers are individuals. The one's I know seem to be driven in many ways - to get up summits, to give great instruction, to explore remote areas. So why the heck are we in a club? My wife told me recently ever since she first knew me that I always seemed to be an anti-clubber. Certainly most of my trips have been small groups, often with friends with minimal organisation. Now I find myself doing RAM's, multi page trip plans and sitting on committees. God, what was I thinking!

So what is it that entices us to join the biggest mountain based club in the country, especially when we are split by fairly wide geography, styles of living and jobs and also by the clubs own section system?

I keep thinking of the club as an "us" sort of thing. I live in Wellington but communicate and climb with people from all over the country. In Wellington we don't look after huts but many of us utilise this club asset base on a regular basis. We have been at the forefront in some great new projects for the national club. Some of us help the local efforts, while some take a more national role. And at times this local focus seems to come into conflict with national needs and vice versa.

The key thing is that we employ three people, the rest of the work (and there is an extraordinary amount done at local and national levels) is done voluntarily. As I have seen in another organisation, and in my own occupation as an event director, it is very easy to lose that input if people feel abused or personal conflicts become too hot.

My suggestion here is that we actually do the trite "think globally act locally". Climbers will always be individuals, sometimes holding strong opinions. But that is the beauty of our organisation. As long as we can respect other people's maps of the world and collaborate we will bring about a better club as well as a better environment.

Steve Hart

Film: Expedition to Patagonia 1969-70

Expedition to Patagonia 1969-70: The critics say this film lacks the tension of Touching the Void. But to compensate it has some Charlie Chaplinesque moments and a storm scene rivalling the cyclone in Steamboat Bill Jr. What's more it's a record of the successful first New Zealand expedition to Patagonia's Northern Icecap. Narrator: Sir Ed.

The first showing for many years is on:

DATE: Tuesday 27 July
TIME: 8pm,
WHERE: TTC Club Rooms
WHERE?: 4 Moncrieff Street (off Elizabeth Street), Mt. Victoria

The four Wellington Patagonads, Paddy Gresham , Dave Launder, Gordon Vickers and John Nankervis will reminisce briefly before the film starts.

National Instruction Courses

This winter, the National Office is running the following courses in the North Island. The cost is $199, and each course has eight places available on it:

Sat 31 Jul - Sun 1 Aug 2004, Ruapehu Intermediate Alpine Climbing, Ian Ruthven.
Sat 14 Aug - Sun 15 Aug 2004, Ruapehu Intermediate Alpine Climbing, Ian Ruthven.

Potential section instructors are encouraged to attend these courses, to give them confidence in their skills and to gain experience from fully qualified instructors. The idea of the courses is to ensure that each section of the club has access to high quality and affordable instructor training. Please contact the National Office for more information on these courses.

ARTHURS PASS CELEBRATIONS

As you may probably be aware Arthur's Pass National Park turns 75 this year. The park was actually gazetted on the 30th of July 1929, and the first park board appointed in September of that year. Arthur's Park National Park was the first national park to be created in the South Island.

Te Department is coordinating the organisation of a celebration event to be held 11-12 September of this year.

Alpine clubs have had a rich and influential history associated with Arthur's Pass National Park and any 75th celebration should acknowledge this.

Any Alpine club members who may want to take the opportunity to recognise and celebrate the history of Arthur's Pass National Park, and its importance to them, can participate.

Wayne Costello (Programme Manager, Community Relations)
Department of Conservation
Waimakariri Area Office
PO Box 8
Arthur's Pass.
Ph: 03 318 9121 VPN: 5543, wcostello@doc.govt.nz

And here are the club trips ....

Wellington Section Trips - Trips are a key part of the section, so if anyone has an idea about a trip, no matter how vague, come and chat to Michele Domaneschi or Rachel Depree (trips @nzalpine.wellington.net.nz)

Trips can be of any length, any level of difficulty, and any size. Simply email us, or approach us at the monthly meeting, and we can help you get going.

See you in the hills!

Check out the proposed new list for 2004. We need trip organisers to put their hands up for what are bound to be outstanding adventures. There's something for everyone in here with a mix of snow, rock and even a spot of ski touring.

Chairperson's 11th & 12th Quiz

Nigel Roberts' eleventh quiz question asked for the name of the lowest but most spectacular of the peaks climbed by the expedition that Gordon Wiltsie photographed for the "National Geographic" magazine's February 1998 cover story. The answer is Rakekniven (The Razor), which is in Antarctica's Filchner mountain range.

There were NO correct answers at all to this question. Our Chairperson is still crowing about the fact that he was able to stump the combined brain power of the whole Wellington section of the New Zealand Alpine Club, so let's work hard and deluge Nigel with correct answers for his 12th quiz question ...

Nigel fancies himself as a bit of an opera buff. In June he went to see "Rigoletto" in Wellington, and a few days ago he drove to Palmerston North to see "Cosi fan Tutti". As a result his 12th quiz question is:-

Which opera has the line, "I'm sweating like a mountain climber"? Nigel gave only one clue to July section meeting when he initially posed the question: the quotation has been translated into English and it's not taken from an English-language opera.

You've all got a long time to come up with the correct answer. Nigel's going to be in Europe in August, so the closing date for sending in your correct entries is 12 noon on Sunday, 5 September. Send your answers to chairperson@nzalpine.wellington.net.nz, and be sure to put Quiz Number 12 in the email's subject line (otherwise there's a very high chance it'll be destroyed as spam!).

The prize for the first correct answer randomly drawn at September's section night meeting will be bottle of wine that will surely appeal to sweaty mountaineers and opera lovers alike.