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 Astoria Cafe, Lambton Quay 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.

Crater Lake - Ruapehu

Denali Ticked

"The team was a bit of a mixed bag. There was Pete Manning (Metric) from Kaikoura, and Neil from Vancouver whom both made the summit with me. Shane from Nth Carolina got to 14k (feet) and decided that he wasn't going any higher.

The weather has been pretty crappy this season. When we eventually flew into the Kahiltna, there were hordes of people waiting to fly out who had spent a couple of weeks sitting out bad weather and hadn't got higher than 11k. We had some crappy weather and didn't see much on the lower glacier and didn't really get any views until we hit the 14k camp. It probably snowed 80% of the time we were at 14k, sometimes even when it was sunny, it was snowing lightly.

When we headed up to the final camp at 17k, we got a real break in the weather and summitted the following day, then headed down the day after that. Just as well as it is not the most pleasant place to spend a lot of time, quite windy and exposed and very cold. Per Metric's high tech
thermometer, it was -14 in our tent on summit morning and that was with 3 people crammed in it. Every time we touched the tent walls, we got snowed on from the condensation on the inside. Our summit day was a bit windy, and quite cold but sunny all the way to the football field which is the last
part before the final summit ridge. Unfortunately, as we hit the last part of the ridge, the clouds rolled in and we had a white-out on top so no spectacular views.

When we descended, we spent a night at 17k, then at 14k and then did a single 15 hour push from 14k down the lower glacier to the airstrip arriving at 7 am. We then spent all day sitting round in the sun waiting for the wind to drop and finally managed to fly out at 8pm that night.

We summitted on day 14 and got back out on day 17, but many teams were in for much longer. A Filipino team won the prize for persistence being in for 37 days including 12 or 13 days at 17k. And yes, they did summit!"

Submitted by Dave Henwood (Ex pat Section member, now resident in Vancouver) via “The Don” French.

Because I'm really short on material for VertiGo ....

in response to:

"From: AIC Instructor
To: AIC Student
I'm sure I saw you struggling along Jervois Quay with your pack this morning!!
It's not Friday yet..."

O.k., so it was me, but i have few possible reasons for being 'pack-laden' this morning,

1. I'm really attached to that pink ice axe and like to take it out for morning walks
2. I'm in training for the walk up The Puffer and have been carrying around my pack full of bricks since last Thursday
3. It was early and I put my climbing pack on instead of my favourite boxers (I hadn't had 'first' coffee yet) - yes it's a commando day!
4. I was trying to pick up girls - the pink ice axe really nails home my manly-ness! .... you noticed aye ******* ?
5. I thought the ferry ride over to Eastbourne might have been a good opportunity for some self arresting practice as the boat wobbles from side to side.
6. I needed some gear to 'escape the system' (i.e. leave work early)
7. I like to scare morning commuters by walking up and down Lambton Quay with ice tools
8. On wet mornings, like today, the pavement can get a little slippery in which case an ice axe and crampons can make a huge the difference in making it to Kirks for that last pair of socks on sale
9. It was like, I woke up this morning and it was raining. I thought I'll need a jacket... but what if it starts really raining or snowing... I'll need all my Gore-tex gear... and some wind proof layers... and some Ice Breaker layers. What if I get a blister or a small paper cut.... I'd better pack a first-aid kit. What if I'm home late tonight, I might need a torch, spare batteries and a compass. Should take the GPS too in case I can't remember where home is. Better pack a helmet in case of houses falling from the sky out in Eastbourne, and a harness and my gear-rack in case I need to prussic out of my Wednesday Web site meeting. Better not forget my sleeping bag, I might need a nap at work.... I'll need ice axes and crampons too because Pete said last night there'd be a southerly later this week and we might get snow at sea-level again. Better take my big pack to work so i fit all this stuff in. I wonder if everyone else packs this much for Wednesdays at work???? I hope ******* doesn't see me with all this stuff......
10. or.... because I'm moving flat, I'm taking my gear to work a couple of days early so I can clear some stuff out of my room.

September Short Talks

Paul Grimwood is organising a series of short talks for the September 4th meeting of the Wellington Section of the Alpine club. Talks should be 10 minutes in length and can be on any topic of interest to club members, typically bouldering, rock/ice climbing and mountaineering. Included in the session will be a talk on the Summer Rock course and one on the AIC, so if
you were on either of these please step forward.

Email pg@nzalpine.wellington.net.nz with a brief description of your presentation.

Club Committee Meeting News

On the last weekend of May one of the two Club Committee Meetings of the year was held at the Home of Mountaineering in Christchurch. This also coincided with the 2006 AGM. Wellington was represented by Caroline Duggan and Garth London with Judy Reid there in as President.

Key topics of discussion that members may find of interest were as follows:

• Phil Doole was elected as President Elect
• Graeme Dingle was given Life Membership and Bill McLeod was made an Honorary Member.
• Huts, in particular, work that is required to be done at Unwin and Murchison and the proposed new Beetham Hut. More information on this will follow but if you are interested and want more information feel free to contact Garth London via email. The bookings policy at Ruapehu Hut was changed to stop the block booking of the hut by non-members and organisations conducting training. This was obviously limiting access to members at key times.
• Events and Activities including this years Climbing Camp which will be held in the Rangitata Catchment upstream from Mesopotamia Station from 30 December to 7 January. More information is available about this on the Club Website under Activities, Annual Climbing Camps or contact Chris North at National Office.
• Recreation Advocacy included the Routeburn tunnel proposal and High Country Tennure Review. If you are interested in these issues you should contact your Section Representative.
• Rock Bolting Fund to put processes in place to ensure that bolting is done in accordance with the bolting policy and Grants were made from the Overseas Climbing Fund to expeditions to Bolivia and China.
• Governance of the Club and how this may be improved. Judy Reid is currently consulting with Section Committees about this and information will be made available on the website when these consultations are further advanced.

The next Club Committee Meeting is in November. If you have issues that you would like discussed at this you should contact your Section Representatives.

Distaghil Sar Dinner

The following is for the benefit of email recipients of VertiGO. Snail mail recipients will get this too late [ed].

The Distaghil Sar Dinner is THIS THURSDAY, 24 August, 7pm at Turnbull House.

If you want to come but haven't got a ticket yet, you need to book before Wednesday, so we can let the caterers know how many will be there.

So contact Judy (j-reid@paradise.net.nz) NOW, and pay at the door. It's $30 (BYO) for a good night out with other section members and a chance to remember absent friends.

Navigation Course

The club is running a Map & Compass Course as a fundraiser for the Wellington Avalanche Transceiver Trust. We ran this a couple of years ago, and it was very popular. The course content includes how to read detailed information off the map, producing route plans, taking bearings, avoiding obstacles, using GPS, and lots more !!

Dates are :
"THE MAP" - Tuesday 19 September 2006 at Turnbull House 7 - 9pm
"THE COMPASS" - Wednesday 27 September 2006 at Turnbull House 7 - 9pm
Half-day field exercise - Saturday 30 September 2006 somewhere near Wellington

Total cost is only $50. Places are limited. All profits will be used by the Wellington Avalanche Transceiver Trust towards purchasing more avalanche transceivers for the public to use.
Please contact Pete de Joux to register your interest pd@nzalpine.wellington.net.nz.

Girdlestone

September 9-10, Dave Shanks is leading a trip to Girdlestone on Ruapehu. Places are filling fast, especially with many enthusiastic graduates of the AIC rearing to test themselves. Contact Dave Shanks via email at ds@nzalpine.wellington.net.nz for more details.

Centennial Hut

For those of you with glacier travel and route finding experience, there is a trip planned for approx 9 days (5-7 days climbing, 2 days travel down/back) to Centennial hut in November (exact date to be confirmed). The plan is for helicopter access and egress with a max of 8 people on this trip.
Contact Garth London for more details. GL@nzalpine.wellington.net.nz or 04 479 2984

Tongariro September Climbing Trip
September 1st -3rd

I will be leading an ice climbing trip to Ruapehu. The objective is to head to Delta ridge hut on Friday night and continue on to the crater on Saturday morning to climb ice routes on Cathedral rocks early in the day. If the wx holds we will dig a snow cave for the night and climb again on Sunday. In the event of inclement wx we will remain based at delta ridge and explore the Pinnacles. There is scope for people more interested in snow caving and alpine tramping to join in the weekend so long as they are independent enough to organise their own activities around the crater (or from the hut in the case of bad wx).
Contact Paul Grimwood on PG@nzalpine.wellington.net.nz

For Sale

Koflach Boots Size 8 1/2
Approx 5 years old, $90
Contact Garth London, gl@nzalpine.wellington.net.nz