President’s Desk
Kia ora folks,
Not the best month on the Maunga, and our thoughts go out to the families of Richard Phillips and Peter Kirkwood who fell and died near the summit this month.
Thanks, and much respect are due to the rescue team, who recovered the climbers in the difficult conditions.
This time of year can be especially dangerous as the mountain transitions from summer to winter conditions, so please everyone be careful up there. It’s crampons, ice axes and the know how to use them at all times on the upper mountain at all times from now on.
It’s kind of a phony month for alpine stuff, the snow’s almost there but a bit thin to be compelling. I’ve dragged a file over my crampons just in case, but until the white stuff arrives en mass, at least the rock-climbing season never really ends. Even though looks like this weekend I’m going to sitting inside a wet hut near a crag watching it rain…
Not a problem for the 7 Tuataras, who are competed in the National Indoor Bouldering Series, in Wellington this month, with Harrison Larkin placing 5th in his very competitive age group. The tuataras team of 27 are training hard for the national youth and masters bouldering championship due to take place in Queenstown during October this year. This will be expensive to attend (it’s in Queenstown after all), so TAC and the tuatara’s will be looking for sponsorship to assist getting kids and support crew down there. Let us know if you have any ideas.
Also looking for ideas are DoC, who are holding a Visitor Experience Design Workshop for the Taranaki Crossing Project. This is an opportunity for DoC to discuss aspirations, provide an update on the project and gather any additional feedback we want to share. TAC will attend. If you are interested, or have ideas you think we need to air, please email me (don’t phone!) and I’ll pass them on.
Yes, we know the web cams are down and Greg Banks has been clocking up the kms on the puffer replacing various bits of the system. We expect to have these up and going sometime very soon.
Club night is this Thursday, 3rd of June, which will be back at the Blind Foundation, despite the many demands we go back to the pub! Our 2020 Ben Stevenson Cup winner, Lottie Borra, returned to Italy last year and appears to have spent most of her time ski mountaineering and rock climbing while Covid raged around her. She’s back with a bunch of tall tales from the Italian alps, should be a great night. See you there!
Ivan Bruce
El Presidente!