President’s Desk With Christmas holidays immediately upon us, I hope our membership has managed to avoid the pitfalls of getting caught up in the spending frenzy of sales on offer or at least find a rare genuine bargain. One way to avoid it entirely, which me and my family are opting for this year, is the good old spend limited secret santa, so everyone can use their hard earned money to self gift themselves some new toys or an adventurous holiday. The Rock Rats otherwise known as the Taranaki tuataras who predominantly climb on plastic who the club supports with […]

President’s Desk Kia ora folks, Spring is well and truly here, and rather than the club leaving its members to hibernate we have plans to keep them training over the warmer months. This training consists of alpine and sport rock climbing, navigating alpine routes rarely visited and ticking along in the background preparations for the club’s annual open climb. Therefore I will keep this president’s desk to the point as you have a lot of trip reports and upcoming trips below to read through. First up, well done to the first time Taranaki maunga summiters and the experienced mentors who […]

President’s Desk Kia ora folks, Well, no body would have believed It, but we managed to get a snowcraft one course completed no thanks to a dismal snow season. A lucky and very grateful total of nine students covered off the basics of safely traveling on snow under a team of volunteer instructors. The course didn’t only just run but was in ideal learning conditions enabling students to grow their confidence massively in just two days and two evenings. The students did well to take in the mass of information show it out there on the real thing including building […]

President’s Desk Kia ora folks, A lot of our new members will be wondering if their chances of completing a snowcraft course will be possible this year after spotting the mountain on Monday. Thanks to our dynamic efforts of Finn and the dedicated team of volunteer instructors we will try our best to run courses when the conditions allow hence having backup weekends already built in. If these attempts fail a third date is sometimes a possibility subject to instructor availability. Let’s just hope the snow can come back as quickly as it has disappeared. Club night update You may […]

President’s Desk Kia ora koutou, Those who made it to the NZ Mountain Film Festival were treated to some great films including a great video document of Maddy Whikatter and the alpine kids traversing the southern divide. Some members may remember their in person presentation at a club night last year. I have had some feedback that people enjoyed this film night more than banff which is either high praise and/or they just don’t like big crowds. Either way with a bit more forward planning we can potentially get a second night of films sorted for next year. I am […]