A few weeks back I enjoyed a special opportunity to firm up some alpine skills with the support of a WTMC scholarship on a Hillary Outdoors alpine instruction course. The two days up at Ruapehu were a nice crash course in travelling in a mixed alpine environment practising the tools of the trade. Our first … Read more
There are over 60 private/club/DOC huts in the Orongorongo valley. Our mission was to see how many we could find from out base at Paua hut.I had worried about the weather for the weekend as the forecast had predicted some rain. However, the Friday was warm and sunny and we had a pleasant tramp over … Read more
Up bright and early to start our day trip meeting at the Railway Station: 7AM. It was really great having two cars for this trip as the starting and finishing points are different. The road to the start of track is gravelly and potholed, take care when driving. The start of the track is Scott’s … Read more
Greetings Readers, it’s National Lockdown 2 and your humble Newsletter Editor finds himself a bit bored and with (unsurprisingly) few trip reports coming in. What to do? I decided to canvass your committee about their lockdown exploits and to summarise them here. Interestingly, between us we’ve managed to photograph Wellington from almost every angle Maj-Britt, … Read more
“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” As I took my first few steps out of the backpackers in Oban on Stewart Island/Rakiura I kept reminding myself of this famous quote by mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary everytime the nerves threatened to overwhelm me. I was setting off on a continuous circumnavigation of Stewart … Read more
Launched in 2018, the WTMC scholarship programme is about supporting club members to gain experience and skills. We often think of the club’s courses in leadership, bushcraft and snowcraft or the local alpine club section courses. These are great courses and an excellent first step on your tramping and mountaineering journey, so be sure to … Read more
Every year since 2016, the Families Group has spent a day at Battle Hill, cooking lunch on a fire, enjoying the jumbo swing, feeding eels, sometimes swimming in the stream, and generally having a wonderful time. This year we had a turnout not seen in several years, with nearly 30 people arriving to cook over … Read more
Greetings, Readers. It is I, the Newsletter Editor, coming to you with information and requests The Request Please keep sending me trip reports! Without trip reports to publish I would have to find a job or something to occupy my time with, or worse, I’ll start making up my own trip reports and then you’ll … Read more
Bleary eyed I emerged from my car at Takapu Rd Station. Here I encountered my first obstacle: getting into the WTMC van. This was was far too difficult for half past six in the morning, taking a swift blow from Richard’s boot to finally dislodge the door from its jammed state. At Wellington Station we … Read more
Sadly, due to covid L2 restrictions this event has been cancelled The best of the New Zealand Mountain Film Festival National Tour is once again coming back to Wellington with a double feature! The festival started in 2002 and is internationally recognised as one of the world’s premier mountain film festival events. It’s NZ’s original … Read more