Track Talk – November 2014

New trip Schedule

The new trip schedule for Summer 2015 is out. See https://wtmc.org.nz/trip-schedule and https://wtmc.org.nz/sites/default/files/schedule-2015-Summer_0.pdf. You may have noticed the new format – please do send positive and negative feedback through to . Print copies are available with full contact details for trip leaders at club on Wednesday nights at the door.

The new trips schedule looks particularly exciting and I have to admit there are more trips than I have weekends to go away. This is thanks to the large number of excellent people who have signed up to be leaders. Please now make their day and fill up all of the trips (yes every single one!)

Make sure you pay attention to trips that need flights as you have to purchase these yourself and it is usually cheaper the further in advance you book.

Trip Descriptions

For all the trip leaders on the Summer Schedule, please send me a brief description of your tramp. This will be printed on both the signup sheet and the club website. It helps people less familiar with the club or the tramping area to decide whether the trip is for them and should help get more people on your trip.

Gear Return

There have been a few cases recently where people have not returned gear the Wednesday after their trip. This means there is less gear available for others and also that Pete has to spend time chasing the gear down.

If you know you can’t take the gear back ask a kind fellow tramper to do it for you. If at the last minute you cannot make the club night either email me or text Pete his number can be found on the print copy of trip schedule. If we know that the gear will be late it saves a good chunk of work.

Alpine Instruction Course

Naturally as Summer is just about on us everybody’s thoughts don’t quite turn to climbing on snow and ice! However……………

The club currently runs an introductory course called snow craft which gives members the skills to use crampons and ice axes and travel safely in the alpine environment. With the increase in popularity of Alpine 2 and above trips we would like to offer a more advanced course.

The idea is to arrange for a qualified guide to come up to Wellington and then drive to the lodge for a six day course. This would include, glacier travel, pitched climbing, navigation and other high alpine skills. The course will be run in July so that members can then go on the winter and spring Alp 2 trips to cement their learning.

As a prerequisite for the course you should have done the club snow craft course and at least two follow up Alp 1 trips. We will also intend to get your rope skills up to speed before the course by getting you leading on rock (if you don’t already!).

I estimate the cost to be about $1000 but will be able to firm this up soon. The ratio of guide to pupils will be 1 : 4. This means that we have to have multiples of four.

If you are interested, please contact me at (commitment isn’t required at this point).

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