This year we decided to schedule an alpine refresher weekend ahead of the snow courses, the idea being that instructors would get in some practice before the courses started. However, with Snowcraft cancelled due to a lack of numbers, the weekend evolved into an opportunity for people who had previously done an AIC or Snowcraft to head up to Ruapehu and practice their skills before the alpine season starts in earnest.
6 instructors and 15 students headed up to the Club Lodge at Whakapapa. We were fortunate to experience great weather – just a bit of a sou-wester on Saturday and no wind at all on the Sunday. While there was not much snow, what there was had a nice crust to it, good for walking but probably a bit sketchy for skiing.
The AICers split into groups and headed off to practice stuff. Mark and Adrian were up at the crack of dawn heading to the top and then to Cathedral Rock to practice pitch climbing. These early birds were rewarded with spectacular views from the top which were fortunately captured on film by Mark for everyone to enjoy. Fraser, Ant, Kev, and Di headed to the slopes beside Delta Corner and eventually over to the Pinnacles. Yibai, Jenny, Charles, DJ and Spencer headed straight to the Pinnacles for practice setting up anchors and pitching. Yibai, Jenny and Charles managed to get some ice climbing in as well. Yibai proved himself to be a very determined mentor and did not let minor details such as the lack of frozen ice or the fact that Charles and Jenny only had one ice tool each get in the way of bold assaults on various ice faces. Nor did his ice hammer connecting with his nose deter his relentless upward progress.
The Snowcrafters split into two groups. The summit club headed to the top with Steve while the rest of us got down to the serious business of practicing walking up and down snow slopes. We also threw ourselves down one of the slopes above Delta corner in order to refine our self- arrest technique. Our sliding manoeuvres were captured using special high speed film. We did not do as much self- arresting as we would have liked as the snow was hard and icy. Even so, several of us limped away with impressive bruises on our knees and Kate acquired a sore wrist. With the aches and pains mounting up we took a detour to the café for a medicinal hot chocolate and a squiz at the climbers on the Pinnacles before heading back to the Lodge.
After a delicious dinner we watched some climbing slides supplied by Yibai and Fraser. When it was time to watch the ice dancing the audience had slunk away to perform urgent tasks such as sleeping. Never mind, no doubt such a timeless classic will be equally well received next year. Big thanks to Ant who lugged the Club laptop and projector up to the Lodge and patiently set up the equipment making the slideshows possible. He failed to arrange for Argentina to triumph over Germany but hardly anyone held that against him. Most were still recovering from Brazil’s shock loss early on Saturday morning. The All Whites may not be the most gifted exponents of the beautiful game but they were the tournament’s undefeated team. Go the All Whites!
On Sunday most groups elected to practice inside despite perfect conditions outside. This may have been due to the fact that an ability to come back from a demanding day on the slopes and whip up some tasty baked treats is fundamental to becoming a champion all round alpinist. Steve produced a chocolate cake to rule them all while Amanda baked scones – savoury and sweet of course. My group headed to Broken Leg Gully by a highly circuitous route. It is pretty difficult to take 2 hours to walk to the gully but I don’t think It would be too immodest to say we made it look easy. The return trip took about 15 minutes and yep we did text Steve to make sure the scones would be coming out of the oven to mark our return. In bright sunshine we did a bit more self- arresting and tried to photograph ourselves climbing very steep slopes. Dave even got to use his snow shovel.
I think I am reasonably safe in asserting that the weekend was a success – good weather, plenty of practice to be had, excellent baking to sample and great photos to capture the best parts. The weekend could well have been the making of some very well rounded alpinists! Special thanks to Marie Smith who ran the Lodge for us and to the instructors who helped out on the weekend, the van drivers and Brian Goodwin and Andrew Trembath for overseeing the Lodge arrangements and food respectively. I have a feeling we may need to do it all again next year as I’m still waiting for pinwheel scones.