‘NZ - Climbing’ Articles
Written by Mal Haskins on 29 April 2010
The rain simply hasn't stopped coming down – and most of it has been centered on the South Island of NZ. Currently we expect that downtown Queenstown will be flooded by the morning with lake Wakitipu breaking it's banks.
It's not all grim news though! The glaciers should be getting a good dumping of snow which will set us up once again for a great summer. I'm heading up into the hills on Saturday so will have more info on Mtn conditions when we get back on Wednesday
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Written by Mal Haskins on 26 April 2010
NZ is getting lashed right now!
Heaps of fronts and a slow moving high pressure system means that an intense cold front with a warm front are becoming slow moving over most of the country. Already we've had 2 days of basically torrential rain here in wanaka.
The temperature has changed from about 20 degrees to about 12 during Monday – which means that with Wanaka at 320m above sea level it is probably snowing down to near 2300m.
This storm systems comes after a previous belt that out down 1.2 m of new snow at the head of the Tasman glacier. Conditions up there right now are great and this current storm can only make them better.
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Written by Mal Haskins on 11 January 2010
It's the middle of summer and there's 25cm of new snow on the ground at the Remarkables and about 60cm of new snow in parts of Mt Cook National Park!
It's a tad crazy – right now it's about 8 degrees in Wanaka and it's snowing in the hills. I just finished up a trip with Toshi and Yoko Matsubara of Japan. We had intended to do our final day on Single Cone in the Remarkables but after walking up in deepish new snow and not getting the forcast clearance in the morning we packed up and went down for a coffee!
Basically the wind never let up and I woke to find 5 more cm of new snow on the ground. A few times during the evening my tent came down and slapped me in the face!
Here are a few images from the last day of the trip.
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Written by Mal Haskins on 01 January 2010
Mt Cook is still in condition!
Whilst most of the mountain is in pretty good condition, the Linda Glacier is becoming incrasingly cut up. Traveling up the Linda in the early moring is moderatley safe with good bridging over the worst of the holes but it's highly advisable to be down the mountain as fast as you can!
I was up on Mt Cook with Ceaser DIez (Venezula), Alex, Vaughan, Alejandro and Dave on Monday the 28th Of December. In total 6 parties of 2 left Plateau Hut at 1 am with 1 party turning back at the Linda Shelf and two others only getting to the summit rocks. With 6 of us moving through the summit rocks it turned out to be a pretty slow day – about 17 hours all up!
The Linda Shelf was pretty firm and th Gun Barrells had released at some point making a fair amount of debris to be covered before reaching the shelf – quite sobering.
Summit rocks is basically an ice climb at present and the summit ice cap is only covered Sastrugi til the Fasle Summit.
All in all a great day out – Congrats to Ceaser for being able to jag such a sought after climb in such a tight time frame – he had only 5 days from the time he arrived in Christchurch!
Mt Dixon is also in very good condition – Pat Deavoll and her friend Chris made a traverse of the South – East ridge on the same day.
Mt Cook – Linda Glacier route image Gallery – CLICK HERE
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The Upper Linda Glacier with Gun Barrels, Linda Shelf and Summit Rocks Visible
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Ceaser Above Linda Shelf
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Congratualations to Ceaser
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Traffic Jam – Summit Rocks
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