Rock! - Blogabond

Rock-climbing today, and the weather's perfect. Sunny, very little wind, clear skies (well, the views are important too). I get some unexpected private tuition for the first hour or so; the others in my group are stranded with car trouble in Queenstown, so the instructor Dave drives me out to a valley at the entrance to Mount Aspiring National Park, just down the road from one of the main Wanaka ski-fields. The paddock area, with the valley rising on either side, has hundreds of routes - the other instructor later tells me that they can even climb in the rain and snow in Wanaka, because there are some (tough) overhanging routes which are always protected from the weather. Apparently some days in winter/early spring they'll come down from a half-day skiing and stop off at the paddock to get some climbs in before dark! Awesome.

Dave takes me through a refresher of tie-in, belaying, general rock safety, and lead belaying, then sets up a toprope on the sports route (there's very little trad. climbing here, since the rock, schist, isn't suited to it - where there's a crack that looks good for gear placement, it's probably the kind of crack that will shatter if you take a fall on that gear... so, it's better and safer for sport climbing). It's great to be climbing again - I get the feel of it pretty quick on the first few goes up the short route, then the rest of the group turn up, a couple from London, and we move on with another instructor, Bronwyn, to try some higher stuff. When the routes get higher i'm not quite so confident, but it's just great to climbing outside after so long after from even indoor stuff (the 'climbing gym' as they call it here)! We all have a go at placing quickdraws, and cleaning the gear on the way down, and a go at leading, and I actually climb better that way, with more things to think about, than when I'm simply top-roping, which is pretty cool. After lunch there's a longer walk-in (well, it's more of scramble-in) up a slope, bush-bashing our way along a path below the crag, with the cliff dropping away to our right, to reach the crags we're aiming for. The views even from the bottom of the climb are fantastic, and when you pause at the top of the crag after finihing a climb, the silence is all-encompassing.

It was a great day; a real challenge. Part of me is really keen to get back to the UK and get some serious climbing in (though maybe in...six months time or so :) )!

written by

LizIsHere on March 3, 2010 from Wanaka, New Zealand

from the travel blog: New Zealand & Australia 2010

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