EastCoastBastard

Hey I'm an ex-pat living in NZ, been here for 4 years, and have done a fair amount of climbing in the southern alps - somebody linked to one of my tr's a while back (actually it was Blake's tr, but I was the other guy). I'd strongly recommend avoiding NZ if you want to get some good climbing done - 95% of the time the weather is TERRIBLE. Most of my trips I spend days/weeks waiting for a weather window that never comes. Occasionally I get some okay stuff done, but it's pretty rare and frustrating. I certainly wouldn't want to fly halfway around the world to sit in the rain. If you do insist on coming here - hire a guide, most of them are super nice people, can teach you tonnes and you'll probably have a good time. If you insist on not hiring a guide - why not check out the NZ climbing forums and look for a climber already here? There will be heaps. www.mountainz.co.nz is the site you want. It's not as popular as cc.com, but it does get some traffic. Lots of people also show up at Mt.Cook village in the summer months with all the gear and little/no experience and meet other folks who drag them up stuff. It's mostly australians that do this, but there's no nationality requirement. Please PM me or email me if you have any questions or anything. Adios Graham

I've got a B-52, ATC guide and a gigi. I used to use an ATC/gigi combo for many years and never had any problems. A great setup, and you've got some redundancy if you drop something. I really like my b52 (on all but the skinniest ropes). It's very smooth to belay and rap and works great in autoblock mode. It is however, a real pain to lower a climber who's fallen while I've got then autoblocked and can't unweight the rope. So I got an ATC guide - which is just okay. I does everything it's supposed to do, and does it pretty well, but it's not great. I may go back to carrying my b52 and gigi on long climbs. The gigi is a great device. Graham

We didn't have any trouble finding both white gas and propane/butane canisters in Huarez last year. Almost every outdoor shop sold them. I *think* they were like 25sol for the 230g size. enjoy Graham

Nice!

Saw this over on supertopo and thought it was too funny not to share

I've been quite happy with my Sierra Designs Convert 2 - light, strong, breathes well, sets up easily and it's reasonably priced. It's got a removable vestibule that's plenty big for cooking in, there's lots of room inside for a relatively small footprint. my partner (6'3) and I (6') spent several days in it comfortably. I think "stripped down" it weighs about 4.5 lbs, with the vestibule it's about 5 or so. I like it. Graham

My 2 cents: Suffer with duckbills until you can afford NTN - the best of all worlds (tele and you can climb with them easier because they don't have a duckbill)

Nice work dude

I like the BD one because it has a little zippered pocket that I find pretty useful. It doesn't look like the OR one has that.

Tintin is the man - is there anything he can't do well?

The White Spider (henirich harrer) has a pretty good accounting of it. It's a great movie, I saw it last year (it's been out for a long time). Throwing the girl into the story is a little silly, but it's still a very good climbing movie.

Only available in the US! That's BS.

Rehab wall is NOT another 30min hike from Evan Thomas - more like an hour - and that's if you know where you're going. There's not very much easy stuff back there - some long/hard mixed, and some 4's and 5's. I think there might be a 3 back in there, but that's a long way to go.

Gravsports that'll give you all the info you need. The "Canmore guide" - see the links on the left side - has tonnes of info. I'd stay in Canmore, Banff is a tourist trap anyway. Better nightlife/"scenery" in Banff though. "Beginner" - like WI3 ish? toproping/leading? Haffner Creek has some easily top-ropeable ice, Marble Canyon too. if you're into leading: Grotto Falls is WI2, Cascade Falls is about a 3 (can see this one from Banff). Bear spirit has a few top-ropeable ice lines. The Junkyards (Canmore) has a bunch of moderate stuff that can be toproped. I don't think there are very many good beginner areas in the Canmore area, but the ones listed above are what I can think of. The junkyards probably has the best variety of stuff, has a short approach/drive. Partners - look at the posts on Gravsports, or post one yourself, there are plenty of people looking to get out. Be honest with your abilities, etc... Have fun and keep an eye on the avy forecasts...

These are the original Trango Extreme's Trango Extremes Not mine/don't know the guy (though I used to have a pair, and loved 'em. I've got the silver ones now)

Rock Deluxe has a big section on Castle Hill. There is/was? a Castle hill specific guidebook but I seem to remember it was hard to use and it might be out of print. I have also heard rumours of a downloadable Castle hill guide for your ipod, but I don't know much more than that. You can rent crashpads (never done it, just seen signs saying "crashpads for rent") next to the black (the shop is painted black) pie shop on the way to Arthur's Pass (your kiwi hosts will know what I'm talking about- probably). On the right side of the road as your driving towards the pass. The pies there are very good. Good pre, during and post bouldering snack. Google (if you haven't already) Castle Hill and look at some photos - there aren't a lot of highball problems and just about all the boulders are surrounded by grass (and sheep shit)- if you choose wisely and have a good spotter you probably don't need a crashpad. Hope it doesn't rain too much while you're here. Graham

Castle Hill - about 2 hours from christchurch, little/no approach and even non-climbers can have a good time just walking around the boulders. I'd spend all of my time here if I were you. The Port Hills are within Christchurch city limits, about a 20min drive from the centre of town and have a variety of mostly trad climbs on decent rock. Gear is absurdly expensive here - I wouldn't even consider buying anything here. Renting climbing gear (ropes/draws) is inherently a bad idea and standards of safety and accountability are remarkably low here (especially so from a north american perspective). Hanging Rock is a crag a few hours from christchurch and just so-so. My strongest suggestion would be to just bring your shoes and boulder all the time at Castle Hill. It's probably the only place that's really unique and awesome climbing-wise in NZ. There are lots of "unique" places in NZ to climb, but few of them would be considered awesome. Graham

Hey I live in kiwi-land - where in the country are you headed? There is plenty of sport climbing here, no need to bring the trad rack, it's mostly just okay. If you are headed to the south island, the guidebook to get is "Rock Deluxe" - it's expensive (like 60 or 70 NZD), but you'll only need one book for the whole trip. Payne's ford has good sport climbing, Wanaka has good sport, I don't find the rock in Queenstown very good (Wye Creek), but there are hundreds of routes there. What kind of grades are you climbing (be aware that NZ uses a different grading system than the states - a scale of 1- mid 30's with 20 being about 5.11a)? If you're climbing 5.10- up, I would highly reccomend going to the Darrans. Granite, and so overhung that the crags stay (mostly) dry in the rain - good for a place that gets 7 meters (21 feet) of rain/year. Defiantly go to Castle hill - the only world class destination in NZ - pretty much all bouldering, but it's awesome. If you're going to the North Island, there are downloadable guidebooks (free) at www.freeclimb.co.nz Mangakewa is the best sport crag on the North Island - plus it has sweet free camping. Wharapapa South is okay, but Mangakewa is much better. Bring good rain gear, some good books. Plan on spending lots of time in cafes, bars, etc... waiting for the rain to stop. Never take a rest day when it's sunny. Good call on not trying to go alpine climbing here. Shoot me an e-mail or pm or whatever if you want more specific info/have more specific questions. If you haven't already purchased your tickets, better climbing can be had in Australia. If going to Australia, defiantly bring both the trad and sport racks and head to Arapiles and the Grampians. The Blue Mountains (Sydney area) have tonnes of amazing trad/sport too.

Idiots and GPS in VT. For those familiar with Smuggler's Notch: Smuggs idiots

So someone over at NEice had the brilliant idea of contacting Petzl and they sent him some big pictures of the new tools: new petzl tools it's a rar file and nice photos here: why won't that work?

I've sent used stoves before - no worries.

I don't think that necessarily holds true. I think that with modern, all-around ice tools (Quarks, Cobras etc... that have a spike and a hammer, not something like the Monsters or Nomic) are so well designed that there are few/no disadvantages in terms of technical performance on alpine ice. I think that you might not see the full potential of Cobras, quarks etc.. until you get on some hard stuff, but they would be excellent for everything, whereas something like the aztarex would be great for steep hard snow, but little else. just my thoughts.

That being said, there are some really good ice tools out there that are "discontinued" - the rages being one of them. You can also pick up the old cobras for a pretty decent price sometimes. For the right price, a pair of bent shaft Black Prophets would be sweet too, at least for the first year or so. An advantage to buying BD is that the picks are the same as the ones on the current tools. There are a lot of SHITTY cheap tools out there. But if you could get some tools from one of the big 3 (Petzl/charlet, Grivel, BD) it'd be hard to go too wrong. Quasars, Axars (charletmoser) could be good too. Grivel's "wing" tools are only a few years off the current lineup and are pretty sweet too. Buy smart, not cheap.

whoa - that looks pretty sweet. And not super expensive either

Ditto what Scott P said - this has been hammered to death at telemarktips. have a read over that and if you insist on releasable bindings, my recommendation is the Voile 3pin hardwire CRB - bomber, fully releasable, easy to get back into after a release, has brakes, easy to tour on just the pins, cheap(ish). http://www.voile-usa.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=608-27&Category_Code=Release&Product_Count=2 that being said, I use (and prefer) switchbacks now.