You may have noticed a weekish-long trip appear on the summer calendar this year to Mount Apsiring National Park. Subject to sufficient interest, I'm hoping to run this trip to climb the glistening peak itself and check out some of the other attractions in the park, time and weather permitting, over roughly a week from the 4th.

The plan at this stage would be to fly to Christchurch where we'll pick up transport (and anyone joining us in Christchurch) and drive to Wanaka. From there we'll head to the raspberry creek hut roadend and head up the matukituki river to bevan col and make our way across the Bonar Glacier and the summit of perhaps the finest mountain in New Zealand. We'll camp and/or use the various staging huts en-route. Good weather is crucial for this trip, so we'll allow plenty of time for a good weather window for the climb itself, and of course to get in and out and back to Christchurch. This trip will therefore be roughly a week, but exact dates, particularly the date of return are to be confirmed. If we're blessed with outstanding weather for the entire time we're down there, we should also have time to check out some other interesting things in the area too.

This will be a slightly more ambitious trip and will certainly be bordering on more of the mountaineering side of things. AICI+II or alternative experience will therefore be necessary as well as a good level of fitness and navigational ability. Finally, we'll need to arrange transport down there in advance (particularly flights to Christchurch) so we don't get fleeced. This one thus won't be a tuesday night sign up trip, so if you are definitely interested in coming and can get the time off work/study etc., please can you confirm with me by the end of November.

For those definately coming, we'll then probably organise an AIC III-style weekend to revisit the sort of things we're likely to encounter on the trip, rope work etc. plus crevasse and glacier instruction etc., probably up on Ruapehu the weekend prior to heading down there (28-30 January).

Hopefully if there's enough interest, this has the potential to be an absolutely outstanding trip in what I think is the country's best national park. There's something quite amazing about the mountain too, and it shouldn't be too costly to climb it this way either.

Cheers,

Dave, Assistant Chief Guide
davidcoppack@hotmail.co.uk