UKC

Possibily going to end up in the north of south island in December for 6 months to a year, and will be looking for places to go for short weekend trips (Queenstown etc are obviously planned for longer excursions). Obviously Paynes Ford and Pohara are well known single pitch near by. I was thinking that there must be some multipitch trad in the Nelson Lakes area or even a little bit further south, given the mountainous terrain. Does anybody have any more info on the matter?

In reply to Cardi:
Try chockstone.org
Climbing forum for those down under....

In reply to Cardi: There is some multipitch alpine rock in the nelson lakes area but it's not a Mecca of bomber rock and splitter cracks by any means. There are better options further south as you've noted but there's not a lot of multipitch cragging anywhere in NZ

In reply to Cardi:

In Milford/ Darran mountains there is Summer alpine rock mulipitch.
Some 2-4 pitch smaller stuff in Queenstown and Kawa kawa bay in Central north island.
See mojozone.co.nz for a NZ forum Chockstone is Australia.

Not Multi pitch but nice long trad lines at Mt Somers, Canterbury and Mihiwaka, Dunedin.

Nelson Lakes has good tramping but I don't know of any rock climbing until Charleston or Punakaiki

In reply to KiwiPrincess:
Also awesome looking Trad at Taranaki in west North island, i've seen some photos but not been there to know how long.

In reply to Cardi:

Not much up north at all, but don't miss Twin Streams on the way to Mt Cook Village, best long multipitch venue outside the Darrans but with better weather, bolted and trad (and a cheap heli ride in), my favorite climbing spot in NZ.

Also Sebastapol Bluffs a bit further up the road for some quality easy short multi-pitch.

In reply to KiwiPrincess:
There IS some alpine multipitch stuff in Nelson Lakes, and there is a guidebook put out by the NZAC
http://alpineclub.org.nz/product/kaikoura-kahurangi

As I said though, it's not fantastic rock, and it's a bit of a grunt to get into some of them. Nice huts though

In reply to Graham:
Awesome huts! I loved tramoing there as a child.
For some reason I just thought Alpine grade stuff not rock. I'll have to have a closer look, It's en route to the in laws.

In reply to Graham: Great, so it's got some rock route descriptions in there too? I'd presumed it was predominantly easy alpine peaks in that guide. Not that I'm averse to that, just I'll predominantly be there in the Summer.

In reply to Cardi:

Chinamans Bluff has a 10 pitch, mixed trad and sport climb on good rock which is superb (called Ravages of Time). A bit of a drive and hike from Queenstown but more than worth the effort. Also the Remarkable mountains are a lot closer to Q town and have some nice slabby adventurous routes, when it's not snowing that is! Lake Alta was a good area if I remember rightly.

Cloudy Peak in Central Canterbury = pure adventure climbing

As mentioned above the Darrans and Twin Stream is epic, Sebastapol Bluff give some long, easy sport and trad routes with very easy access and brilliant scenery. Mt Somers has some smaller (45-70m) trad MP routes, but most can be climbed in a single pitch.

As for the Nelson area, you have to look hard (or buy a NZAC guidebook) to find the decent routes. I remember hearing rumours of a large granite slab being developed on the way down to Murchison (get some white water kayaking in too) but not sure if anything else has happened about this.

The good thing about NZ is that there is so much undiscovered and virgin rock just waiting a first ascent. The bad thing is that a lot of it crumbles like weetabix (or weetbix in NZ) when you pull down on it. However, I was fortunate enough to have a climbing partner who knew the gloss from the choss and we managed to put up some new 300m+ lines in a few of the ranges down south.

Enjoy.

In reply to Cardi:
Yes there are some rock route descriptions in the guide - I don't know how familiar you are with kiwi "descriptions" but they're often not very descriptive.

Don't expect a mini-Chamonix - expect some moderate multipitch routes on sometimes less than stellar rock. I have only done a few (winter, alpine)routes in the area but I know there are some rock routes in the guidebook.

As someone else suggested, try posting on mojozone. It's not super active, but sometimes you can get a good response there.

In reply to Cardi:
http://climbnz.org.nz/nz/si/nelson-lakes
On line guide...I had a quick look only but didn't find rock lines.
Mountain biking is Awesome around the Nelson area!

In reply to KiwiPrincess:
I'm sure I remember there being an 18 on one of the buttresses of Mt. Travers, and then a few others that were accessible from the Travers Hut on a different peak...

yes- the south ridge of Travers has two pitches of rock on it - I think I remember seeing in the book that they were 18 (Eubank Grade).

In reply to Graham:
Thanks Graham. Alpine grades but descriptions describe pitched climbing.
Got snowed in at that hut one Easter and the kea's made a snow slide and spent hours playing on it just out the window! The pass was difficult in Waist Deep snow (we were kids) and we got to the Next hut in the dark. We thought we were hard core trampers, even though the olds carried all the weight.