UKC

I am going to be moving to New Zealand for a few months next year, and I am looking to get as much time outside as possible. I have an Alpine trip planned, but this is probably going to be the only big trip while I am there, so I would be interested in doing some smaller trips below the snow line on scrambling type routes on the weekends and days off.

I have been looking around online for some guide books, but I can only seem to find rock climbing and Alpine books. Are there any scrambling guide books for New Zealand?

This will be my first trip to the country, so can anyone recommend any interesting routes that would be worth doing, or places to go? Preferably shorter routes that can be done in one or two days, as I am meant to be working while there so will only have limited time available.

I will be based on the north island mostly, but I will have access to a car.

In reply to echo34:

At the risk of peeing on your chips a bit, it is worth recalibrating your definitions of climbing trips!

There's not a lot of scrambling in NZ, at least not if you are thinking of the Lakes/N Wales/Highlands type clean short rock routes within a day's walk. There are no scrambling guidebooks, and no-one who would really understand someone wanting to go specifically scrambling - the word seems to be reserved for teetering along chossy vegetated ledges.

Off the top of my head, the Dasler Pinnacles and the Remarkables traverse are pretty much all I can think of (and I have personal experience of neither). Rock tends to be of poor quality compared to the UK or French Alps and approaches long (apart from the Remarks anyway). Both the above are SI routes so would need at least one flight to get to plus hire cars. Hence neither are weekend trips.... The walk in to the Dasler Pinnacles is a day with some big rivers to cross if the weather is poor (at which point it may take a day or two for the rivers to become crossable). Most people take 2-3 days. The Darrans have relatively good rock but you would need to fly to Invercargill (takes forever) or Dunedin and drive for hours to get there.

There are certainly subalpine routes, often hut trips, that offer much fun - Liverpool Biv, French Ridge, Sefton Hut, Brewster, even some "Great Walks" like the Routeburn that get out into big scenery without great hazard. In the NI apart from Tongariro I'm not sure - could look at Paul Hersey's excellent Our Mountains (I will try and dig it out tonight as it has some NI adventures).

I guess my best advice is learn to embrace tramping as an alternative to getting your rocky mountain fix, going for a walk in these parts can be more than enough adventure

Cheers

b

In reply to echo34:

I live in NZ and can confirm that a lot of the mountain rock is complete choss. Nevertheless there is some ok rock and lots of great climbing. It’s very rare to see anyone in the mountains and many mountains rarely get climbed.

You can do a lot in a weekend if you’re prepared to put the effort in. Most of the bigger mountains are on the South Island so you won’t have too many options without getting on a plane.

Don’t underestimate the New Zealand approaches. Lots of river crossing, gorges, bluffs, loose rock, thick bush and receding glaciers often make an approach harder than the climb itself.
The New Zealand Alpine Club has some good general info on their site about the different areas at http://alpineclub.org.nz/climb/alpine
They’ve got some excellent guidebooks and most of the climbs are listed on http://climbnz.org.nz/.
Due to how infrequently many routes are repeated and the very active geology in NZ, the route descriptions are notoriously bad. It’s not uncommon to have 3 words describing a 2 day epic and those 3 words to be completely misleading. It’s always best to try and get info from other climbers.

You’ll find that Alpine Grade 1 or 2 routes will often be rock scrambles but with a lot of exposure and serious consequences if you fall (almost certain death). These routes will be no harder than VD but will be too long to use a rope and likely have lots of loose rock. Treating all foot and hand holds with suspicion is essential.
If this doesn’t sound like your thing then give “tramping” a go. Many tramping routes would most likely be considered serious scrambles elsewhere in the world.

In reply to Andrew Barrett:
I smiled at your line "a 3 line description for a two day epic".
I considered writing up one of my new routes on the Dazzler pinacles as "Climb the arete (carefully), 900m" but in the end gave it a couple more word just to be sure.

Someone above mentioned the dazzler pinnacles, the rock there is not too bad and the easy way up (which i came down) was very straight forward. It probably till needs 3 days from Christchurch though.

I never did it, but is the traverse of the remarkables in queenstown a 'scramble'? Or does it have some technical section requireing a rope?

Enjoy
James

In reply to James Edwards:

Exposed climbing at about diff. Not great rock lower down then clean rock on summit ridge. Alpine AD in summer.

In reply to James Edwards:

Dasler Pinnacles can be done as a day and night from Christchurch but it's a lot of driving and a long day. You need to be really keen. Using mountain bikes or a 4wd from Monument Hut to The Dasler Biv track saves a lot of time savs on the boredom of walking up a river flat.
People do regularly solo the Remarkables Traverse but I would personally use a rope. It's a great day out, it's the easiest access for any Alpine graded climb I know of in NZ (as long as the road to the ski field is open) and the rock is pretty good by NZ standards. Here's a link to a magazine article on it:
http://climber.co.nz/46/feature/remarkables-classic-alpine-ridge

In reply to echo34:
Probably the best place to look for single day scrambles is just to find a list of high peaks, and read about the approaches. I'd recommend these to you from personal experience:

- Ngauruhoe & Tongariro - approach via a very popular track, and then the scramble up to Ngauruhoe takes an additional 90-120 minutes. It's technically very easy, although you will need to be comfortable with steep and loose scree (plunge steps, crossing scree fields, etc). Whole day takes about 8 hours or so.
- Taranaki - approach via another popular track, then 2 hour scramble on sharp, but solid rock to the summit. Technically very easy. 6-7 hours round trip.

And also I highly recommend getting into tramping. You might think that it's easy because it's just walking, but you'd be very wrong. It's totally different from hillwalking because you're sometimes at the mercy of the track (or more accurately - finding markers if it's not a well trodden track). If you get lost in the bush, it could take days to find a way out. Some people simply don't find their way out. The tracks can require good balance and footwork (stepping over/on tree routes and rocks) and hands are often needed to climb up or down steep sections. Because there's no pub/shop at the other end, you have to carry days worth of food - which consequently makes walking over tree roots and climbing things a lot harder. Similarly you sometimes need to cross rivers that can be many metres wide, up to chest deep, that can be metres deeper again when in flood, with the only alternative option being a 2 day trip over a mountain pass to another far away road (wait there rather than attempt crossing, never cross a river that you are not in control of). There are many cases of people just going missing entirely (never to be found) when out on their own as well - always let someone know your plans (including escape routes). Sounds great just writing it out doesn't it.

All in all - have a great time, and let me know if I can answer any other questions

In reply to echo34:
You can do the North face of Mt Earnslaw in a couple of full days and a night from Queenstown and back. It's scrambling in the sense that it's easy climbing up choss, and yes the approach is harder than the climb but the summit has a truly spectacular outlook. Nowhere near the NI though.

In reply to echo34:

Look out for the orcs.

In reply to Pbob:

If time is an issue, like when I was there, maybe you could lump all time off together, fly in and concentrate more on alpinism?

I did 6 or 7 week long trips in the South Island from Australia and flew in and out every time to places like Aspiring, Kelman hut, Mt Cook

Expensive yes, but once in a lifetime trips and they were all great

I also did the traverse of the remarkables in approach shoes, and I am not that good, so I don't think it's that hard!!

In reply to echo34:

The Pinnacles Ridge Traverse and Paretetaitonga North West Ridge would probably class as scrambles if done in summer. They are easily accessed from Whakapapa (Central NI). If you base yourself in the NZAC Ruapehu Hut you could probably do both in the same weekend. As a bonus the views from both routes are hard to beat.

In reply to echo34:

There is some scrambling down the Cleddau Valley on route to Milford Sound but that will be a long way from the NI.

I have parked at the entrance to the Homer Tunnel and headed up the hills from there (Gertrude Valley) and had some scrambling. The rock is relatively firmer.

There is probably stuff up around Arthur's Pass area a little more accessible (<2hrs from Christchurch). I don't know that area so well.

Look at South Island Weekend Tramps ISBN 1-877333-04-2.

In reply to echo34:

Where will you be anyway?

If in Auckland, there isn't going to be much close by. If in Wellington you could head up the Tararuas. Not been up there myself but I saw some photos of a friend's (Facebook) who did the Tararua Traverse last year and it looked like there may have been scrambling involved?

In reply to echo34:

http://www.topomap.co.nz
You might find that handy, topo maps of the whole country.

In reply to echo34:

Without stating the obvious, if I were going to NZ my biggest worry would not be having a partner. Anyhow I'd be heading for the south island anyhow, loads to do, but you need someone on the other end of the rope, unless you are a brave one

In reply to echo34:

I didn't have a guide book so I rocked up at the local climbing shop in queenstwon and asked for some suggestions. In the end I booked a guide ifrom them and went into the Renarkables for a day trip. We went up single cone, all the climbing was quite straight forward, VDiff level, made it back in time for dinner. The grand traverse is a bit more of a commitment but the classics alpine route in the area.

In reply to Puma:

Sounds very similar to what I did. The climbing shop in Queenstown was awesome, and seems to attract hanging out climbing types in the evening which felt like a good way to informally get information. It was a 5 day big commitment in my travels so I hired a guide for 5 days to teach me stuff. Awesome - bit of sport climbing, bit of via ferrata, bit of mixed terrain scrambling / climbing in crampons, glacier travel, basics of avalanche risk work, all kinds of things. It was an investment I'll never regret.

In reply to echo34:

Tip
I used viewranger on my phone. You can get the whole of NZ at 1:50000 scale for about £20..Very useful.
I used a backup charger and a map of any area I went to.

In reply to Puma:

That would be Small Planet on Shotover St. The small store now has a much larger one next door chock full of ski touring and mountaineering gear and the best range of (sadly NZ priced!) gear in the country. The staff are al pretty cool and it doesn't just sell merino to tourists like Outside etc.

Small Planet is the equivalent of Outside in Llanberis or Hathersage, the old Rock & Run/Wilfs in Ambleside, or Needle Sports - a proper climbing store

b

In reply to echo34:

which part of the north island?

You pack a lot in in a weekend depending where you are.

In reply to ben b:
There's also a good store in Wanaka, the name escapes me. They stock some hard to get brands in NZ: Rab, Sherpa, Lowe Alpine.

Edit: it's called MT Outdoors

I don't know, but is there no climbing in the Coromandel Peninsular? It's certainly a nice place for tramping, I went there when I was young quite a bit. There seems to be some information here: https://www.thecrag.com/climbing/new-zealand/the-coromandel-peninsula Certainly an overnight weekend trip sleeping in one of the cabins before returning to Auckland is perfectly feasible. A single day trip may be quite a long day. The scenery is IMHO very nice in the wilder parts of the peninsula, and there's the possibility of going to Hot Water Beach which has thermal springs under the sand. You can dig a hole in the sand which fills with warm water, and have a bath in it.

One of the most stupid things I ever did in my life was climb a few feet down the face of a waterfall in the Kauaeranga Valley http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/coromandel/places/... , with a presumably fatal fall beneath me. I climbed up again over the rocks and against the water with no trouble, but I wish I could go back and tell my teenage self not to do that. (I hope this isn't a diversion of your thread, but it's what caused the thought of climbing in the Coromandel Peninsula to occur to me).