In the middle of the July/August Swiss climbing season , Grant and Gary spent a week in the Swiss Alps working on developing Grants intermediate and advanced climbing techniques/skills for smooth, efficient ascent and descent of big peaks.
Climbing on Mt Blanc de Cheilion, Switzerland
Matterhorn skyline, Swiss Alps
Learn , develop, extend you Alpinism skills in Switzerland this 2016 season. Join IFMGA Mountain Guide Gary Dickson for a week during July or August this 2016.
Switzerland has brilliant terrain for delivering excellent, high quality climbing courses, and you can take advantage of the knowledge that Gary has gained over the last 15 seasons doing such courses.
Contact us now to work out when you can head into the Swiss Alps for your tailor made Swiss climbing course ….
Grant has just booked with me a week of mountaineering in the Swiss alps in August. You too can come and join the alpinism and ski team and enjoy the massive supermarket of mountaineering peaks and routes with good access, light packs, excellent mountain accomodation in Switzerland.
On his recent trip in the NZ Alps, Ant is inspired to get into more mountaineering again and will maybe join me in the swiss alps too………………… what about you?
Nadelhorn, classic summit, Switzerland
Almageller hut. Sass valley, Switzerland
specialised rock training, MJ leading
Aaron ready to belay us up
Aaron and MJ
Multipitch rock climbing on the granite slabs near Homer Tunnel in the Fiordland, Darren mountains was the start of this summers specialised Police SAR squad training.
Stunning location and excellent rock and even the Keas behaved themselves and did not destroy our packs.
The plan to do a traverse of Mt Macpherson over to Mt Talbot was thwarted by the Fiordland jungle mist, so after a slightly soggy ascent and descent to homer saddle, the continuation of specialised training was on the way back to Wanaka, with a climbing stop off at Kingston. Superb multipitch climbing with excellent lake views before a Queenstown burger.
Next climbing instruction installment will be in March …..what will we get up to then?…..
The peak season of mountaineering adventures in the Southern Alps has started with this last month of the year. Guided climbing adventures with us begin most often right here in Wanaka, including ascents of Mt Aspiring, Mt Tasman and of course the highest, Mt Cook – Aoraki.
Also mountaineering courses and Gary has just spent a 7 day trip with three Australians, based at Pioneer hut for the best weather days, learning, refreshing and improving alpine climbing skills, enjoying the alpine ambiance and taking in the wilderness aspect of the Southern Alps:
Mic and Monty have both been on Alpinism adventures here with us before and it was a pleasure to introduce Mic’s son Pat to the fun and excitement of alpine climbing.
learning to place ice screws on a climbing course
End of the month, two fit fellas will be arriving from Aussie to go on an intermediate-advanced climbing course with mountain guide Gaz. The NZ weather looks to have settled into a more settled state of play and alpine conditions look excellent for the 10 day specialized mountain training.
If you are looking for a climbing course we have two sceduled courses comming up:
If you are an individual or a group looking to have a week of private mountaineering instruction, just get in touch and we can see if we can fit around your schedule.
Here some memorabilia of Alpinism during the last decade: youtube legendary Doug Ball who spent considerable time climbing with mountain guide Gary Dickson aka Gaz from January 2006 until August 2009.
Doug Ball, 79, on Mt Aspiring, New Zealand
Doug at 80, climbing a few peaks over 4000m in a week in Switzerland
Doug climbing high above the Dossenhütte, Kingspitze in the back ground
Doug had climbed Mt Cook Aoraki with his wife Peggy and many other peaks, but never Mt Aspiring. He got thwarted twice while climbing with Gaz because of conditions and weather but third time lucky and for a brief time he was considered the oldest climber to have sumited. He must have been an inspiration … more
Based at Centennial hut for some more alpine climbing
He sent us these lines just recently …”I use a slide show of my mountaineering photos as a screen saver so that my memories are not lost but are refreshed every day. Alpinism and Ski certainly made an enormous difference to my life. What would have become of me if I had just thrown in the sponge after Peggy died? I have so much to thank you both for and am not likely to ever forget it.”
keep going strong Doug
Second half of July here in Europe – the Alps with fresh snow all around. Rain galore for mother nature and good for the glaciers and mountaineering later on in the season, but definitely making it tricky right now for us to go climbing rock up high. We have managed a bit of climbing between the showers on the lower rock climbing crags and Gary prepared this photo album of the specialized climbing instruction a few weeks ago, enjoy.
Mid July and after two weeks of mountain guiding for ISM, Gary is ready for some top quality rock climbing with Iris. Climbing in europe, we are spoilt as we can choose to go climbing on lime stone, gneiss, granite and/or marble. The European Alps provide us with all sorts of fun from gazing at pretty flowers on trekking trips, watching chamoix and ibex to alpine climbing.
The New Zealand late winter program has been on our minds too and ski touring is definitely on. We have a team booked for ski touring end of October and have decided to offer two scheduled 6 day ski touring trips for individuals keen to share experience and cost: Tour I from 25.9.- 30.9. and Tour II from 10.-15.10.2011. There is also a 3 day avalanche course available for those keen to learn/improve their back country skills.
Views from Tour de Famelon, Leysin: Eiger,Mönch,Jungfrau