January 2018. A mountaineering course was run by Internationally qualified and experienced mountain guide Gary Dickson with two keen beginner mountaineers from Sydney , Australia.
IFMGA, Professional Mountain Guides around the World
Nov/Dec had IFMGA Mountain Guide Gary working as an assessor for the New Zealand Mountain Guides association as an assessor for two four day NZMGA hard ice guide courses. Both these courses where run on the lower Tasman Glacier ice, a first for the associations training and certification scheme ( usually these courses have been held on the west coast glaciers). All eight of the candidates who put themselves forward for this aseessment( the highest award in NZ for Hard ice glacier guiding) ended up passing. Well done to them all.
In July, Mountain Guide Gary Dickson did two trips around the MonteRosa massif – the classic “spagetti tour” which involves alpinism in both Switzerland and Italy, enjoying the spectacular scenery of this alpine world and the excellent alpine culture of Swiss and Italian mountain huttes/refugios.
The matterhorn at sunset on the classic “spagetti tour” MonteRosa Chain , Switzerland/Italy.
Again this year , Mountain Guide Gary Dickson travelled to Iceland in June and worked with Icelandic Mountain Guides and this year some other glacier guides from Iceland with their training and certification requirements for the Icelandic glacier guiding industry.
specialized mountain training in iceland
the power of icelandic milk for mountain training
Iceclimbing in iceland
Comming up in June, IFMGA Mountain Guide Gary will be heading for two weeks to Iceland to continue his work with Icelandic Mountain Guides with their glacier and alpine trekking guide program. This is specialized training and assessment that gary enjoys being involved in so a high quality and safe mountain product can be offered and delivered to clients in a special and spectacular setting 66 degrees North.
Iceland – very different part of the planet that!
Recently Gary used his extensive technical alpine background and international guiding qualifications to do a field audit of commercial rock climbing activities.
Early April saw IFMGA Mountain Guide once again head back to the head of the Tasman Glacier for a 1:1 ratio alpine climbing instruction course for a chap from Sweden.
Mountain Guides Qualifications
Tasman Saddle hut, your base for a mountaineering instruction course
January 2016, Ascents trip to the West coast, based at Centenial Hut. Great weather and we had the whole of the 8000ha of the Franz neve to ourselves! and the end of the week , a fantastic traverse of the Remarkables, above Queenstown….
Anthony on the summit of Single Cone, the third peak on the Remarkables traverse
Ant climbing on Mt Aurora, Franz Josef glacier, West coast NZ
The Darrens in Fiordland Nat. Park
March is coming to an end and with it a New Zealand mountain guides course of two weeks. Fully Internationally qualified and senior mountain guides Gary Dickson and Nick Cradock are running this two week course in the Southern Alps. They spent some time in the Darrens in Fiordland, Continue reading
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