Fox Glacier Guides specialized mountain training

Posted on November 3, 2017 by alpinism

October. 10 days on the wild west coast of New Zealand. Mountain Guide Gary Dickson has just been working with the senior staff of Fox Glacier Guiding with some specialized mountain training. Chancellor Hut beautifully situated above the Fox Icefall was a great location as a base for some of the training. Chancellor dome and the Fox Ice provided great terrain.

Gaz On the Fox Icefall, FGG specialized mountain training

A fantastic ice tunnel currently on the Fox Glacier.

Gaz meandering thru a fantastic ice tunnel currently formed on the Fox Glacier.

Specialist mountaineering consultancy

Posted on April 12, 2017 by alpinism

Early 2017, IFMGA Mountain Guide Gary Dickson spent two week with an elite group of people furthering their mountaineering decision making skills in the Southern Alps of NZ – known by this group as an ideal place to hone and test their mountaineering skills – skills and proficiency that they then can take to any mountain region/range in the world.

Gaz Dickson – professional mountain consultant to some of the world elite

2016 specialized mountain training in Iceland

Posted on July 30, 2016 by alpinism

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

Iceland – specialized mountain training

Posted on May 4, 2016 by alpinism

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!

Specialized mountaineering instruction courses

Posted on June 12, 2014 by alpinism

Fresh snow in May right down to the lake and river in Wanaka

The Alpinism & Ski office has been moved from New Zealand to the Swiss Alps for the annual European climbing adventures. Mountain guide Gaz is presently in Iceland, delivering more specialized mountaineering instruction to the Icelandic mountain guides.

Climbing instruction – specialised mountain training for Wanaka police SAR squad

Posted on December 11, 2013 by alpinism

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?…..

Technical Mountaineering: instruction and special training courses

Posted on April 8, 2013 by alpinism

The mulit-pitch rock climbing excursion mentioned earlier in the Southern Alps was just part of the whole picture. It was followed up by some ice climbing and more training of technical mountaineering skills last week at Fox Glacier, this time with Emma also part of the team:

Ice climbing on Fox Glacier

Not a bad day in the office

Presently, the chief is on a workshop in Mt Cook to keep up and refresh with expertise in his field(s) but a few more shots from the Fox Glacier mission where a couple of days were spent on the ice:

: Fox Glacier New Zealand

: Ice climbing

: learning crampon technique on a private mountaineering instruction course

: Safety: part of the fun

: Fun on ice

: getting of the ground and up up up

: Belaying, an important role

: checking foot work

: getting higher

: looking good

: some technical parts

: up or down

Specialized mountain training

Posted on April 6, 2013 by alpinism

Late March and Gary spent three days away with Wanaka Police SAR squad members MJ and Az, doing alpine rock training. Location: Head of the South Temple valley. First objective was a 10 pitch climb on the Weta Prowl Buttress of Mt Steeple. Multi-pitch climbing to max approx grade 13; reasonably sound rock but requiring good route finding and rope work amongst some loose stuff. After success on this, another route on one of the many buttresses was completed. This was excellent route finding and terrain assessment for the lads with no existing topo. An excellent venue for this specialized SAR training and Alpine rock techniques.

on the upper part of the weta prowl

access via the usual SAR method

Up thru the choke pitch

Mountain guiding and alpine climbing instruction

Posted on February 4, 2013 by alpinism

That’ s on the Alpinism & Ski program until May this year: be it for a guided ascent of Mt Aspiring or another dream peak or a combination of alpine climbing instruction and peak bagging while on a week of alpinism adventures. Some specialized mountaineering training for Wanaka Search and Rescue members is again on the agenda too, here some photos from autumn 2012 on Fox Glacier:

Mountain guide providing special training

SAR team members on a special training mission

Special training on snow and ice

Skills training for mountaineering

Ice screws in good use

“hard work” on snow and ice

from ice and snow onto rock, that’s mixed climbing

nice day in the office

Southern Alps of New Zealand for special training

Who climbs up will have to come down

Specialised Mountain training and search and rescue on TV

Posted on December 1, 2012 by alpinism

Alpinism and Ski does specialist mountain training for a number of organisations

Wanaka LandSAR team in training

Here are the links (11.12.2012)

Episode one 26th Nov

Episode two 3.Dec

Episode three in Fiordland

If you are interested in what Gary and the Local Wanaka Land search and rescue people do, then tune into NZ TV channel One 8pm on a Monday night for eight episodes of reality TV of “high country rescue” ( the first episode was Monday 26th November and seems to have been well received by those we have talked to and those that have sent messages about it)

Gary Dickson Mountain Guide

New Zealand and Swiss Mountain and Ski Guiding specialist

Tag Archives: specialised mountain training