Tag Archives: Wanaka eco tours

Mountaineering Instruction course, mountain guiding and guided walks

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Working  as a trainer for the New Zealand Mountain Guides Assn, Gaz and his small team  flew up to Centennial hut in windy, cold South West conditions. His crew made up of 3 Fox Glacier  guides who are keen on the NZMGA Alpine Trekking Pathway and one from Invercargill/Queenstown  keen on becoming a NZMGA ski guide. There is an excellent amount of snow cover on the glaciers and lots of good guide techniques taught to the students . After a couple of days in that location they then re-located  to Pioneer hut and finished the 6 day mountaineering instruction course at Chancellor hut from where they flew back down to Fox. A good week in the Southern Alps to improve technical skills and knowledge.

Need a mountain guide during December/January?

Due to a cancellation, Gaz is  available  for personalized mountain guiding or offer you a great mountaineering  instruction course…

Guided walks in the Wanaka area and Mt Aspiring National Park.  There are Rob Roy Glacier Cirque, Glacier Burn taking the Eastern branch of the Matukituki, Diamond lake loop track for those with only a small half day to spare: great views of Mt Aspiring, the river and Lake Wanaka. Even if you only have a couple of hours, they are so worth while checking out the best view points and eco tours in our Wanaka paradise…. call Iris for suggestions

Alpinism & Ski Wanaka

Life is too short , let's get out and play

Spring flowering in Wanaka – what you’d see right now.

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Manuka annd Kanuka, tre tea

Manuka, one of the fine smelling native plants of NZ

Native plants along lake Wanaka shores

The purple Bladderwort is found along the lake edge in Wanaka

Wild Irishman or Matagouri

Native plant of NZ, Matagouri or Wild Irishman

Come on a guided trekking trip, hiking or guided walk  with us and you can see right now :

Panakenake and orchid flowers are appearing, ground covering daisies and the amazing vegetable sheep; dark, like wine colored pittosporum flowers have come and gone, also the fragrant Matagari or Wild Irishmen with the amazing thorns shows flowering buds.

We have another announcement with regard to our sustainable  business practices: the statement or policy is now available through our website from the home page at the very bottom or from the ‘about us‘ page. This sustainability statement is a growing document, thanks for your patience.

Wanaka news from Alpinism & Ski

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The season is changing again and as usual Wanaka has an awesome display of autumn colors:

Autumn walks in Wanaka

the outlet, a favorite for colors on a walk in autumn

here the Clutha river outlet, during this time of the year an absolute ‘must do’. The Wanaka festival of arts is also fast approaching and the Wastebusters are having the awards for best and worst packaging while the Alpinism & Ski team continue with their sustainable practices and improvements: new bathroom floor is in. Some time in the future, we will be able to tell you our environmental footprint analysis (as we are now part of a sustainable practice study) and show you our sustainability statement and policy in black and white. For now, we continue to learn and practice… and we continue to fly into the mountains too. Here some tips from Iris about being sustainable:

Alpinism & Ski and sustainability practices

safe your left over hot water in a thermos, your next cup is ready

Sustainability and Alpinism & Ski

Where you can, use an old fashioned duster insted of a hoover

Sustainability and Alpinism & Ski

Above your fire place use a drying rack instead of an electric dryer

Guided hikes around Wanaka

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Spring times in Wanaka and our guided trekking excursions are on again. New flowers are out just about on a daily basis: Matagouri, Manuka, Vegetable Sheep, flax…

Matagouri, Wild Irishman, Discaria Toumatou

Matagouri, Wild Irishman, Discaria Toumatou

If you need a place to stay other then our Alpinism Studio, try Lake Hawea Holiday Park part of Glene Dene Adventures –

Wanaka – alpine and magic

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Easter is gone, so is the air show for another couple of years. Gary is back from the mountain guides course, they all passed, great stuff! Alpinism & Ski is 10 years old and it’s time to celebrate. Here some pics from one of the latest new walking and biking tracks, from Albert town to the Luggate bridge and back. Especially fantastic during the airshow, you get free action:

Wanaka Clutha River track

Clutha river Wanaka

Wanaka Easter Airshow

action in the sky over Wanaka

Wanaka mountain biking tracks

mountain biking is great training for any alpinism ventures

Wanaka, sustainability and Alpinism & Ski

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This community has an amazing spirit and good things happen. During the 10 years of Alpinism & Ski existence – end of March 2010 we’ll celebrate – loads of progress was made in Wanaka to become more aware about being environment friendly and sustainable. One place you can find out more is www.sustainablewanaka.co.nz

Apart from being sustainably orientated and offering eco tours, we can boast with some of the things we have achieved:

  • diversifying electricity, gas for cooking and solar power for hot water, improving our base with double glazing, insulation and of course use eco bulbs and turn off what we can
  • planted native trees and bushes on our property
  • collected rubbish all around the place (still hate all the broken glass around)
  • have an organic garden

more soon…