This Is Why I Am Here
December 8, 2003 2:23 am General
Wanaka has a slight Aspen feel to it – amazingly chilled out with stunning scenery all around you, without the superiority complex. Plain and simple, this place is just cool, and I felt bad leaving it at the end of the weekend. It’s about a 5 or 6 hour journey from Christchuch, sitting just north of Queenstown by about 100km. The weather was pretty ugly heading down with strong winds and driving rain trying its best to squander us, but stubborness gave way to incredible weather for the rest of the weekend, and a good share of climbing.
Having bought the Wanaka guidebook, we headed to the Roadside crag for some warm up routes – all bolt clipping on schist. I’ve never climbed on schist before, and it involves a large deal of thought, with a number of thin moves of small crimps and slopers. We started off working up from about 14 – Wanaka 14, there seems to be a large difference, and eventually worked out way up to 16, which felt about French 6a. Most of the routes were relatively short, requiring anything between 3 and 6 bolts, with the first bolt being quite high – there were some routes I wanted to try, but didn’t have the balls to start due to a pretty highball start. The following day, after a good night of Thai, beer and wine, we hit the Hospital Flat boulders. Lots and lots of potential problems, including an awesome arete/overhang traverse with heelhooking. Started my project to have a short bouldering/climbing film by the end of my year here. Will almost certainly have to take a lot more footage than I did last weekend.
So with some regret we left Wanaka vowing to ourselves that we’d all be back soon, and left the mountains behind to head towards the Canterbury plains again. It was a small taste of the adventures to come, with the constant fear in the back of our minds that there is so much to see, and so little time to see it.
Those are hardcore vibes.
