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General Climbing Discussion

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guides new zealand 24-Jul-2010 At 5:31:39 PM Mike Bee

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I had Bill on my TMC too, as did about serveral other people I know (we all did the course independantly). Overall, the verdict seems to be some mixed reports. Personally, I liked the way he ran things, it was to the point without too much fussing about, which is how I like to climb. Some others felt that perhaps he could have been a bit more of an approachable teacher type figure. You can't argue with that many years of experience or his knowledge of the area though.

My only critisism of Alpine Guides however is that they softened their "client specs" for one of the people on my course. There were 4 of us, 3 Aussies who were all strong bushwalkers and mid-high teen trad climbers, and the 4th was from Malaysia (or maybe Singapore) who had only fair English, was quite unfit (and smoked like a chimney) and who's total techincal rock experience was 2 hours at a gym in Christchurch (so much for being able to second grade 14 trad routes as it says in their literature). To boot, he ignored the gear list and rocked up with a useless Nike sports back pack, no truly waterproof gear and not enough warm stuff. In my opinion, that guy shouldn't have left Mt Cook Village.

That left a slightly sour taste in the mouths of us other 3. If I had my time again, I'd still go with Alpine Guides, but I'd get a mate of simliar fitness and climbing ability to me, and hire a private guide for the week. Simliar cost overall, but you'd get way more done and learn way more because (for example) you wouldn't have to be retaught a rethreaded figure 8 knot because there's one guy in the course who can't do it!