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General Climbing Discussion

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Preparation for New Zealand TMC 7-Jul-2009 At 8:35:05 PM anthonyk

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I did a TMC in NZ and found it very accessible and user friendly, more so than I wanted (would have prefered covering more), they tend to take it at an easy pace and not assume much. having said that knowing rope handling stuff from rock climbing back to front is going to let you pay attention to other stuff better.

a few catches, on my course flying in was included in the fees and flying out was "voluntary" and $200(?) extra, however it really wasn't voluntary at all. basically the guides say if you really really want to walk out over painful long tiring moraine one of us will walk out with you but everyone else wants to fly and its less hassles if you do too (and pay for the guides to fly as well).

also be aware on a 10 day course it probably involves about 4 days actually in the snow. one day was shaking hands and doing coils in mcv, a day on the other side was in town bc you have to fly out when the weather's good, and the other half were inside with bad weather. personally i think its worth squeezing as much information out of the guides as you can, because the "syllabus" is actually pretty brief & they were otherwise quite happy to sip tea and read instead of covering anything else.