Snowcraft Course

The snowcraft course is an introductory mountaineering course- the goal being to gain skills and build confidence walking through an alpine environment. We learned how to use crampons and ice axes and spent several hours sliding down the mountain (forward, backwards, on our fronts and backs) practicing properly stopping ourselves with our ice axes (self- arrest). We also built snow caves. The university tramping club ran their course at the same location this weekend. I almost did the course with them rather than with the Christchurch tramping club- they built giant snow caves and slept in them- I heard it was a little chilly! (We stayed in the warm club hut in the town of Arthur's Pass). The 2nd picture is a Kea- one of the few alpine parrots in the world. They are amazingly intelligent. Like a lot of NZ birds, they are very unafraid of people since before humans arrived (which in the scheme of things was not that long ago) they had no predators.