It was about 18 months ago that I wrote out a plan of all the mountains I wanted to climb. At the time I had no climbing or mountaineering experience, I had just been looking at these peaks and felt a strong desire to summit them.
I’m excited to have ticked off the first of those climbs over the weekend.
The Remarkables Grand Traverse – Single and Double Cones, so prominent on the Queenstown skyline had been calling since I first laid eyes on them and they didn’t disappoint.
The climbing training of the last 12 months through @basecamp set me up for an amazing day out where the climbing felt comfortable, the exposure all completely manageable, and the overwhelming feelings of the day were confidence, exhilaration and gratitude.
At no point did I feel fear – which for those who know and follow me is a big deal!
This is an amazing experience and one that I would recommend. Basecamp provide this as a guided experience (which I would recommend as while this can be done without ropes, I would suggest strongly that soloing is left to the expert and highly experienced climbers!).
- The Route: Starts at the Remarkables Ski Field and loops around the ridge taking in both Peaks
- The People: Tianna, Gideon and Nathan
- Season: Summer – no snow.
- Gear: Full summer mountaineering kit: Helmet, harness, rope, trad pro
- My Difficulty Rating: Moderate – Easy climbing and scrambling, ropes for some high consequence/exposed sections
- Distance/Elevation/Time: My watch died! But I think we did around 10km/900m/10hours
Climbing Single Cone 
Ridgeline between the ‘Double Cones’ 
Summit of Single Cone 
Climbing Single Cone 
Double Cone
