A Monday afternoon in the rain at Rasberry Flat.  Quentin, Emma and I met Eric and Graham and sorted our gear.  Emma was a late addition to the team so we threw in a bivy bag and tents for 4. The Matukituki was a usual slog up a cow valley, and at Pearl flat we headed up to Liverpool biv which was a nice quick climb with heavy ...

  In 1991, climbers found the body of a man in the ice of a glacier in the Otztal Alps. The 5600 year old ''Otzti man'' caused a sensation in anthropological circles. In 2008, some similarly decrepit old fossils from the history of VUWTC met in Innsbruck to retrace his steps. We started our trip at Obergurgler. ...

  The Paringa has to be one of the easier West Coast rivers to get up. Standing on the Paringa Bridge on SH6 no gorge sits between you and the mountains of the Hooker range. The farmland is even pretty tolerable! After a pleasant amble with overloaded packs, we spent the last few hours of Boxing Day at the Condons private hut, in the company ...

The King Country is renowned for many things.  Colin Meads, Jim Bolger, Colin Meads, umm, ....., well, uh, Coli.....  OK it's not renowned for many things and one of the many things it is not renowned for is tramping.  It is however close to Hamilton, so at Queens Birthday Alistair and Eric made the trip south and Graham and I ...

No hats were bagged, or bugged for that matter. But, hat bugging sounds like a new hobby I could take up. Also, my the next hut bag mission is Centennial Hut on the Franz neve (believe it or not) - pretty much the other end of the bagging spectrum! I'll try and get a photo to prove it, because no one will believe me. 

My sister-in-law was working in Ahaura today so I thought I'd catch a free ride and go and bag Jim's Flat Hut. Well, some hut bags are just not worth it. Jim's flat is about 20km up the Ahaura-Kopara road (10km sealed, 10km unsealed), then a few km down a metalled vehicle track. Beside the hut is a NIWA/Council automatic hydrometer  ...

Hey guys, Me and Ben are officially part of the lost sheep crowd these days.  However, we have been doing our best to get the VUWTC logo in lots of South Island hut books over the summer. Check out our blog for past trips and posts from South and Central America: www.travelblog.org/bloggers/Kat-and-Ben Kat