Introduction

Exercise Aoraki is the AAA's annual Basic Technical Mountaineering Skills Course conducted in the Southern Alps of New Zealand over the summer climbing season. The trip is focused toward members with little or no Alpine or rock climbing experience and is open to all. Skills taught during the course include: glacier travel, self arresting, use of crampons and ice climbing equipment, roping and belaying, routefinding, and, alpine conditions assessment.

The course is conducted in either Mt Aspiring or Westland national parks and is a mentally and physically demanding introduction to mountaineering. The trip usually encompasses an ascent of at least one 3000m peak.

The following sections contain more information on how to get involved in this activity.

Conduct

Where:

Westland National Park, or, Mt Aspiring National Park, New Zealand.

Additional information on these, and other climbing areas in NZ, can be found here.

NZ professional mountain guides from Mountain Recreation Ltd. provide the course instruction, with assistance from the AAA. The course participants will RV with the guides at a TBA location the morning of the commencement of the course. Helicopter transport organised by Mountain Rec. will be utilised to fly the participants and their gear into the exercise area, where they will spend the next 6-7 days under instruction from the guides, and climbing peaks in the area. At the conclusion of the instruction phase course participants will walk-out to civilisation. Negotiating mountainous and glaciated terrain is extremely demanding on both the mind and body, and walking out is usually a full day, or day and a half of hard going.

Duty Status:

This trip will not be run 'on-duty'. Participants must attend on their own time.

Contact information:

To register your interest in the Exercise, contact the exercise coordinator.

Other Administrative Info

Participation

To participate in Ex Aoraki you must be in the ADF and a member of the AAA.

You should also meet the base level criteria which includes medical and physical fitness. More details will be promulgated here as they are confirmed.

Recommended Reading

The basis of the the alpine climbing skills instructed on the course are contained in: "Mountaincraft - NZ Mountain Safety Manual 20" published by the NZ Mountain Safety Council. Each prospective participant should be conversant with the information contained within this manual. The manual is available from most mountaineering equipment stores.

Equipment

Required and recommended lists of equipment will be provided to participants by Mountain Recreation during the registration process. Climbing gear such as plastic boots, ice axes, crampons, etc. will be available for loan from the AAA Gear Store.

Cost

The total cost of the course is usually around $1150 which will be payable to Mountain Recreation prior to the commencement of the course. This cost will include Helo access, food, and hut fees.

Some funding may also be available from AAA resources. These details are yet to be confirmed.