Mountain Journeys

Here’s post 3 of 3 covering useful ways your compass can be helpful even in situations where you're not following a bearing or doing triangulation. (Anyone who has signed up to our newsletter has already seen this. Sign up at our website if you want first access next time!)

HOW TO USE CONTOUR LINES WHEN YOU ARE HEADING STRAIGHT DOWN

An important rule is that if you're facing straight down or straight up a slope and extend your arms out to your sides, your arms are aligned with the contour lines on the map. Another way of saying this is that if you're traveling either directly downhill or directly uphill, you're traveling exactly perpendicularly to the contours.

Imagine you're planning a descent through untracked bush from Hut Spur down to the north. You left the ridge where it changes direction about halfway between points 1581m and 1545m, and you've descended to the bushline near the crest of the prominent spur, above points A and B.

Your plan is to simply bomb down until you're at 1100m, where there will be a noticeable easing of the gradient. From there you'll swing north-west until you encounter a steep drop-off towards Jordan Stream; you'll turn right and keep that drop-off on your left as a handrail as you descend the final spur to the valley just west of Birch Nook. It's a good plan.

Less than half an hour after you start your descent, things don't seem right. It's getting REALLY steep in front of you. That's not supposed to happen. It turns out that when you started going straight down through the bush, you weren't at point A; you were just a tiny bit east of the crest of the spur, at point B. Look closely at the contour lines there: if you travel perpendicularly to them, you're going to be flung off further east than your planned route, straight into the jaws of the "BUG" (big ugly gully).

Nuances of the contours like that can have a big impact. To confirm where you are next time, point your compass in the direction the slope is falling. At point A this would be almost due north; at point B it would be about 035 degrees. The latter would make you realise you're too far east, and a quick easy sidle now while you're still high will save a ton of energy later. You can also use this method when sidling around a hillside, to determine how far you've gone simply by determining in what direction the slope is falling.

**** Want to learn more? Spaces still available on courses from late August to late September.

We have navigation courses for all levels. We cover essential skills for trampers, hunters, mountaineers, adventure racers, ski-tourers, and anyone else venturing off the beaten paths in Aotearoa

What do you get when you combine a summer transalpine specialist with a winter transalpine specialist?

Our 2026 Advanced Transalpine Skills Course!

The legendary Anna Keeling is going to join our Chief Guide Rob Frost this December to facilitate this unique 7-day course. It will run 13-19 December, and will be based out of Fox Glacier or Aoraki/Mt Cook depending on the forecast.

This advanced course is for people who are already comfortable moving with crampons and ice axe, and want to learn skills to deal with glaciers, tricky steep steps, and complicated routefinding. Rob and Anna will also share pearls of wisdom on all sorts of topics from decades of experience.

Spaces limited to six participants; we currently have four places remaining. Check out our website for details.

Here’s post 2 of 3 covering useful ways your compass can be helpful even in situations where you're not following a bearing or doing triangulation. (Anyone who has signed up to our newsletter has already seen this. Sign up at our website if you want first access next time!)

DETERMINING PROGRESS ALONG A RIVER

You've been bush bashing up the Arawhata River for HOURS. Surely you must be almost at the open flats downstream of the Arawhata Rock Biv - somewhere near point A perhaps? The cloud ceiling is low and you're not getting many clues from the slopes on either side of the valley.

You point your compass upstream to see what bearing the river is following, and see that you're looking in a direction of 105 degrees. Unfortunately that puts you somewhere in the vicinity of point B - you've still got a way to go!

You can also use this method to determine progress along any feature you're following - like a track or a ridge - which has distinct changes in direction.

Want to learn more? Spaces still available on courses from late August to late September.

We have navigation courses for all levels. We cover essential skills for trampers, hunters, mountaineers, adventure racers, ski-tourers, and anyone else venturing off the beaten paths in Aotearoa

Here’s post 1 of 3 covering useful ways your compass can be helpful even in situations where you're not following a bearing or doing triangulation. (Anyone who has signed up to our newsletter has already seen this. Sign up at our website if you want first access next time!)

HOW TO STAY ON THE RIGHT RIDGE

Imagine a scenario - using the map extract below - where you've successfully traversed Mt Bowen from west to east, negotiated the "three 16s," and have started along Misty Ridge towards Mt Browne. It's been about 45 minutes since you left Point 1686m, and the ridge is living up to its name - you're in thick mist. You were expecting a fairly broad, easy ridge to travel along, but you find yourself on quite a skinny exposed ridge instead, and it's still descending moderately steeply. Your altimeter says you're at 1390m but it certainly doesn't feel like you're at point B on the map. Something must be wrong.

Something I always like to do when travelling along a ridge or spur, if I'm not sure where I am, is to point the compass along the crest of the ridge/spur and see which direction it's pointing. In this scenario you do just that and discover that the ridge is descending almost due north, towards about 350 degrees. If you were actually at point B, the ridge should be heading closer to northeast, probably about 030 degrees. That's an instant confirmation that you've taken the wrong ridge when it forked at 1500m, and you're actually at point A. The solution in that case is not to sidle across the basin in between - that terrain looks far too steep and complicated. You'll simply need to climb back up a hundred metres or so to where you took the wrong turn. (This could have been avoided if at the start of your descent you'd identified that there'd be a critical point at 1500m, from where you'd need to temporarily head on a bearing of about 070 to pick up the correct route.)

Similarly, imagine you've descended more than 200m from the summit of Mt Browne and you're surprised you haven't found the marked route yet. A quick compass check confirms that you're on a ridge heading due east, so you must be at point C. It's time for a climb back up almost to the summit of Mt Browne, then a descent towards the northeast via point D instead.

But can't my phone just tell me where I am?
Of course, your phone could be used to verify your location for any of the above scenarios. But it's essential to have these kinds of tricks up your sleeve for situations where you've run out of battery or lost your phone. Plus, you'll be much more efficient if you don't need to frequently check your phone to confirm where you are.

Want to learn more? Spaces still available on courses from late August to late September.
We have navigation courses for all levels. We cover essential skills for trampers, hunters, mountaineers, adventure racers, ski-tourers, and anyone else venturing off the beaten paths in Aotearoa.

This is the third year we've been sponsoring the Remarkables Ice & Mixed Festival's Snowcraft 2 clinic - a great value course happening during the festival this weekend. It's a great event bringing together a big group of outdoors folk for a few days.

If you're attending the festival, keep a lookout for the two vouchers that we've donated to the auction. One is for $500 to spend on anything in the Mountain Journeys online shop. The other is $2,500 value towards any Mountain Journeys instruction course or guided journey. Each year these are the highest value vouchers we provide to anyone. Good luck to the bidders!

There were SO MANY amazing photos from the awesome women who took part in last weekend’s Alpine skills course, it's been very hard to choose which to post!

Key motivations to sign-up included improving decision-making in alpine conditions, gaining confidence to go on more adventurous trips with friends, and some just wanted to address anxieties that they felt held them back from really doing what they love!

Our superstar guide Bia Boucinhas made sure that each person's individual motivations were addressed - new skills and new friends were both ticked off too of course! Massive well done to Ali, Fran, Dale and Alice.

We still have ONE spot left on next weekend’s course, so if you’re interested in joining, head to our website to sign up.

Want to learn the types of skills required to undertake your own Transalpine trips?⛰️

Join one of the following courses:
✔️6-day 22-27 October '26. Location: Arthurs Pass.
✔️7-day 13-19 December '26 (Advanced). Location: TBC (Aoraki or South Westland)

Read all about it on our website.