I went down to Queenstown for some ice and mixed climbing in the Remarkables. It was a great opportunity to catch up with old friends as well. We had some misty weather on the first day, but still had a fun day of climbing.

The next day we woke to a fantastically clear beautiful day. We plodded up the sides of the ski field to Queen's drive at the back of the remarkables. Our climb for the day was called 'Saturday morning special'. Quite appropriate for a Saturday morning! Our climb was three pitches, and we topped out with a fantastic view of the Southern alps.

It was a great weekend and it was a lot of fun climbing with a great group of people.

Back in New Zealand, my friend Alex and I headed off for a trip up Mt. Ruapehu. We got up really early for our climb, earlier than anyone else heading up the summit ridge that day as it turned out. We walked up from the Whakapapa car park, and stopped briefly at the warm shelters for the lift operators. As we headed up to the summit ridge the sun started to rise and we got an amazing sunrise and view of our surroundings. We could see Taranaki in the distance, and I have never seen it so clear. We were the first people up on the summit plateau that day.

We climbed up to just below Te Atuaa on the summit ridge. We took a few more photos and headed back down. We saw the first few other people popping up towards the summit. As we headed down we got fantastic views of Ngaruhoe and Tongariro, and it turned into a pretty hot day!