Featured Activities
When was the last time you did something adventurous? Or to be more specific when was the last time you actually felt like you were on an adventure? Fraser McDougall, professional athlete, shares his tips on planning your best adventure.
Conrad Anker, The North Face professional mountaineer said, ‘it’s not a real adventure until you’ve run out of food’. For Conrad, the only thing that can stop him climbing is starvation. But, you have to remember it’s all relative. That means you have to find an adventurous bar to set for yourself.
Talk to friends, family and local experts to discover the next adventure. Listen out at bars and cafes for names or places, then go online to NZ topo and hit those keywords to see all of New Zealand tracks, huts, and mountain peaks. Match that with some online Google searches and you have all the tools you need to start planning.
Getting the right kit is a good start. Take gear like Wanaka’s own merino apparel designer, Mons Royale baselayers, a good fitting back pack, maps from DOC and a first aid kit, just to cover the basics. Don’t cheap out on this stuff. Plan as much as you can beforehand and then don’t sweat the small stuff on the day.
When planning, two words encompass the meaning of adventure better than anything else to me – ‘the mountains’. And when it comes to getting you deep into the middle of nowhere, Southern Alps Air can do it.
This is what that sets the adventure bar for me. Well, that and enough hiking to make the beer taste like heaven at the end of it. I’ve spent a week on a glacier in Alaska, skied New Zealand’s highest peak, and climbed in the Bolivian mountain ranges at 6000 metres. Isolation in amazing places is the common thread here and past trip experience is the best preparation. One builds onto another.
For this adventure, we flew deep into the mountains to find a lake situated high in the Southern Alps, in one of the most unique corners of New Zealand.
It’s halfway through the Gillespie Pass Circuit in Mount Aspiring National Park. We landed on a little landing strip in the Siberia Valley and hiked 3-hours west towards the Main Divide to Lake Crucible.
We have some amazing places that are well worth the effort of discovery. So, if and when you can get out there and into the mountains.
When you connect purpose, planning, landscapes and people, you realise that this is not just an adventure… this is living.
