News flash - I won a scholarship

My big news is that I have been successful in attaining a part scholarship to attend a High Alpine Skills Course in the Mt Cook area in January. The scholarship was offered by the NZ Alpine Club and sponsored by the Wellington and Auckland Women Climbing groups. The course is a fantastic opportunity to learn some new skills (of specific interest to me, they cover off glacier travel and crevasse rescue as part of the course) that will be of tremendous benefit to my own personal climbing as well as adding to my skillset for teaching other people. I'm particularly interested in encouraging other women to either take up climbing or take the next step in their climbing. With my memberships to Mountain Safety Council and the Wellington section of the NZ Alpine Club I'm in a great position to enable this.

I've been catching up on some reading recently (prior to knowing about the scholarship) and have just finished reading a book about Bill Denz and also one written by Karen Gazley - both climbers. Both books were a great read. I found both books, to some extent, inspiring but not to the point where I would want to emulate Bill Denz. I think my personal approach to risk is somewhat different to what Bill's was.

With the course lined up for mid-January, my summer is shaping up to be a great one. Hopefully I'll get some climbing in before the course at the Alpine Club annual climbing camp which is taking place in the Hopkins Valley. Prior to Christmas some forays up into the hills for some tramping will be the plan - time to get lean and mean, ready for climbing.