It's 7.04 am and we're pulling into the Remarkables carpark. My phone rings. "Where are you? You're late". We parked and packed up our gear as quickly as possible. "I guess these scrog munchers don't like to be late" I said as I tried to figure out how to attached two ice axes to my pack. Turns out we were in a rush to get going (at 7am, not 7.04am) because we needed to get to the good ice before the boys did. Last weekend Gabby and I participated in the annual Expedition Climbers Club Ice and Mixed festival, held at the Remarkables. The Expedition Climbers Club brings together a huge cross section of climbers from around New Zealand and the world. Courses are run for those looking to gain more experience and those with lots of experience are able to meet other like minded climbers, make friends and find new climbing partners to tackle some of the advanced routes. It's a very unique club and festival and I doubt anything similar exists elsewhere in the world. It's entirely run by volunteers, who are generally the top scroggin munchers in the country. This means the courses are really affordable and open to anyone with some basic mountaineering and snow experience. We were definitely on the beginner end of the spectrum, I have ice climbed once before, and Gabby had never tried it. Neither of us had mixed climbed before and weren't actually really that sure what mixed climbing was. We signed up for the "Chicks n Picks" clinic, an all-female ice climbing clinic run by two of New Zealand's best female ice climbers Rose Pearson and Gemma Wilson. Rose and Gemma are also the only two women on the New Zealand Alpine team. We were discussing why it is that women like to learn from women, and why we generally prefer to take courses and learn in a slightly more structured and formal way. Men we feel like generally are keen to just give things ago, accept more risk. Many of us were envious of this, wishing that we also felt comfortable just trying something out independently for the first time, and learning on the fly and just assuming that things would work out. Many of us we felt would probably not have tried ice climbing had we not been able to participate in this women's clinic. This was a similar consensus at my She Jumps Alpine Finishing school that Steph and I participated in. While ice climbing has the potential to be fun and a sport on it's own we were there with the goal of expanding our skills and confidence in icy conditions. At the beginning of the course we were asked to describe our dream ice climb. I answered by saying I wasn't interested in climbing anything that I wasn't able to ski down! This confused many of the scrog munchers. We practised climbing several different routes which were completely ice. We were on top ropes, but it was still scary and the thought of trusting 100 percent of your weight on just one ice pick took a while to get used to. Getting used to the technique versus general rock climbing technique was challenging too as you aren't really able to use any part of your foot other than your toes. We definitely used our knees a lot though and regretted not wearing knee pads! Now that we've practised climbing vertical ice climbing less that vertical ice should be a bit easier (right??).. More importantly we practise placing ice screws and using v-threads to make anchors in the ice. I've travelled around with and ice screw on my harness for many years for a "just incase" scenario but I've never actually used one. This part of the training was awesome. We made many anchors of varying strengths and tested them out with 7 people on them and they held! Great for building trust and feeling confident with the ice holding. We're not really sure exactly what conditions we'll encounter in Patagonia. Ideally everything will be easy and we won't need ropes or ice axes or ice screws but we're working hard getting prepared so that if necessary we'll be able to be safe and confident using these tools. And just to confirm we aren't turning into ice climbers, we remain skiers at heart. And scroggin munchers are cool :) . Rose and Gemma are awesome and we wish we were as cool as they are. SCROGGIN: A TERM USED IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND FOR TRAIL MIX
NUTS PROVIDE SUSTAINABILITY AND PROTEIN, THE DRIED FRUIT PROVIDE CARBOHYDRATES AND THE CHOCOLATE […] IS THERE […] WHEN YOU NEED THE ENERGY TO CLIMB A HILL. – URBAN DICTIONARY, 2008 “Scroggin munching” has been used by Kiwis since the beginning, and refers to various outdoor activities, usually climbing hills in tight pants and climbing helmets, and not usually with skis. “Scrog Muncher” naturally characterises the athlete involved in such activities. Scroggin is a term that has transformed trail mix—the sustenance of many endurance athletes—into a lifestyle.
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