Does increased mobile coverage through SpaceX and One NZ mean the end of backcountry solitude? Or will enhanced communication result in more lives saved when lost or injured? Outdoor education student and backcountry enthusiast, Josephine Tarasiewicz, explores these challenging questions as New Zealand stands at a pivotal point of connection.
Do you feel confident with crossing a river? With New Zealand's abundance of rivers, every backcountry tramper must know how to safely cross a waterway if the situation requires. With expert teaching from Outdoor Training NZ (OTNZ), the Rotorua Tramping Club fine-tunes their navigational skills and goes deep into hands-on learning with group and solo pack-floating, entrapment and how to escape from a strainer.
A tight-knit group of seven students and three dedicated teachers began tramping together four years ago. With support from the FMC Youth Award Grant, Briar Higgie and Kaelyn Swanson strengthen bonds with their tramping mates, not allowing sleepless nights from hut snoring or sandflies to dampen their epic tramp along the stunning Heaphy Track.
FMC Expedition Scholarship winners, Isla and Louise, traverse the Tararuas in a celebration of women in the backcountry. Through both film and print, they explore the limiting perceptions of wāhine outdoors, the gender disparity in gear construction and the realities of backcountry menstruation, all whilst embracing the joys of being female and their inner playfulness as wild women on the tops.
Copyright is held by the writer/creator. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 NZ
