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.
After receiving the tragic news that her partner Lochie is missing, Tara pauses their plans to traverse along the Southern Alps from Cape Farewell to Fiordland to help with his search. When the search is called off, she makes the heavy-hearted decision to continue with the trip. Tara recounts the final leg of her journey as a Simon Bell Memorial Scholarship recipient – a solo trek across the Olivine Ice Plateau towards Red Mountain and down to the ocean at Big Bay.
The allure of an unchartered climb is enough to entice climbers Jamie Macalister and Martin Johnson. As recipients of the FMC Youth Expedition Scholarship, they venture to scale the expansive, 300-metre-high face on Douglas Spur above the Paringa River.
Climbing in the Garden of Allah, Adams Wilderness Area on a FMC Youth Expedition Scholarship trip.
When Katherine, Penzy, and Lydia set off for a girl’s only traverse of the Olivine Range, little did they know it would take 15 days and a helicopter transport.
In Part II of her blog, Mary completes the North Island portion of the Te Araroa Trail just days before lockdown and emerges to find a world strikingly different from when she began her tramp.
As a recipient of the FMC Youth Expedition Scholarship, Mary Williams departs on a solo mission to complete the South Island section of the Te Araroa Trail.
In hindsight it’s easy to look back and ask ourselves why we didn’t do more side trips since the weather was so good.
In late November 2017 Dulkara Martig set off from Arthur’s Pass with three other kiwi women, with the goal of walking to Mount Cook Village.
Max Truell and friends from the Western Springs College Tramping Club venture out on their biggest tramp yet.
In Part 2 of their FMC Youth Expedition Scholarship trip, the Southern Alps crossing from the Rakaia to the West Coast is told from Ivan's perspective. Find out what the lads got up to after going solo on Day Four . . .
Ivan Andrews and friends from the Victoria University of Wellington Tramping Club (VUWTC) were awarded an FMC Youth Scholarship in 2017 for a Southern Alps crossing from the Rakaia to the West Coast via the Bracken snowfield and Ivory Lake Hut.
The grand-children of John Findlay continue their pilgrimage to the Olivine Range, and the glacier named after him.
The seed was planted for this trip a couple of years ago, when my sister and I were was told that there was a glacier in the Olivine Ranges named after our late grandfather, John Findlay.
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