UKH

Hello all,

I'm in the very early stages of planning a trip to the Southern Alps and looking for a guidebook roughly equivalent to Martin Moran's excellent 4000ers Guide. 

Also any hiking book recommendations for the country would be great. 

My thanks in anticipation, 

S 

Up until recently, NZ was not well endowed with good descriptive mountaineering guide books. I don’t mean to demean the Alpine Club series of regional guide books, but they seemed more to give an idea of routes that were out there, and the start of a process of more exhaustive (and hard to come by) research to actually do the route, or go out with a more experienced and knowledgeable partner. There seems to be a gap for a good select guide book, where a small number of routes are fully described, including approach and descent, and the full route itself! It’s a cliche here than a hard long route might have a 2 line description.

The absence of such a book is probably partly the lack of demand of numbers to make it financially viable, but I think it is also cultural to an extent: the unwillingness to have too many people knowing your favourite routes, and the need to “earn” your right to do them.

This is starting to change, and there have been some great recent regional guides, like the fairly hot of the press Aoraki Tai Poutini guide book by Rob Frost, and Guillame Charton’s and Mike Dunn’s Queenstown guide.

Tramping is better provided for; I’d recommend South Island Weekend Tramps by Nick Groves, and for a great local guide for my neck of the woods, Canterbury Foothills and Forests.

I agree with the above reply.  The NZAC guides are difficult to find in the UK, but maybe Needlesports in Keswick might have some.  Buying from the NZAC in New Zealand is fine but you will incur import duty and a handling charge, plus the high cost of postage. 

A great source of inspiration is to visit Danilo Hegg's Southern Alps Photography website.  He's also revamped the Moir's Guide North guidebook and knows the Alps very well indeed.  he has always been very helpful when I've asked him for info. 

NZ topo maps at 1:50,000 are pretty good, but again, hard to find in the UK.  They're $9 a piece over there.  You can access them online however at topomap.co.nz 

If there are any specific places you're interested in visiting, I have all of the NZAC guide books to the South Island, and quite a few maps.  I would be happy to scan some stuff for you.  Just pm me.

Jamie

I really like a NZ map app called iHikeGPS-NZ, it’s frequently updated and works well, and you can either just download the Topo maps you need, or by entire Island.

The Moirs guides are good for the lower part of the South Island if you want to string together a long walk, or more detailed information on segments, but can be a bit hard going unless you have sone basic knowledge of the area first. I thought they were currently out of print? Or is that just Moirs south?

I would recommend Classic Peaks of New Zealand by Hugh Logan as a starting point. Having said that I have always found the NZAC alpine guides very good for the areas where they exist. A lot of the information from these guides can be found online at https://climbnz.org.nz.

Ok, you might be right there.  I know the North guide had been updated by Danilo.

Another good inspiring (and easier to find in the UK) book is Classic Peaks of New Zealand by Hugh Logan (or the older but still good Great Peaks of New Zealand by Hugh Logan). 

Fantastic, thank you all. I'll try and get some books brought back for me.

Best,

S

Some great advice here. Danilo's website is really useful - some colleagues just returned from Transit Gully, and his site was pretty much the only useful info out there. 

Similarly I have most of the guidebooks so if after a specific (short!) section pm me.

cheers

b