Climbing frozen waterfalls is unlike any other mountaineering experience, according to Wanaka specialist Allan Uren. Reporter Matthew Haggart finds out what makes ice climbers tick.
There is a photograph on the wall of Allan Uren's Wanaka home of a steep-peaked trio of Fiordland mountains.
The individual identities of Mt Belle, Mt Macpherson, and Mt Talbot are collectively known as the Macpherson Cirque - a massive bowl-shaped impression carved from the granite rock of the Darran Mountains by glacier ice many thousands of years ago.
During the warmer months water continually cascades down the 200m-high sheer rock faces, as the high rainfall of Milford Sound leaves its moisture-laden mark on the landscape.
In the winter the waterfalls freeze.
It is then men like Uren rush to mark their own paths in the frozen ice.
"It's a powerful place to be," he says, of clinging to the ice of a frozen waterfall many metres above the ground.
For committed mountaineers like Uren, climbing is more than a passion. It's a way of life.
Climbing ice - although when he says climbing ice, he really means climbing frozen waterfalls - is unlike any other experience.
While many mountaineers eventually have to traverse frozen snow and ice as part of their climbing experience, there are only a handful of easily accessible frozen waterfalls and ice sheets where one can try this particular skill.
The Macpherson Cirque is one. The West Coast glaciers of Fox and Franz Josef are another. However, as Uren describes it, although the glaciers are the most readily accessible forms to give ice climbing a go, they don't compare to frozen waterfalls.
Visitors to the twin glacier towns can even have a go climbing on an indoor man-made ice wall at Franz Josef tourist attraction, the Hikuwai Glacier Centre.
For a mountaineer of Uren's alpine experience, neither of the above is an option. For him, glacier ice is "dead". Many thousands of years old, it slowly grinds its way down the valley, compressing, and ageing.
Uren wants to climb ice that "feels alive".
"It's scarier than rock-climbing. But that's not why you do it.
"Ice has a particular opaque quality to it, an inherent beauty,
"And it changes all the time. You can climb one pitch and go back to the same place in a couple of days and everything is different."
The 46-year-old has been climbing since his high school days in Wanaka. Like many mountaineers, he found his way to the high peaks through a love of tramping and the outdoors.
Ice climbing is a variation - a progression for the more experienced alpinist - which steps up a level from that of rock climbing, he says.
"Its a primal thing. The best thing about it is that it's tool-orientated. When you're on the rock, climbing is about touch, feel.
"The two are similar in the roping, anchoring, and belay aspects. But when you're on the ice, you're driving yourself in the surface to keep contact.
"You've got your ice-axes, your crampons, and your ice screws. But unlike the rock, ice is a changing medium. It's organic."
There are not many readily accessible areas in New Zealand to climb ice, particularly not the sought-after "frozen water," routes, says Uren.
Those attuned to outdoor pursuits and winter climbing in particular, may know of the ice-climbing courses offered by guiding companies - such as Wanaka's Adventure Consultants - which takes clients away to learn to climb ice at Black Peak.
A spot on the eastern side of the Remarkables, called Wye Creek, has earned itself a reputation as New Zealand's ice-climbing Mecca, says Uren.
People can "get a lot out of climbing ice," he says.
Spots like Wye Creek are "relatively" accessible and don't involve travelling "thousands of miles - like some mountain climbing does".
Given today's equipment and techniques - courses, such as the kind Adventure Consultants runs - mean "anyone" can be climbing ice in a reasonably proficient manner after " a few days".
A painter and decorator by trade, Uren's passion for climbing and quest to find new frozen ice routes takes him to some "interesting" places.
He thinks there are probably about a dozen experienced climbers actively seeking new ice routes in the Queenstown Lakes area.
When the Otago Daily Times caught up with Uren, he was recently returned from a weekend sojourn to the Macpherson Cirque, where he had been ice climbing with his companion Julian White.
The pair had spent their time scaling the 200m to 300m-high routes up the frozen sides of the granite-faced rock.
Oddly, Uren says he feels at his most unsafe once he has reached the top of his climb and has arrived at the "snow-covered fields" above the ice.
The area, close to the Homer Tunnel on the Milford Sound road, is notoriously avalanche prone and "once you're on top among all that snow, you can see why," he says.
During the ascent, the frozen ice and "trippy" beauty of the location are often pushed to the side as the climber's meditative state of deep focus and concentration takes over, he says.
In places where the ice is thin, the ice-axe can often pierce the frozen coating and then one can hear the gurgle of water slowly trickling down the rock behind.
"It can create an unnerving effect," he admits.
Brittle ice is also a hazard and can often create a "dinner-plating" affect when struck by an ice axe, breaking off in shards and crashing away below - or into one's boots and crampons.
Uren knows what he is doing is dangerous.
However, it is a combination of the challenge, the procedure, and the intensity of concentration and focus, which enables him - and mountaineers like him - to push on and move forward and upwards.
Uren contributes to magazines such as NZ Wilderness, NZ Geographic and the Alpine Journal, and has written about his pursuit of risk.
"Risk is a balance. Without risk, life stagnates and to move forward is difficult".
On a sunny day in his warm lounge with the fire roaring, the softly-spoken climber describes his life of climbing, challenge and the search for ice, somewhat differently.
"It's about pursuing adventures in nature. Ultimately, it's about making yourself feel alive."
