Long standing international mountain guiding business Adventure Consultants has been pleasantly surprised by the number of Kiwis who have signed up for climbing expeditions and courses in New Zealand’s own backyard.

Adventure Consultants general manager Suze Kelly said the business had shrunk by 90 per cent with the temporary loss of its international expeditions following COVID-19 restrictions.

In response, the business has focused on its local and domestic tourism market, and created a range of new courses and expeditions.

Adventure Consultants has been based in Wanaka for 24 years. The business was established by Rob Hall and Gary Ball in 1992, following their ascent of the Seven Summits in seven months in 1990.

Guy Cotter guided on its first commercial expedition to Mt Everest in 1992, and he took over the business in 1996, after Rob died in a blizzard on Mt Everest. Gary had died earlier on Mt Dhaulagiri in 1993.

“Before COVID probably 90 per cent of our trips and expeditions took place overseas,” Suze told the Wanaka App, adding the New Zealand operation of mountaineering courses, guided ascents, ski touring and ice climbing was about 10 per cent of the business.

About 40 percent of that ten per cent were New Zealand clients, she estimated.

Rope skills are on offer with a special local’s deal.

“We were very unsure of how many New Zealanders would want to come on trips here,” she said.

“We were really happy with how our winter went - it was about double what we were expecting. And we’ve been really nicely surprised with the number of New Zealanders who booked in for trips on the holidays.”

The new trips created for local markets are generally shorter, and sometimes without a helicopter component in order to reduce prices. They included a backcountry avalanche course (“We ran heaps of those in winter,” Suze said), a busy ice climbing camp at Wye Creek (behind the Remarkables), ski touring trips at Mt Cook, and Geodome ski touring camps at Camp Creek, Lake Hāwea.

The Geodomes make for comfortable camping.

Looking toward summer, a lot of the courses are longer (seven, 10, and 12 days) which allows time for bad weather, Suze said.

A new rope skills course is being offered as a locals’ deal. The three day technical rope skills is based at Wanaka’s crags, with a snow day nearby. 

“You learn heaps of rope skills,” Suze said, including industry standard skills for belaying, glacier travel skills, cliff and crevasse rescue. For the locals’ deal people can get a group of four together and pay $800 each. Find more information on the LoveWanaka page.

And while the pre-COVID staff number of 16 (at the Wanaka HQ) has reduced, the business has been able to keep between six and eight locally based New Zealand guides busy.

Adventure Consultants can help locals who have a goal to climb Mt Aspiring (the west face is pictured).

“We’ve been able to provide quite a lot of work for them,” Suze said.

She said the wage subsidies were helpful to keep people on as long as possible. “We’ve always been a big family. We’ve been doing as much as we can to keep them on and help them find what they’re going to do next. Most of our staff who have moved on have found other jobs.” 

The business has been fundraising for their sherpas in Nepal via a ‘Sherpa Future Fund’, “because they don’t have the same social services backup as we do”, Suze said.

“We’ve had an amazing response from our international and local clients to that.” 

As for the future, Suze expects the business to remain focused domestically for another year. 

“If things open up internationally for us that will be really helpful,” she said, adding the spring expedition climbing season in Nepal is April/May so they are hoping for more movement by then.

“We don’t need to be able to go to those places ourselves - the guides might live elsewhere.”

The business also has a film department which offers mountain safety and locations work worldwide.

Meanwhile, Adventure Consultants is well equipped to help locals with a goal to climb Mt Aspiring or one of the many other peaks in our backyard.

Find more information here.

PHOTOS: Adventure Consultants