Arc Magazine

Skippers Canyon, near Queenstown, New Zealand is one of those mountain biking destinations that makes everyone wax lyrical. Amazing singletrack amidst a stunning and historic setting all minutes from town. It’s the sort of place that you travel the world to get to, or in my case, compare the rest of the worlds’ great rides [...]

Like some alpine Shangri-La, Earnslaw Burn (about an hour’s drive from Queenstown plus a 5hr hike) is one of those special places. Towering peaks, tumbling glaciers, more waterfalls than I could count and an atmosphere that added up to much more than the sum of its parts.

It’s never a good thing when the guy steering the raft breaks his paddle. We were entering the crux rapid of the river, a short stretch called, ‘Squeeze’ when I heard the distinctive snap behind me. The technical right-hand S-bend around a Maui-van sized rock mid flow would be a breeze, if we could steer that is. Careening out of control like a over-laden lorrie on ice we slammed into the rock, mid river…

It’s easy to talk with cavalier callousness and proclaim that as a climber we can expect to lose friends. I didn’t, I didn’t sign up for this life to have my friends snatched away in their prime. Climbing was suddenly different. That knowledge, that loss, had tainted everything.

It’s easy to draw a line on the map and dream of an adventure. Actually getting out there and doing it, can sometimes be another story…