Rob Frost - Guiding Trans-Alpine Expeditions

From school tramping clubs to epic trans-alpine expeditions, Rob Frost has spent a lifetime exploring the wild backcountry of Aotearoa New Zealand. An engineer turned mountain-guide, photographer, and author of the award-winning Aoraki Tai Poutini – A Guide for Mountaineers, Rob shares how early experiences above the tree line sparked a fascination with remote routes and self-sufficiency.
 
In this episode we talk about:

- Misadventures that became defining lessons — and why “adventure is a sign of incompetence.”
- Surviving blizzards, storms and nine-day epics in the Southern Alps.
- How guiding with Mountain Journeys blends tramping and mountaineering into something uniquely Kiwi.
- Writing, mentoring, and the enduring influence of Geoff Spearpoint.
 
A thoughtful conversation about humility in the hills, learning from mistakes, and finding joy in hard journeys.

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Transcript

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Rob Frost 0:00

I just had this epiphany I was just walking down from Homo Saddle back to the hut. And for some reason at that moment it occurred to me that no one was running a trans alpine guiding an instruction business in New Zealand. And why couldn't I? Kiro and welcome to the Tramping Life, a podcast about hiking in outro New Zealand, or as we call it here, tramping. I'm jt, and in each episode I chat with people who share passion for exploring this incredible country. We'll hear about the tracks they love, the huts they return to, the lessons they've learned, and what keeps them heading back into the bush.

Speaker 2 0:38

My guest today is Rob Frost of Mountain Journeys, an experienced guide, photographer and author who leads Epic Trans Alpine Expeditions, his trips emphasize self-sufficiency, flexibility, and a deep connection with the landscape. I'm delighted to welcome him to the podcast,

Rob Frost 0:53

KDA. J thanks for that.

Speaker 2 0:56

I'd like to start with. Your first experiences of being in the outdoors?

Rob Frost 0:59

My parents enjoyed taking us on the classic summer camping holidays, but they weren't trampers themselves. They took us on short walks and day hikes. We were actually in the states, by the way. We moved there when I was five and came back just before I started. High school. So we were based in Oregon and Seattle, so my formative outdoor experiences were actually over there. We came back to New Zealand every couple of years to catch up with family. And the first one that I really remember is we were staying with some family in t and Dad and I did a day trip at Peria when I was nine. I just had a ball, totally covered in mud, but didn't do any overnight trips until I joined the scouts over there. So I must've been about 11 or 12 and was hiring lots of gear, got bad blisters with boots and everything. It was my first experience being above the tree line, you know, that they called it over there, not the bush line. it just seemed really magical, really special. Then I was lucky enough in secondary school here in New Zealand, I went to, or Ranu, Toto College in Auckland and there was a teacher there, Chris Smail, hopefully he can hear this. cause I have a lot to thank him for. But he was into tramping and so the school had a tramping club so from when I was 14 onwards, there were a lot of. Really cool trips sometimes with really high ratios of students to teachers. We did the Togare Northern Circuit, when I had just turned 15, 18 students and three teachers in pretty terrible weather, and he took us on a, what turned out to us to seem a bit epic the first day going from wha Papa Village past the Tamal Lakes cross country. Over the flanks of Nho to eventually get to. I just thought it was terrific, this concept that you could leave the track and just find your own way. So that was really eye-opening for me. And by the time I was in seventh form year 13, I had free reign to organize some school train club trips, like a seven day trip to the car and things like that. by the time I started uni and the clubs there started to offer, alpine skills courses, I was really chomping at the bit to get into that.

Speaker 2 2:58

What kind of, trips were you doing or peaks were you summiting?

Rob Frost 3:01

So for some reason I had this fascination right from the get go of trying to do objectives that weren't as popular. I dunno why, if I heard that everyone was gonna try and go to certain places, then for some reason it just became a little bit less appealing. For me which ended up resulting in me carrying a lot of mountaineering equipment, a long distance to more remote, obscure objectives, and often not getting the weather or just not having the right level of experience to to put it to use properly. So my first year of university, the Tramping Club there, offered these three day courses where you learn the basics of ISACs and crampon use and practically every weekend. Available over the next year. I was in Auckland by the way, so I was going to, the Rupe Taranaki ro did as much as I could putting those skills to use. So the following year when they had another five day course that showed all the glacier travel and snow pitching and anchors and that kind of stuff, that all seemed. Like I knew exactly how I was gonna apply it, and it was the summer after that. So I was I was 19. Had these objectives like Brewster from the Wills Valley, which had never been done, and wanted to climb Pollocks and Castor from the Rabbit pass I was interested in Sefton from the Copeland, even though you hear about that a fair bit. It just seems like quite a grand adventure up Scott Creek back then. It didn't summit any of these, but got terrific experience on all of them. That was the start of my fascination for, Remote mountaineering objectives and tramping trips that often needed a little bit of mountaineering skill to get through the tricky bits, and were still successful even if you didn't summit a peak because you'd done a cool, through route.

Jonty 4:38

What was some of the more. Challenging trips you did, either logistically or physically or mentally.

Rob Frost 4:43

Yeah, so it's interesting. I've been reflecting on challenge and drama and good stories and boring stories. When it comes to trips in the hills and the good stories, they often come about because you've made a few mistakes. there's a quote that I read in Art Vaughan's book. Mountain Solitudes. I can't remember who wrote the original quote 'cause he quoted it, but it was a tongue in cheek comment that said, adventure is a sign of incompetence. it just means, if you've got total mastery over what you're doing, then theoretically it's not much of an adventure. 'cause everything just goes smoothly. And none of us ever really achieved that. But it's a good thing to have in mind that, the more drama and more adventure. And challenge you have on a trip. It's because there's still a few things that you are learning and you're not making perfect decisions all the way through. And that's fine. It's just good to have an awareness of that. But it's also just a good check to not celebrate too much drama, if you're not learning from your mistakes. But with that said, there are a couple trips that come to mind. As pretty challenging and they were reasonably early on winter 2003 was my third year of uni and five of us from Auckland Uni Tramer Club in the first week of July went down to the ES for a six day trip and the forecast actually had the words extremely cold southerlies, and we just thought, oh yeah, we'll just take a few extra warm clothes. Should be fine. And we're totally naive about what a standard tramping trip, how challenging it could really get. We had a very long first day going over wooden peg, iron peg, getting down to waterfall hut in the middle of the range, and several hours in the dark at the end of the day. Because visibility had been so bad, that navigation was a little tricky. And it was just snowing and snowing really heavily for ages. We got down to Waterfall Hut, we found the route totally fine, which gave me a lot of confidence in Map and Compass navigation back then. 'cause this was a few years before phones and I didn't have a GPS device. Woke up the next morning and the entire range was just so thickly blanketed. There must have been at least half a meter, potentially a meter in places in the drifts of snow on the tops. And we thought, okay, this big six day loop we were gonna do, we need to cancel those plans. We can't go back the way we came. There could be quite a lot of avalanche risk up there now. I guess we better just head down the Kato River. The river itself just got deeper and deeper. The further downstream we went and we couldn't feel our legs 'cause we were so numb. It was frozen on the margins. We ended up bailing out three days later to the east side of the range, and hitching back around to the cars. But again, every day resulted in a couple hours of darkness. 'cause travel was so slow. It was so cold. But ultimately we thought we were a supportive group. We communicated well. We always had, a change of dry clothes when we got into the tent at the end of the day

Speaker 3 7:23

to recover.

Rob Frost 7:24

So it wasn't a total, negative experience, but it was certainly challenging. A few years later, my good friend Simon and I, packed food for nine days to go up the Otoko River to climb that north side of Mount Hooker, which again, had never been done. Still hasn't, there's a route off to the side now, but no one's done a route to the summit out of the Otoko Anyway, we took two and a half days to get up to the head of the Otoko. We had rock shoes and a big rope and heaps of unnecessary gear in the pack. And as I said, nine days of food. And at nine in the morning, on day four, we're standing at the bottom of this buttress, only a few hundred meters below the summit on a perfect day. This is the trip that kind of highlighted to me that it's important not to just talk about conditions and what equipment you need, but just to find out how everyone else in the group is feeling and making sure you all have the same aims. cause for whatever reason, Simon just wasn't feeling it that day his heart really wasn't in it. And I was super frustrated at the time because I just thought, what do you mean, man? No one's been in this position before. It looks like we can do it. But we were in our late twenties and didn't quite have the maturity to have that discussion about, I don't know if we're really aligned with what we wanna get out this trip. We're just. Waking up in the morning, getting packed and not really talking about that kind of thing. But what made that trip in the end, ultra challenging physically, was so we went around to the other side of Mount Hooker, climbed at the normal way from Mark's Flat, which was terrific, and thought, okay, let's get out via the uh, pinga over McCulloch, which is a cool high level route. And it was day seven and we're heading up McCulloch and the weather's deteriorating and we should have known. because it's a trip that you're supposed to do in fine weather that it maybe wasn't the best idea. But in our past, everything, if we were equipped enough and took our time. Had always worked out, even if the weather had been a bit cracked and so we set up a three season tent high up in the snow at 2000 meters, and a storm came in and it's the worst night I've ever had in the hills. 'cause it was a wet storm, it wasn't snowing, so everything got soaked. The wind was coming under the floor of the tent, so we couldn't use the cooker. Everything was completely wet. We were just holding onto the poles from the inside of the tent the whole night. It got light. Still hadn't slept at noon. We thought, okay, the weather seems to have eased a little bit. Let's go all of our clothes on water streaming down our arms as we're packing our packs. And we get up through this first of these notches on this route, and we're in the full force of the wind. And for the next three hours we make about 300 meters progress to the second notch. And we think, okay, we've done it. And then the snowfield that is supposed to offer easy passage down, we walk about one minute along the snowfield come to this huge abyss and the rest of the snowfield, which must have been 10 or 20 meters thick, had all slid off on the rocks labs down into the valley below, and there was no route. And we looked at these slabs and thought, we can't do that. we gotta turn around. So we went back through the second notch. Back through the first notch. It only took us an hour to find it. This time got back to Mark's flat at midnight and couldn't cross the stream to the normal bivy rock because of the storm. So we spent two hours manufacturing another bing under this other rock. And the next day spent until midday drying our gear out. We had practically no food left, and we're in Mark's flat, so we ended up going down the clock on rationed food. Thinking we might be able to cross the Lands Borough, or maybe a rafting company will see us, or maybe a four wheel drive might see us at Strep Bluff on the other side. We got down there, the river was huge, and we'd been without food now for about a day. We waited another day just to see if, another party would maybe see us.

Speaker 3 10:47

and in the end, because this was the days before in reaches.

Rob Frost 10:52

it was the days where you put detailed intentions with the visitor center or sometimes the police station. And uh, helicopter turned up. James Scott. And the cop from Hast got out with a big smile on his face. He said, oh, cool, you guys are in the first place. We looked, we had to drop a few things off for dock. As part of the sire exercise anyway. James will come back in a few minutes and pick you up. No worries. So we got outta there

Speaker 2 11:13

Are you a hot lover or a camper or a bit of both?

Rob Frost 11:16

I'm definitely a bit of both. When I reflect on my favorite

Speaker 3 11:19

spots, it's usually campsites, but. You can't beat

Rob Frost 11:24

being in a hut when it's really pissing down. You are warm and dry and for whatever reason you're comfortable about what's to come over the next days, or it's time for a rest day anyway, so you don't mind that it's bad weather, it's a terrific feeling being in a camp in those conditions, it's just never quite as comfortable, a memorable campsite. Is the one where you can experience really fine weather and you're in a majestic place. For me, the really good huts are the ones where you're really comfy. Hold up in a storm or heavy rain huts and fine weather are almost superfluous.

Speaker 2 11:55

Now you started life with a kind of professional job as a geotechnical engineer, is that correct?

Rob Frost 12:00

I got an engineering degree and a geology degree from Auckland Uni and spent a total of about 10 or 12 years working as a geotechnical engineer for a consulting firm. It's hard to count up exactly because I came and went a few times. I left to do teacher's college. I left to travel for a year. I left to do a couple years of glacier guiding at Friends Joseph and Fox glaciers. but yeah, from when I started work in 2006, all the way up to early 2019, I had an engineering career, which seems like a distant memory now.

Speaker 2 12:30

It's quite a different environment. And I understand you were on Fox, what, 2010 and 2019 now? It'd be interesting to get your thoughts on how much those glaciers had changed in a decade.

Rob Frost 12:40

Again, the amount that glaciers have changed is something that's not new information, but I'm one of the people who've seen it up close quite a lot. When I was first in France, Joseph and Fox, yeah, it was from late 2009 until mid 2011, and walking onto the glacier was the norm. It was easy. It was safe. Which made the guided trips a lot cheaper for a lot of the tourists it also kept us really fit. And it was super fun. When I was working there again in 2019, I went back because they offered an alpine tricking style trip, which was good for the prerequisites. I needed to upskill and get qualifications for my guiding operations, when I was back there. Then there's no way you could. Safely walk onto the lower glaciated. It receded so much it was fly on only. If you were really keen and you could move well and the weather was good and you knew that there hadn't been any recent rockfall then, on a private trip with a small group of friends, sure you could walk on, but you knew that the risk was a little bit elevated. You really had to be careful. There's no way it could ever have been a guided operation I was at Fox again a year ago. Even though, you know, that it's retreating quickly, seeing it firsthand after you haven't for about three years and just seeing that there's another 50 meters or something of ice gone at Victoria Flat, it's just. Jaw dropping stuff.

Speaker 2 13:52

Between the two, you wrote an award-winning guidebook. How did that come about?

Rob Frost 13:57

it's always interesting hearing. It referred to as the award-winning guidebook and obviously I was chuffed to get that. It was a huge project, but I had always thought, isn't it a shame that there's these areas on the West coast that don't seem to be included in any guide book? Finding out about some of these ranges, like around the Copeland and the calorie. You had to do a lot of research and I wanted that all to be in one place. So when I got asked to do the book, it was an awesome opportunity To be able to do that. that was the big positive for me extending the coverage of the book to include all the peaks of Westland Tini National Park. also writing the book was a great opportunity to get amongst so many different communities. you needed to talk to so many people. For the book to be informed and accurate, it was a good excuse to do a few trips It was really important for me for the access information to be good. Not just the climbing everyone has to get to the bottom and sometimes you're lucky enough that conditions work for you to actually get on the route. But the approach has gotta be a reliable description. there are a few approaches, like the goat path at Franz Joseph, and getting into the lower valley from the Fox range. Knew practically nothing about. So they were good excuses for personal trips. And I really wanted some good photos of the strong faces of unicorn and dilemma. So that was a good excuse for a seven day trip with Jeff Spearpoint along the navigator range. He took his camera and root selection ability. And that, that was a fantastic seven days.

Speaker 2 15:25

How did you first meet Jeff? And you've had a bit of a relationship over time in terms of developing trip ideas?

Rob Frost 15:32

When I first moved to Christchurch 2007 towards the end of the year, I somehow found myself giving a small talk to the local section of the Alpine Club on some of my recent trans Alpine trips. And Jeff was in the audience and we just had a yarn after and I was obviously really stoked to meet him 'cause he was, this guidebook author and seemed like he'd been everywhere and was a super humble, approachable guy. It was New Year's 20 11, 20 12, we finally went on a trip together. It was along the cell borne range from near Jackson's Bay to the Wilkin. And for whatever reason our personalities mean we just get on really well. So we've just stayed in touch and enjoyed many more trips together. And as soon as the guidebook thing became part of my life, he became a bit of a mentor for me and that, 'cause I've always appreciated the way he does. Warrior's Guide., we were just out at this place yesterday. He enjoys being like a, almost like an extra. Grandparent to our two young kids. We were just hanging out at his place and, pottering around on the beach. he is really positive person to have in our lives for sure.

Speaker 2 16:31

You set up Mountain Journeys your guiding company in February, 2020, which must have been an interesting time to start a business. So tell us a bit about how that, came to fruition

Rob Frost 16:42

it's crazy that it's been that much time, I had previously spent some time, working as a glacier guide and that was a fun job, but it didn't seem like something I wanted to do as a career, because it's not a huge amount of variety. And the other types of guiding that I'd seen in New Zealand were, alpine guiding and instruction with a lot of focus on, high summits. And it wasn't so much that it was dangerous or anything that didn't make that appeal. It was more that there were a lot of really competent guides already in that scene. And I didn't feel I could offer anything unique. I wanna offer something special. and then thirdly, the other type of guiding, was pretty comfortable trips, track based, usually with bigger groups of people, but giving them really nice food, keeping them comfortable, but not doing anything too adventurous. and none of them really appealed to me and I just had this epiphany. Somehow in the middle of 2018, I was at the Darren's Winter meet for the Alpine Club. I was just walking down from Homo Saddle back to the hut. And for some reason at that moment it occurred to me that no one was running a trans alpine guiding an instruction business in New Zealand. And why couldn't I? The guidebook was just about to be published, the Raki Tini book. So once I get ideas like that, I'm pretty quick to act on them. I lined up finishing work in February, the following year. I got in touch with my old boss at Fox Glacier. To get some work experience. 'cause I realized what sort of experience I'd need to get the qualification I needed. Looked at what the New Zealand Mountain Guides Association required in terms of prerequisites and started on that pathway. So 2019 was a year of upskilling and getting qualified, getting a bit of work experience. So when COVID became a thing. It was just the time for me to be holed up for a while, writing my safety management plan, my doc concession application. And then when the lockdown restrictions lifted a little bit, doing some pilot trips for a few months to areas that I wanted to guide and instruct. So for me, the timing of that whole lockdown period was no problem at all because I wasn't yet, trying to find people to take into the hills. So 2021 was the first year that everything was lined up to, to start taking people out there. And it's funny, a lot of people said to me this is brave leaving a well-paying engineering job. people don't go into guiding for the money other people were saying, there's a reason this type of guiding doesn't exist. You can't expect clients to carry all the things they need for a multi-day trip. It's just too heavy, it's just not practical. And I just thought I'm just gonna have to make it work because at the moment, this is the only thing I feel I could be good at and offer a cool product around. I don't know what my fallback is right now, but I really wanna make this succeed and I'm gonna give it a go. But yeah, without that background of, my consulting work, I wouldn't have had the savings to exist for a little while without much of an income. So I was in a fortuitous position for sure.

Speaker 2 19:32

Is there sufficient demand out there and are your guests mainly domestic or some international visitors?

Rob Frost 19:37

There's certainly demand. There's heaps of demand. I'm only a small operator. So at the moment I don't need there to be a huge pool, which is convenient, but I think there is a huge pool. I think there are many people who want something more challenging than staying on marked roots, but they're not interested in getting up into high mountaineering summits. These trans alpine trips are the perfect middle ground. They're super challenging, if you want 'em to be, but there's still some interesting places that I've got up my sleeve, that you can take people that don't involve a lot of scrub bashing or super uneven terrain. and you can get out for just a couple nights and experience a feeling of, pretty good remoteness. anytime I do a little bit of a marketing push or advertising push, I get lots of interest. So far that's only been within New Zealand It's seemed important to me that people coming on the trip have a bit of an understanding of what New Zealand conditions are like. just basic weather and tramping terrain like, because that's what we have to do to start and finish each trip. And if people are only used to very smooth terrain underfoot. And they're maybe not used to the sort of weather we get here. even the easiest trip I offer is still a huge jump for a lot of these people. it's fine if everyone in the group is at the same level, but it does make it challenging for those people to join Some of the more open trips that I'm running with people who do have New Zealand tramping experience, who even if they haven't been off track before, they're gonna be just a little bit more prepared. So that's a long way of saying I haven't been advertising overseas yet. I may not ever, it might just continue to be for people based in New Zealand who want something a bit more challenging.

Speaker 2 21:11

You have quite a few repeat customers.

Rob Frost 21:13

I do, I'd say almost half on average, 40% or so of my. Guests on any particular trip will be repeat guests. I've got a trip coming up in a few weeks with five people. One of them, this will be her eighth Mountain Journeys trip. Another person will be her fifth, another person will be her third, and the other two will be their second. but it's quite a challenging trip. So it wasn't actually one I wanted to take total unknowns on. But yeah, I get a lot of repeat customers, which is encouraging. Probably the hardest thing is the vetting process of people who haven't been on a trip before, just figuring out exactly where they are, because I wanna find something appropriate for them. It's much easier on a private trip. If it's them and their friends or family, it's great if they're at different levels. They're very forgiving of each other usually. But if you're putting a group together and they're at different levels, that's not so good. That's only happened once so far that's been a significant challenge. And I learned a lot of lessons from that. Now I think that's one of the things I really try and delve into when people sign up for a trip is really understanding their background. Yeah. And so far that's working now.

Speaker 2 22:14

And your group sizes are relatively small as well, so that helps.

Rob Frost 22:18

That's right. So very challenging trips. We usually just be me and two people, sometimes three. There's the occasional trip where it won't be me as well. there are a small team of guides. That I've found who are interested in this kind of work that I'll sometimes send out on my behalf. But more often I'll be working with another guide. if the group gets up to four or five people and it's still gonna be reasonably challenging, then having a second guide is key. I'm happy to take four people, or even up to six people if the terrain is a bit more mellow. That works totally fine, but that's by far the biggest group you'll see on a Mountain Journeys trip.

Speaker 2 22:53

And in terms of the terrain, are you dealing with areas of high exposure and high risk, or is it more just that you just off the beaten tracks so it's more challenging?

Rob Frost 23:02

Yeah, good question. it's that classic. Combination of likelihood and consequence when you're talking about risk, right? There's great walks that have sections of extremely high consequence, where if you fell off the track you might not survive. and so many tramps in New Zealand have that kind of terrain. It's not just when you go mountaineering. That you end up in a situation where you shouldn't fall. But we don't really get too concerned about it often when we're tramping because the likelihood of slipping seems so low because those areas are maintained well or the terrain and your immediate vicinity is straightforward, So the challenge becomes when you get to a section where the likelihood. Starts to be more controlled by your abilities at, avoiding slipping or avoiding tripping. And with guiding, you have to appreciate what each individual's competencies are. something that would be really dangerous for a lot of people because you either are not sure how secure they are with their footwork, or you just know they're not very secure with their footwork. and it might be a section that's too long to protect using a rope. It's just not somewhere you're gonna go with those people versus other guests who are extremely good on your feet and you brief them and just say, look, this next 200 meter section, we can't slip here. Okay. and that's just a guiding judgment and you'd only do that with people that you are very comfortable with. So it's not as if certain terrain is gable and some isn't. It all depends on who you've got with you and you know how big the group is. one of the things you were asking was is it challenging just because it's off track or is it actually. Technical. So sometimes the challenge is also because it's just tough going, a lot of boulders to scramble over. By the way, as an aside, more trampers should use helmets if you're gonna do a really long boulder bash along a river. I've heard of quite a few people getting rescued because they've, had a head injury slipping over in a riverbed. If you're going up the wa, Taha River to Ivory Lake or something like that. Or doing a long trip up. The Whittcomb River helmets are light and comfortable. You forget you're wearing them, and I think they can have a place for some tramping trips. But anyway, that's an aside. That is one of the things that makes these trips difficult. I try not to aim for places that have a lot of bush bashing, but. There are some places that, to get to it just, it's gonna require some of that. I'll be able to tell from people when they sign up for a trip, what their appetite for that kind of thing is. And most people are happy to put up with a little bit if it gets them to a really special place.

Speaker 2 25:20

I understand. You're a registered celebrant and you offer wilderness wedding.

Rob Frost 25:24

It actually came about as I already specialized in taking small groups on guided trips. I had enough stuff to come up with. Pretty comfortable campsites. I really enjoyed making nice food for people and I can't remember if it was my idea or if it was suggested, someone might have suggested to me someone just thought, man, this could totally be like the perfect sort of style for a small wedding for people who didn't want the usual ceremony. I just thought, man, that is terrific. And I looked into it and it's not difficult to become celebrant. I did that. About four years ago now, first got registered and I've since only done four weddings. But man, they're really fun. It's such a special time having a small group of people. And I think the last one we had very nice food, few drinks, a cake. Everyone took some wedding clothes. We had a group tent. For hanging out in and for people to get prepared in. I took a lot of photography equipment 'cause I really enjoyed doing photography as well. And everyone's packs ended up being around the 18 kilos for a group of five for all that stuff, so it was totally totally feasible.

Speaker 2 26:24

How have you found it, taking your, passion and turning into your job?

Rob Frost 26:29

It is never been a conflict for me or never been a struggle. it has not made me get bored of going into the mountains. Like I don't get sick of going to the mountains and oh, I don't have the energy to do one of my own trips. Now, the only thing that limits me now is we have a young family and whenever I go away on a work trip, it's a lot for my partner Josie, to do to, take care of our two young sons. And so by, by me saying, oh, by the way, I'm going on another trip, you have to look after the kids again. It is a little bit much these days. So I'm still getting out on the occasional private trip, but it still seems special enough that, I still very much appreciate those, and that, to me, they're completely different, really, from guided trips, just having responsibility for yourself and your friends versus that professional responsibility that you have every time you take a paying group out and on those trips, you're completely focused on their enjoyment and their safety, their experience, not so much on how you are feeling. To me, they're they're just totally different style of the trip. When I'm going on a personal trip, it's usually to somewhere unknown to us or to me. So there's always a core process of discovery, on a personal trip.

Speaker 2 27:34

how much of that is word of mouth or speaking to people or just looking at top of maps and trying to Figure out where the new opportunities are

Speaker 3 27:42

You can't sum up where these ideas come from.

Rob Frost 27:45

often it's just from looking at the map and doing a quick read of the guidebook. I'm generally not influenced much by photos that I see online. Mainly because, that place is clearly pretty well known, I love looking at maps and interpreting what the landscape is like from them, and, thinking, man, that looks like it would be a really special place. That's probably my main inspiration. I actually had an early trans Alpine trip was inspired just by a name on the map. cause I was at Auckland Uni Tramping Club and the hut out in the IES was, named Nuku, which was named way back in the day. And that name, was on a peak in Northern Fjord. And I thought that's gotta be related to, the hut. And turns out it was, we didn't climb it, but we tried to, and that just became an excuse for a trip to a remote place. But yeah, somehow, I've never done a trip in Nelson Lakes. I've never been to the Oles.

Speaker 3 28:36

I've never been to the gardens from the West. there's plenty of things that still really appeal to me for various reasons that I'd love to do.

Rob Frost 28:44

I never will say, okay, this upcoming time that I've got space available, this is the trip I want to do. It can lead to doing trips in conditions that aren't so favorable. It'll instead be, three days out. Okay, how much energy do I feel like I have, what kind of style trip do I want? And what's the weather forecast? So which part of the island is gonna offer a good trip? And it's a blank canvas. If you've already got dozens of potential things in the back of your head that places you might like to go, then planning each trip becomes a little bit more fun. You don't just have to cross your fingers for the weather being good enough for a particular location.

Peter 29:16

So

Rob Frost 29:19

Thank you so much for listening to the Tramping life. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please follow the podcast in whatever app you use. Tell a friend about it and consider leaving a rating or a review. It really helps more people discover the show. you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me an email at the tramping life, one word@gmail.com.