By joining one of our trips, you’re signing up for a truly genuine experience of somewhere away from the beaten paths.
Most of our journeys are three to six days long, but you can choose anything from two days to eight days. The longer the trip, the better the opportunity to visit somewhere really remote. As a group we’ll carry everything we need for the duration of the trip, so that we can be flexible and self-sufficient.
What’s included in a guided journey?
- We organise and prepare all of the meals (including lunches, snacks, and hot drinks) and cater to any dietary requirements. We pride ourselves in providing really good quality, nutritious, tasty food.
- We supply high quality tents and cooking equipment on all journeys, and when required also supply alpine equipment like ice axes, crampons, helmets, harnesses, etc.
- You’ll be guided by a highly experienced and qualified guide (or two). Your guide will not only provide you with a safe and enjoyable trip, but will actively seek your input where possible regarding trip options; you will all form part of a team in which the guide is the most experienced member. Most of our guides are qualified through the NZ Mountain Guides Association; the remainder are Level 2 instructors with the NZ Outdoor Instructors Association. All guides have current first aid training to at least Pre-Hospital Emergency Care (PHEC) level.
- We all carry a share of group food, tents, and other equipment – you should allow at least a third of the space in your pack for this.
- You’ll be provided with detailed information before the trip about what to bring. When we first meet, your guide will go through your personal clothing and equipment to help fine-tune what actually comes on the trip, to find the right balance of having everything you need and nothing more.
- Meeting locations and methods of transport vary depending on each trip, but in many cases we can provide complementary transport to the trip start. This will be confirmed by our lead guide when you sign up.
I went along on a couple of ”hard” Mountain Journeys trips and they were amazing. Some organised backpacking trips can sometimes feel like you’re being herded from one spot to another—Mountain Journeys is nothing like that.
The tramps go completely off the beaten track. The guides involved us in the decision making process, and would talk through different options with everyone. I learnt a ton from hearing the decision-making musings of Rob and the other guides. They’re enthusiastic, encouraging, really know their stuff, and they were all really supportive of people asking questions.
On the food: I’m vegetarian and the food was really good! Truly, I can’t recommend Mountain Journeys more!
From the start Rob was amazing on giving us advice on what to bring and answer any questions. Rob made sure to walk us through the plan and the weather conditions and addressed any concerns we might have a couple of days before the trip.
The trip itself was an amazing experience that exceeded my expectations and I gained such a wealth of information. The knowledge and experience that Rob has is astounding and you can see he’s very eager to share this with his clients.
The food gets a special mention because I haven’t had such luxurious, tasty, filling, and somehow lightweight meals in the mountains before.
I would highly recommend Mountain Journeys to anyone who wants an adventure off the beaten track with a guide that is knowledgeable, experienced, and committed to giving his clients the best experiences.
Upcoming Journeys
6-day ‘Moderate-Hard’ trip, 23-29 November 2024
Meeting location: Christchurch
Maximum group size: 4 people
Cost: $ 3,720 per person
Guide: Rob Frost
Alpine tarns, lush forest, bouldery rivers, tussock tops, alpine snowfields… They’re all on the list for this challenging late Spring trip. A journey of this duration will allow us to get somewhere quite remote whilst also giving some flexibility with the weather.
Sian and Jeff joined a ‘Moderate-Hard’ 4-day trip with Rob in February, and are really keen to test themselves a little further. So, we’ve scheduled this trip for them, but they’d love for a couple more people to join the group.
We’ll be aiming to head for the West Coast, but may be forced east of the Main Divide depending on the weather. Wherever we end up, we’ll aim for at least a couple of scenic campsites above the bushline and some time spent traveling in the snow. There could be two or three reasonably solid days included (~10 hours), but we’ll also try to schedule some downtime in order to enjoy our location and let our bodies recover.
Availability for Private Journeys
26 Dec 2024 to 3 Jan 2025
and
late Jan – early Feb 2025
Here is your opportunity for a customised journey for you and whoever you’d like to bring with you. We can follow the best weather and make the trip as relaxed or as challenging as you like.
We have a 9-day window over the 2024-2025 New Year holiday, and are available for any private trip at least 4 days long (or a 2-day trip for a wedding or other special celebration). We also have availability in late January and early February. If these dates work for you, then we’d love to hear from you! Please get in touch if you’d like to schedule your own trip – refer to details about Private Journeys below.
5-day ‘Moderate’ trip, 21-26 February 2025
Meeting location: Christchurch or Wanaka
Maximum group size: 4 people with 1 guide, or 6 people with 2 guides
Cost: $ 3,130 per person
Guides: Rob Frost + TBC
We love guiding moderate late-summer journeys. The amount of time we spend tramping each day is an honest effort but leaves plenty of time for rest and to enjoy our surroundings. The weather is usually pleasant… (but anything can happen in the Southern Alps!) and with the warmer conditions our packs are a little lighter than normal. If you haven’t carried 4 nights of food before, or haven’t walked off-track before, we’ll provide the guidance to make it easier than you might expect.
As with all of our trips, we’ll aim to spend a good amount of time above the bushline, whilst also enjoying river valleys and forests. It’s likely we’ll use known routes/tracks for the first and last days to help with access; after that we’ll be mostly making our own way and finding our own campsites. We can also include a small amount of skills instruction if you’re interested in that.
We’ll decide to start on the 21 or 22 of Feb, and to meet in Christchurch or Wanaka, a few days beforehand depending on the weather forecast. (We’re based in Christchurch, so if you prefer to book travel here and join our vehicle for a potential trip to a Wanaka-based trip, that can also work.)
Where do the journeys go?
We undertake trips in a huge variety of places throughout the Southern Alps (we have a concession/permit for more than 50 locations). For those of you willing to do some real exploring, many of those locations have hardly been visited by anyone, even our guides.
When you book a guided journey with us, you’re signing up not for a particular location, but for a particular style and difficulty of trip over an agreed range of dates.
We’ll always have a ‘Plan A’ regarding where we go, but we’ll also have a few backup trip locations. Depending on the weather forecast a few days before the start, we may decide to go somewhere quite different if it avoids terrible weather. We want to provide you with a challenging trip, but also an enjoyable and safe one, so we need to be flexible. Fortunately, we have so many locations around the South Island / Te Wai Pounamu up our sleeve that we’re likely to find somewhere suitable for almost any weather forecast.
To give you an idea of the types of places we like to go, here are a few trips we’ve done over the last few years:
Mt Alexander
Traverse of Lyell Peak
Makarora Valley, across the Main Divide to Brewster Glacier
Opera and Libretto Ranges
Princess Bath and Mt Princess
Whitcombe River, Noisy Basin, and Misty Ridge
Butler Saddle
Traverse of the Toaroha Range
Hopkins to the Landsborough and back, twice across the Main Divide
Want to book a private journey?
Private trips are the best way to enjoy a journey tailored specifically to the style and difficulty level that YOU want.
If you’d like to book a private guided journey or instruction course with us, please refer to the table below for prices.
Some mobile devices do not show the heading row; the price columns are for (1) the base price for one person, and (2) the additional price for each extra person.
| Private Trip Length | Base Price (1 person) | Price per extra person |
|---|---|---|
| 1 day | NZ$ 1,710 | NZ$ 300 |
| 2 days | NZ$ 2,880 | NZ$ 600 |
| 3 days | NZ$ 4,050 | NZ$ 900 |
| 4 days | NZ$ 5,220 | NZ$ 1,200 |
| 5 days | NZ$ 6,390 | NZ$ 1,500 |
| 6 days | NZ$ 7,560 | NZ$ 1,800 |
| 7 days | NZ$ 8,730 | NZ$ 2,100 |
| 8 days | NZ$ 9,900 | NZ$ 2,400 |
Occasionally, depending on the requirements of your trip, we may need accommodation between our base and the start or end of the trip – such expenses will be additional to the costs shown in the above table. Please see our terms and conditions for more information.
We will be pleased to discuss the possibility of more than one guide on your trip (additional $1,100/day), or a porter to carry some weight (additional $550/day), or any other special requests. We can provide a quote for such requests at the time of your enquiry.
All dietary requirements can be catered for in our standard rates.
If you’d like to gift someone a guided trip or credit towards an instruction course, we also have vouchers available for sale!
