Our Story
Wānaka Mountain Guides is proudly locally owned and operated by certified New Zealand mountain guides and offers personalised mountain adventures throughout the Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana. This means that all aspects our guiding services are managed by guides with direct experience delivering all the trips and courses that we offer. We utilise a small team of local, established guides and commit to operating sustainably and regeneratively to look after our people, communities, and mountain playgrounds for the future.
![Wanaka Mountain Guides [] Meet the Team](data:image/svg+xml;nitro-empty-id=NDIxOjI2MjQ=-1;base64,PHN2ZyB2aWV3Qm94PSIwIDAgMTAyNCA3NjgiIHdpZHRoPSIxMDI0IiBoZWlnaHQ9Ijc2OCIgeG1sbnM9Imh0dHA6Ly93d3cudzMub3JnLzIwMDAvc3ZnIj48L3N2Zz4= "Our Story 1")
Our extensive knowledge of playing and working in the mountains in New Zealand and overseas allows us to tailor quality guiding services for our valued guests. These include visitors wishing to sample our local area, those looking to expand their skills and prepare for their self-led adventures, and experienced mountaineers with specific goals. Everyone is different and our custom experiences reflect this.
As mountain experts, our guides are committed to mountain education and sharing their knowledge of safe and enjoyable mountain travel and activities. Working directly with some of NZ’s most experienced guides and leaders in the field ensures that our clients receive industry-leading instruction covering the latest techniques. Check out our Knowledge Base for technical advice, route descriptions, articles, and our Downloads for course resources.
We’re proud to have joined the ranks as a Love Wānaka Impact Partner – committing 1% of our business’ proceeds to support local environmental efforts. This means that every time you book a trip or course with us, you’re helping to protect and regenerate of the environment at the heart of our home.
WMG is a supporting partner of Protect Our Winters NZ. You can donate to POWNZ by adding a $10 donation to your trip or course payment, or directly here.
Lake Wānaka
![Wanaka Mountain Guides [] Our Story](data:image/svg+xml;nitro-empty-id=NDU3OjUwNA==-1;base64,PHN2ZyB2aWV3Qm94PSIwIDAgMjA0OCAxNTM2IiB3aWR0aD0iMjA0OCIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxNTM2IiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg== "Our Story 4")
Our home is Wānaka is in the Southern Lakes region of New Zealand’s South Island / Te Waipounamu. The region is surrounded by mountains and is a year-round hub for all outdoor activities including rock climbing, trekking, mountain biking, and skiing. The Wānaka and Hāwea lakes cater for kite surfing, paddle boarding, and kayaking and its tributary rivers and streams provide opportunities for pack rafting and world-class canyoning.
The town is the gateway to the valleys and peaks of Mount Aspiring National Park. A few hours drive north provides access to either the eastern or western glaciers and peaks of Westland and Aoraki / Mount Cook National Parks and to the south lies Fiordland National Park.
It is a privilege to live in such a beautiful area with incredible access to the outdoors. This makes it our responsibility to care for this place for the future.
Our Story
Wānaka Mountain Guides was founded in 2007 by mountain and ski guide Hugh Barnard and his partner Laetitia Campe. Tim Steward joined in 2021 and took over as Managing Director and Chief Guide in 2022. Tim brings 15 years of experience guiding based from Wānaka including managing other large guiding services and providing technical and safety advice, and audit services to other adventure activity operations.
In 2024 we moved into Kea Lodge to give us more space for operations and, most excitingly, being able to offer comfortable accommodation for our guests. A place to connect with others who may be on other trips with us. With the uncertain nature of the New Zealand weather, the Lodge gives us the ultimate flexibility.
Wānaka Mountain Guides is a Worksafe registered provider of adventure activities and a Department of Conservation Approved Business. The adventure activities certification demonstrates compliance with the Safety Audit Standard for Adventure Activities and therefore provides confidence in a high standard of technical expertise and safety.
Our guides are certified through the New Zealand Mountain Guides Association which is a member of the International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations (IFMGA). The IFMGA qualification is the highest level of mountain professional certification available and is held by around 7000 guides based in 20+ member countries worldwide. Achieving this level of certification is the culmination of a long process of personal and professional development and proves extensive skills in instruction, leadership, decision-making, and safety management.
‘Great team at Wanaka Mountain Guides. A well organised, professional team of experienced guides who make each mountain adventure exciting and rewarding. Looking forward to the next adventure in the hills! Highly recommend.’
— Arthur, Private Guiding
‘I Learnt heaps on my course, it was a wonderful experience. WMG has very experienced and knowledgeable guides who share this knowledge with skill, expertise, and grace. Highly recommended.’
— Stuart, Avalanche Skills Course
‘A great local company offering backcountry tours. Less people, fresh lines and opportunity to enhance your backcountry skills. Our guide, was exceptional. He picked a great route, great skiing, and included some snow science along the way. Highly recommended.’
— Nathan, Remarkables Backcountry Tour
Meet the Team
Tim Steward
IFMGA / NZMGA Mountain & Ski Guide
Managing Director and Chief Guide
Tim is based in Wānaka with his young family. He has been climbing, skiing, and guiding throughout the Southern Alps since arriving in New Zealand from the UK in 2008. He has climbed and skied around the world and in other roles, he mentors, trains, and assesses prospective ski patrollers and mountain guides and is a member of the local Alpine Cliff Rescue team. When not out in the hills guiding or instructing, he will be usually found introducing his young family to the outdoors, away on his own adventures, or out at the local rock climbing crags.
Petrouchka Steiner-Grierson
IFMGA / NZMGA Mountain & Ski Guide
Petrouchka (Pet) has spent several years working as an outdoor instructor and mountain and ski guide in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and Japan. When not guiding she will be away on a personal adventure in the mountains or cruising up hard rock climbs. She also holds a Bachelor of Music.
Cillian Kennedy
IFMGA / NZMGA Mountain & Ski Guide
Cillian splits his time between Wānaka and the Blue Mountains in Australia with his young family. Before pursuing his mountain and ski guiding, he spent many years instructing outdoor pursuits including rock climbing and canyoning and this shows in his calm and encouraging manner. He has climbed and skied throughout Australia, USA, Canada, Alaska, New Zealand, Thailand, and the European Alps.
Adrian Camm
IFMGA / NZMGA Mountain & Ski Guide
Adrian, originally from northern England, moved to Wānaka in 1996. He has climbed and skied extensively around the Southern Alps as well as Canada and return trips to Europe and qualified as an IFMGA guide in 2013. He is a popular instructor with a clear, logical, and encouraging approach honed in his other engineering career.
Tom Ripley
IFMGA / NZMGA Mountain & Ski Guide
Tom is a British Mountain Guide, originally from the English Lakes District, the birthplace of rock climbing. He has spent the last few years living near Chamonix, France. He joins the team from this winter and excited to climb up, and ski down as many mountains as possible during his tenue on the opposite hemisphere.
Cam McAlpine
NZMGA Climb & Aspirant Mountain & Ski Guide
Cam has spent many years exploring the Southern Alps including working for three years as a full-time member of the Aoraki / Mount Cook Search and Rescue Team, as well as a glacier guide on the Fox Glacier, and ski patrolling and snow safety at Coronet Peak, the Remarkables and Treble Cone ski fields. He has hiked from Mexico to Canada and the length of NZ.
Kim Ladiges
IFMGA / NZMGA Mountain & Ski Guide
Hailing from Tasmania, Kim worked as a rock climbing guide and outdoor instructor before beginning his NZMGA training. He has climbed and skied around the world, including notching up first ascents and prestigious repeats in North America, Patagonia, and the Himalayas.
Ryan Colley
NZMGA Aspirant Mountain and Ski Guide
Ryan joins the team in 2024. He grew up hunting and fishing on the west coast of New Zealand and has always been keen on the outdoors. Since gaining a diploma in outdoor education in 2016, he has worked as a guide and instructor on rivers, canyons, glaciers, and mountains throughout New Zealand and the European Alps. In winter he works as a ski patroller at the Remarkables.
Julian Goad
NZMGA Assistant Climb Guide
Julian joins the team in 2024. He is a keen climber, mountaineer, and skier. His professional experience includes working on the Aoraki / Mount Cook Search & Rescue team, ski patrol at Cardrona ski fields, glacier guiding, and at climbing gyms. Originally from Melbourne, Jules holds a degree in Environmental Science. He and his partner spend their spare time adventuring in the Southern Alps or overseas.
Ski Guides
Dave Lundin
NZMGA Ski Guide
Dave lives in nearby Luggate with his young family. He has extensive experience ski patrolling in the Craigieburns, around Wānaka, and guiding in NZ and Japan. He has tutored on Tai Poutini Ski Patrol training program in Wanaka and spends his summers doing rope access work or mountain bike guiding.
Bronwen Waters
NZMGA Ski Guide
Bronwen is a ski guide and avalanche educator working in NZ, Antarctica, and Japan. Her breadth of experience derives from time working as a ski patroller in NZ, Norway, and Canada, as a trekking guide in Antarctica, Nepal, Mongolia, and Kilimanjaro, and as a basecamp manager on Mount Everest. She has also spent time working on the DOC Aoraki / Mount Cook Search and Rescue team. She has done a traverse of the South Island mountain chain in 84 days making a film about it.
Jimmy Armstrong
NZMGA Ski Guide
Jimmy is a ski guide working in New Zealand and Japan. He has worked extensively throughout the country in industrial rope access work as well as having a degree in Maori language. Jimmy is a modest and friendly character and loves sharing his enthusiasm for the mountains.
Adam Cotterell
NZMGA Ski/Splitboard & Alpine Trekking Guide & NZOIA Rock Instructor
In 2017, Adam has began guiding after leaving a career in medicinal research. Since then he has worked as a splitboard guide in NZ, Canada and Japan, and a rock climbing instructor and trekking guide in NZ and Patagonia. Between guiding seasons, he likes to spend long stints crack climbing, surfing and motorcycling (he has ridden the length of South America).
Monika Bischof
NZMGA Assistant Ski & Alpine Trekking Guide & NZOIA Rock Instructor
Monika, originally from Switzerland is now based in Wānaka living with her Kiwi mountain guide husband. As well as ski and trekking guiding in NZ and Antarctica, she also instructs rock climbing and is a professional florist. When not in the mountains, Monika will often be out rock climbing.
Trekking Guides
Bruno Geldermans
Bruno left the field of accountancy in Wellington behind to dedicate himself to the Wānaka lifestyle. Busying himself with trekking, rock climbing, mountaineering, cycling, lake swimming, and household projects. With highly developed skills in conversation and camp cookery, he is an excellent companion on trips in the mountains.
Laetita Campe
NZMGA Alpine Trekking & Ski Guide
Laetitia grew up as a sailor circumnavigating the globe with her family for over seven years. She lived in Chamonix (France) before making Wānaka, New Zealand her home in 1993. As a mother of two, Laetitia balances being a practicing artist, a mother, and working as an alpine trekking and ski guide.
Support
Helen Steward
Helen has shared many mountain adventures with Tim and provides operational and administrative support to the WMG team, even if that’s keeping the kids entertained during the busy guiding times of the year. Her background is in operations and project management in the wind turbine industry making sure everything is well organised behind the scenes.
Kea
Kea (Nestor notabilis) are an endemic parrot of the South Island’s high country. Although they are seen in reasonable numbers throughout the South Island, the size of the wild population is estimated to only be between 1,000 and 5,000 birds. If you are a guest in the alpine environment you will most likely encounter Kea. Raucous cries of “keeaa” often give away the presence of these highly intelligent, social, and inquisitive birds.
Our trusted suppliers and friends
Sustainability Commitment
Below are the actions we are taking in working towards our commitment to operate sustainability and regeneratively to look after our communities and mountain playgrounds for the future.
Carbon Footprint
We have goal to minimise our carbon footprint. We choose initiatives, equipment suppliers, services and transport suppliers who share in this goal.
![Rab [] Sustainability Commitment](data:image/svg+xml;nitro-empty-id=MTA5NToxMzU1-1;base64,PHN2ZyB2aWV3Qm94PSIwIDAgMTEzIDExMyIgd2lkdGg9IjExMyIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxMTMiIHhtbG5zPSJodHRwOi8vd3d3LnczLm9yZy8yMDAwL3N2ZyI+PC9zdmc+ "Our Story 44")
![Local Dehy Rab [] Sustainability Commitment](data:image/svg+xml;nitro-empty-id=MTA5OToxNjA1-1;base64,PHN2ZyB2aWV3Qm94PSIwIDAgMjQ1IDIyNSIgd2lkdGg9IjI0NSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIyMjUiIHhtbG5zPSJodHRwOi8vd3d3LnczLm9yZy8yMDAwL3N2ZyI+PC9zdmc+ "Our Story 45")
Carbon Offsetting
As a business, our largest contribution to carbon production is in the use of helicopters to access remote and spectacular parts of our country. These flights have a considerable impact on carbon emissions through the use of aviation fuels.
Many of our guests visit Aotearoa / New Zealand from overseas. The further you travel, the larger the carbon emissions. We welcome guests from all over the world to visit our special part of the world and experience our peaks and wilderness but ask you to consider your travel choices.
| Return Journey | Emissions (kg CO2 equivalent) |
| Mountain helicopter flights usually use the Eurocopter AS350 ‘Squirrel’ per hour | 480 |
| Short Haul Flights (Sydney to Queenstown) | 580 |
| Long Haul Flights (London to Queenstown) | 3600 |
![Trees That Count [] Sustainability Commitment](data:image/svg+xml;nitro-empty-id=MTE0MToxODEy-1;base64,PHN2ZyB2aWV3Qm94PSIwIDAgMjE1IDIzNSIgd2lkdGg9IjIxNSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIyMzUiIHhtbG5zPSJodHRwOi8vd3d3LnczLm9yZy8yMDAwL3N2ZyI+PC9zdmc+ "Our Story 50")
We encourage our guests to mitigate their travel when they can by donating to Trees That Count. By funding the planting of native trees, our guests can contribute to absorbing CO2 emissions over 50 years as those trees continue to grow.
it is estimated that each planted tree sequesters 10 – 40kg of carbon annually or around 1000kg over it’s lifetime.
Love Wānaka
Love Wānaka is a giving platform that connects visitors to projects of impact in our region, raising funds for localised climate, conservation, and biodiversity action. We’re taking action to meet the greatest challenge and opportunity of our time: a regenerative, carbon-zero future.
The Love Wānaka community fund raises funds to support climate, conservation, and biodiversity action in the Wānaka region. They connect our visitors and visitor industry to projects of impact in our region, raising funds to support those who are tackling the climate crisis on the ground in Wānaka. We encourage you to donate as part of a trip payment.
We’re proud to have joined the ranks as a Love Wānaka Impact Partner – committing 1% of our business’ proceeds to support local environmental efforts. This means that every time you book a trip or course with us, you’re helping to protect and regenerate of the environment at the heart of our home.
Waste Management
![Wanaka Mountain Guides [] Lake Wanaka in Winter](data:image/svg+xml;nitro-empty-id=MTE5Njo0ODU=-1;base64,PHN2ZyB2aWV3Qm94PSIwIDAgMjA0OCAxNTM2IiB3aWR0aD0iMjA0OCIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxNTM2IiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg== "Our Story 52")
We minimise the waste associated with the food we provide to our guests in the mountains. We actively select products and suppliers that can provide products in recyclable or compostable packaging and avoid single-use plastics through using reusable containers.
In the mountains, we sort waste into recycling, composting, and general rubbish. This allows it to be carried out and disposed of or recycled accordingly. Beyond what can conventionally be recycled, we have arrangements in place for recycling batteries and soft plastic. Our guests are asked to assist us in this process.
We also favour equipment suppliers who have made a similar commitment to reducing their waste in how they package their products. We work hard to maintain and repair our equipment, keeping it in safe and serviceable condition and maximise its lifespan.
Electricity
![Meridian Energy Wind Turbines [] Sustainability Commitment](data:image/svg+xml;nitro-empty-id=MTIxODoxNzcy-1;base64,PHN2ZyB2aWV3Qm94PSIwIDAgMjM3IDIxMyIgd2lkdGg9IjIzNyIgaGVpZ2h0PSIyMTMiIHhtbG5zPSJodHRwOi8vd3d3LnczLm9yZy8yMDAwL3N2ZyI+PC9zdmc+ "Our Story 53")
Although we don’t use much electricity, the Wānaka Mountain Guides office is supplied by Meridian Energy who generates all its power from 100% renewable sources. In the South Island, that means harness the sustainable resources of our hydro-lakes and wind.
Tiaki Promise
![Tiaki [] Sustainability Commitment](data:image/gif;nitro-empty-id=MTIzNjo0NTE=-1;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIABAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw== "arnz1508_tiaki-promise_banners_white")
Aotearoa / New Zealand is precious, and everyone who lives and travels here has a responsibility to look after it.
Tiaki– Care for New Zealand was created through a collective desire to share a connection to the natural world. It’s aim is to inspire and help visitors to travel safely and conscientiously.
The Tiaki kaupapa invites your visitors to see the world through this lens. To feel a closer connection with the people and place around them. To commit to a promise to care for Aotearoa / New Zealand.
Kea Conservation Trust
Named by the Maori for the sound of its call, the Kea is endemic to the Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana. In fact, it is the only alpine parrot in the world. It is regarded as one of Aotearoa / New Zealand’s Taongas (treasures). These sociable and highly intelligent birds are well adapted to their harsh environment. Unfortunately, the traits that Kea developed for survival, their curiosity and omnivorous appetite, have created conflict with humans over the last 150 years. Persecution and predation have sorely depleted numbers and, with only a few thousand birds remaining. The Kea is a nationally endangered species.
The Kea Conservation Trust aims to preserve and protect these unique birds. We’re proud to support the Kea Conservation Trust. We donate to the trust and encourage our guests to donate towards this cause.