Words by Tim Pierce. Photos by Mark Watson
It is with great pleasure that I can show you all ‘The Whole Nine Yards,’ a video I produced from my trip with The North Face at the end of August up to the mountains surrounding Mt Cook. This was one of the most challenging and memorable jobs I have under taken in my career so far.
A trip like this requires a lot of planning and the logistics of organizing nine people to under take a very ambitious mission in one of the wildest parts of NZ are pretty crazy. There are so many variables that you cannot control and one of the biggest skills is being able to adapt with what ever is put in front of you. It was a huge challenge trying to film this professionally and build the story as it happened. Aside from the initial flight in this whole trip was done under the power of our own bodies.
Pulling off a Back Country trip amidst New Zealands biggest mountains is something akin to a miracle. As the weather gods deal their hand, our initial two-week window is whittled down to a single 3 day opportunity. Sticking to our guns, we pack the cars and convoy to Mt Cook Village, our starting point located at the foot of NZ’s biggest mountains. What follows is a trip where endurance, team effort and the gritty NZ spirit of adventure replace lift queues, rope lines and greasy resort hotdogs. One we like to call The Whole Nine Yards.
On top of having to hike for days on end, there was carrying over 23kg of camera gear including two cameras, tripods, lenses, mics, snow shoes, harness, crampons, ice axes, camping gear etc. The following photos are by Mark Watson and give you a bit of a behind the scenes look into the trip. A huge thanks to Alpine Guides and Lindsay Horner for designing the intro & title graphics.
For more of Tim’s incredible work, visit his blog.
