Welcome to Episode 3 of the Ω Powerband Podcast - a podcast dedicated to rock climbing in Aotearoa New Zealand.

In this episode, I speak with OG climber, editor and extreme tramper, Richard Thomson.

Richard is yet another climber who cut his teeth on the paradoxically incredibly-hard-but-also-dangerously-loose-and-brittle cliffs of Wellington, at a time when a good belay was a nylon rope wrapped around your mate's waist. Undeterred, Richard has climbed extensively in Aotearoa and fashioned an impressive résumé over several decades. 

In our conversation, we chat about his early days and what it meant to become a rock climber in the 1970s when, in New Zealand at least, the sport was really only beginning to develop a discrete identity (as opposed to being an adjunct to mountaineering). We chat about the main influences on his climbing or, more accurately, his attitude to climbing. And we discuss his travels overseas, his time living in Christchurch and climbing at Castle Hill and his ponderings on whether or not to become a sport climber in his late 50s.

But mostly we talk about his love for the central Darrans and some of the more memorable and dramatic experiences he has had there - with over 15 years of going ground-up onsight on some of the nation's best and most remote big walls. Richard, it seems, mastered the art of social distancing long before that even became a thing. Enjoy!