As delegates of the NZAC, club president John Cocks and past president Dave Bamford attended the Sustainable Summits conference in Boulder, Colorado, USA. Hosted by he American Alpine Club and American National Parks Service, the 3 day conference (plus a field visit) focused on the solutions for managing human impact on the high mountains of the world. There were 35 short presentations, plus a couple of great panel sessions on topics such as who can manage the impact of 10,000 (yes, 10 thousand!) people a day climbing Mount Fuji, to the the challenges of climbers and their impact on Sagarmatha / Mount Everest.

Initially expected to be a once-in-a-decade event, such was the interest and popularity that John & Dave were inspired to carry on the momentum by organising another Sustainable Summits conference in 2016 – back home in Aotearoa New Zealand.

You can watch presentations from the 2014 conference here.

An excellent follow up article from the conference for those interested is,“Experts Ask: “Are We Loving Our Mountains to Death?“