When mountain guide Tim Robertson climbed The Wild Thing for the first time, he wasn’t only looking at the route. He was looking at the people who will climb it, what happens when someone gets nervous, and how a guide keeps the whole group moving safely.

Tim was brought in to help Mark and the Wildwire team think through how their new “The Wild Thing” climb will be guided. So after his first climb, we asked what he was looking for.

Since Lord of the Rungs opened in 2017, Wildwire Wanaka has been written about by Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic Traveller, Forbes, the New Zealand Herald and the Otago Daily Times. We have kept their words as they published them, and linked to every piece so you can read the lot.

We add to this page as new coverage comes in.

We’ve spent a lot of our lives in the mountains, and via ferrata is obviously a huge part of our world through Wildwire. But there was something pretty special about going right back to where it all began and actually climbing those original routes ourselves.

One of the questions we get asked all the time is: which climb should I do? Many of our guests have never climbed before. Plenty arrive nervous about heights, or with a partner who is much more confident than they are. That’s completely normal.

A via ferrata is a protected climbing route that uses a fixed steel cable, together with iron rungs, ladders and bridges, to help people move safely through steep mountain terrain.