A renowned Swedish extreme skier who plunged 600m to his death on Aoraki-Mt Cook may have made a miscalculation or had problems with his equipment.

The sister of Denali Schmidt, who was killed with his mountaineer father in an avalanche on K2 last year, is fundraising to take her brother's art on a world tour.

New Zealand's climbing community is in awe of the first solo ascent of a difficult South Island peak in Mt Aspiring National Park.

A special forces soldier who tumbled to his death on NZ's deadliest mountain yesterday was "unlucky", as snow and ice gave way to a deep crevasse, a rescuer says.

It was the Everest of its time, and some 25,000 people try to scale it every year. But the issue of climbing Europe's tallest mountain has come to an ugly head.

This winter was not a good one for farmers in the Fertile Crescent.

Nepal has named two Himalayan peaks near Mount Everest after Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and opened them to foreigners for climbing.

I'm sure I can speak for all of our World Vision team when I say that if it hadn't been for our porters and guides, none of us would have come close to climbing Mt Kilimanjaro last year.

Four Kiwis were among a climbing group on Mt Everest when a deadly avalanche struck on Friday, killing at least 12 Nepalese advance party guides and leaving four others missing.

The moment Matt Stewart clicked his safety harness on to the line, he realised his mistake. It very nearly cost him his life.

A contractor is dead after his ute plunged about 170 metres down a scree bank near the Mt Hutt ski area in poor conditions yesterday.

Mt Hutt ski area staff were first on the scene of a fatal crash which claimed the life of a man they knew, and worked with, this morning.

A little piece of Sir Edmund Hillary's family history - a century-old villa belonging to his grandmother - was removed from its site in Mt Eden last week.

A 7-year-old girl has made a fearless climb of the towering Remarkables mountain range.

Police say they are confident the body recovered from Nelson Lakes National Park yesterday afternoon is that of missing British tramper Andrew Ian Wyatt.

Search and rescue teams looking for a British tramper have found a body at the bottom of a 100m cliff.

The skier who witnessed his fellow adventurer and "great friend" plunge to his death near the summit of Aoraki-Mt Cook has given a harrowing account of what happened.

The family of an outdoor adventurer who fell 300m down a South Island glacier are worried as she has yet to recover consciousness after Sunday's accident.

A Kiwi skier was shocked to discover his Swedish skiing partner had fallen to his death on Aoraki-Mt Cook just days after they set a new record together.

Ice picks were held up in a guard of honour as the caskets of climbers Nicole Sutton and Hiroki Ogawa left a church in Auckland today following their joint funeral.

The New Zealand Alpine Club will carry out an independent review of its trip to Mt Taranaki after two climbers died over Labour weekend, it was announced today.

A huge avalanche crashed frighteningly close to a rescue party as they treated a woman who had fallen some 300 metres down a Canterbury glacier after her snow anchor apparently detached.

A Swedish extreme-altitude skier who plunged 600m to his death near the peak of Aoraki-Mt Cook had set a new record on the mountain just days earlier.

Police are investigating the deaths of climbers Nicole Sutton and Hiroki Ogawa who died on Mt Taranaki over Labour Weekend.

Alpine experts say conditions on Mt Taranaki can turn within minutes, and whether climbers make it down alive or not depends solely on the decisions they make.

They died side by side - sending a final text expressing fears for survival. Today rescuers have been able to winch the pair off Mt Taranaki.