Kim Logan - A mountain man with mana

He may have climbed dozens of mountains around the world, done hundreds of climbs at home, and been part of some of this country’s most notorious search and rescue operations, but you won’t find this humble, Kiwi guy boasting about them.

Still guiding mountaineering expeditions overseas, Kim Logan turns 73 this year and works full-time as Mt Pisa regional foreman for Foley Wines. Next year he’s guiding an expedition to Mount Kailash in Tibet and last year took clients around the Kanchenjunga Circuit Trail deep in remote Nepal. Everest no longer appeals, Kim’s first climb there on the Hornbein Couloir on the north face ending in tragedy when two members fell.

He’s climbed Mount Cook via 15 routes and completed 27 descents, Cook’s south face with Bruce Grant among his most memorable climbs, along with a climb up the south face of Sabre Peak with Kiwi legend Bill Denz.

It was while working in Nelson that Kim was first introduced to climbing by a Japanese climber who took him up low grade Mount Sealy. It became a lifelong passion. “I got back down and thought I could walk on water, I was amazing,” he laughs. “I remember a mountain guide asking me what sort of knot I had in my harness back then. I said,’ My fishing knot’. He asked, ‘How many fish did you lose?”

Climbing also opened doors as a location scout and manager for Hollywood blockbusters and movies here and overseas. His skill landed him on the sets and guiding stars from Vertical Limit and Without a Paddle to Eye of the Storm in Rarotonga.

It maybe wasn’t the career path Kim’s dad had envisaged, sending his boys to Kings Prep School around seven or eight. “Dad believed in order to succeed we had to fit into a Pakeha world so needed an English Anglican education.”

Kim escaped the full Kings immersion, ending up at Patea District High School, moving a lot as his dad leased hotels.

Born in Hastings (Ngāti Kahungunu) Kim’s family had its own notoriety, his grandmother Miriama Logan, a trailblazer for the Māori Women’s Welfare League, and his dad a commander in the 28th Māori Battalion.

Kim worked from 3am until 8am at the local freezing works before school and was off to Australia to join his brother at 16, family tragedy forcing his return home where, sadly, it struck again.

He worked as purchasing officer for Fisher Windows and General Electric and by the early 80s was at Mount Cook working for Search and Rescue. “Six of us were on our way in an Iroquois to rescue climbers Mark Inglis and Phil Doole, trapped in a crevasse near the summit of Mount Cook when the Iroquois crashed,” Kim recalls. “We were bloody lucky. The rotors hit the side of the mountain, and we landed upside down by a 500m drop off Emperor Shelf into the Hooker Glacier.” Sure they’d go over, he quickly released his seatbelt, landing on his head before throwing myself out the window. They stayed in a snow cave overnight until choppers could get in the following morning, Inglis and Doole surviving 15 days.

Moving to Queenstown he worked as a Forest Service shooter before the amalgamation into DOC.

Kim, Bruce Grant and Allan Smith, helicopter pilot Dennis Egerton and Dr Tom Milliken were awarded a Royal Humane Society bravery award for rescuing a German tourist at night in snow and sleet from an icy bluff ledge off the Harris Saddle.

Kim and Bruce became great friends. “He wanted to learn to climb so I took him up Earnslaw to a frozen waterfall with his crampons, ice axe and hammer. He said, ‘No rope?!’ I knew he was an Olympic skier, so I said, ‘You’re Bruce Grant. No rope.”

That backfired when Bruce was teaching Kim to parapente off Ben Lomond. “He laid the chute out and I asked, ‘Where’s your seat?’ He replied, ‘There’s only one. It’s for you’, Kim grins. He said, ‘This chord is to go left, this chord to go right and pull them both before you land. Now start running and don’t stop’. That’s all I got.”

Kim says Bruce became a technically better climber than him, while Kim had the experience. “He was one of the best, so much power and strength.”

They went on a K2 expedition together in 1995. Tragically, Bruce was one of seven to lose their lives on 13 August after summiting (30 years ago next week) – the beginning of a difficult time of personal loss for Kim.

A ray of sunshine broke through when he met second wife Glennys back in Queenstown, moving to Cromwell where Kim studied horticulture.

He’s also studied gemmology, working in the black pearl industry in French Polynesia, and sought gems in Northern Pakistan. “You see all sorts of weird stones in the remote villages.”

As for Te Reo: “I had that beaten out of me at a very English school, but I’m proud to be Māori and see both Māori and Pakeha embracing unity.”

Kim’s book – ‘Kim – A Journey Between Worlds’ will be launched at the Queenstown Writers Festival (31 October – 2 November).