Guided by Tony Nolan’s Bush Lore (1961), Grant tramped through South Island valleys and passes, and over easy tops, to publish his own New Zealand Tramper’s Handbook in 1981. After years filing outdoor trip stories and features for outdoor magazines, in more recent times he’s tackled compact, novel topics for NZ Alpine Journal and Canterbury Mountaineer, mostly with an historic theme: among them featuring the NZ adventures of 1920s Everest veteran Noel Odell (the last person to see Mallory and Irvine alive) as Professor of Geology in Otago, and drawing attention to his inspired flights of high-resolution aerial oblique images now offering a compelling 1950s baseline for glacial retreat research; the rocky underfoot transformation from hobnails to rubber Vibrams; outdoor manufacturer/retailer Bevan Napper capturing the transalpine packing market with his Mountain Mule; and how exploring botanists with Kiwi connections coincided time-wise with the first mountaineering explorers in Western Nepal.
Seven years ago, Grant found a book-length celebration of the centenary of Canterbury Mountaineering Club a more testing fixation.
Still not a climber, Grant joined the CMC about 15 years ago to get closer to the people who had become his heroes, mostly through reading, and one or two personal acquaintances. “For a regional club, the CMC has always had an amazing presence, extending to the international. I’m in awe of its members, past and present, and what they’ve achieved, and the reputations they’ve amassed in alpine endeavours.”
Grant has a background in environmental and land use research, and with Anne, is building a mini multi-species, multi-purpose forest in a farm-forestry tradition, at the dry-land end of the range in North Canterbury, getting close to where it becomes non-sensical to grow trees.