Phil Penney : IFMGA Guide
Nationality: NZ
First worked with Alpine Guides: "Sometime in the nineties"

Phil has been guiding on and off for Alpine Guides since some indefinite time in the early nineties. Like his shock of blond hair, Phil’s been a difficult man to tie down. It’s only in his ‘senior’ years that we’ve kept him in thraldom for an entire season at a time.

Phil started climbing in 1985, and heliski guiding in 1989. His first ski season with Alpine Guides was at Mt Cook in 2000, followed by 3 seasons at Methven Heliski. Over winter 2005 and 2006 he was back at Mt Cook as co-director of Wilderness Heliski and Ski The Tasman.

Phil’s personality is much like his hair - irreverent and hard to suppress. He reckons he talks too much, even comparing himself to his mother. However, for a man who has guided in Peru, Canada, and Alaska (and of course NZ), making numerous first alpine and ice ascents, he is incredibly modest about his achievements.

When not on the side of a mountain Phil’s often found wearing one of his striped jumpers at another of his other passions: paragliding, or sailing his yacht around Nelson and the Marlborough Sounds, “where the scallops live!”.

Back to alpineguides.co.nz