Watch Derek Chinn’s talk below:
Derek Chinn is a structural engineer based in Queenstown. His special area of interest is wind resistant timber and steel structures in inaccessible locations. Recently he has been involved with Tropical Cyclone Winston reconstruction on remote islands in Fiji. In New Zealand he has designed a variety of alpine buildings and structures. Huts designed include: Plateau, Mueller, French Ridge, Brewster, Albertburn Saddle, Mackinnon Pass and Pisa Range and a variety of ski area infrastructure. Derek has designed about a dozen toilets for alpine buildings to capture human waste and allow this to be flown out. Derek is a skilful mountaineer with ascents of some big walls in Yosemite, and several New Zealand mountaineering first ascents. His Himalayan adventures include the first ascent of the west buttress of Cholatse, a solo ascent of Pik Communism, the North Col north ridge of Mt Everest, narrowly missing the summit after climbing the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat, and skiing off the summit of Mustag Atta. He has also enjoyed climbing in Peru, Alaska, Europe and the Atlas Mountains in North Africa. Derek is an active member of the Queenstown Alpine Cliff Rescue team, which involves a lot of leaping out of helicopters onto all sorts of surfaces in a variety of weather!
View Derek’s slides below: