Attendees at this weekend at Tukino were Peter de Joux (coordinator), Alan Lowrie, Sean Comber, Dave Shanks, Caroline Duggan, Craig Robinson, David Morgan, Jenny Henshaw, Merewyn Ellis, Michele Domaneschi, Garth London, Sharon Flood, Peter Laurenson, Blair Leslie, David Eaton, Don French, Toby Johnston and Peter Blaxter. Accommodation at Desert Alpine’s lodge was comfortable. They had hired a large generator but it failed before we arrived on Friday night, leaving only enough power from the reserve generator to run the essential lighting. The lights in the bunkrooms were not operational. The large generator was fixed on Saturday, after which there was ample electric power. The food they had supplied was more than adequate, and they were highly cooperative to ensure that our needs were being met. Although they are not instructors, Karen Domaneschi and Angie London came up with us for the weekend. They worked hard in the kitchen to prepare meals and to clean up after us, leaving instructors with more time to focus on our desired outcomes from the weekend. On Saturday morning the weather was good, but we needed to conduct an indoor briefing as a start to the weekend program. This developed into a session on key technical points for various syllabus items. After lunch we split into four groups, each with a senior or experienced instructor. Each group conducted mock lessons and/or travelled around looking for places to use later with the students. By the time dinner was completed, some instructors were keen to go out ice climbing. Others wanted to socialise in the lodge. The ice-climbing group had a great time on a calm and clear night with an almost full moon. They were climbing a 45m route on a frozen waterfall, and had taken 2-way radios for communication between themselves and also to stay in touch with the rest of us in the lodge. They returned to the lodge about midnight, and were buzzing about the good experience they had had. On Sunday morning, I ran a quick session to explain that current practice is not to use or teach self-equalising methods for connecting multiple snow anchors. This was followed by was followed by a navigation talk by Dave Eaton. As people headed back to the lodge, we had them look at a fully risk-managed abseil setup. This was a highly valuable weekend. It helps us to lift our game again. The AIC this year will be run by a very competent, enthusiastic and dedicated group of instructors, and promises to be highly successful. Top work from Pete De Joux