The inaugural Remarkables Ice and Mixed Festival, held in Queenstown over the weekend, has been hailed an overwhelming success, with organisers already planning the 2013 event.

Co-organiser Daniel Joll, of Queenstown, said it was the first time the New Zealand Alpine Club had run a major winter climbing meeting in New Zealand and it "100% surpassed" any expectations.

Jamie Vinton-Boot, of Christchurch, works his way up steep terrain during an attempt to climb the grade M8 route Blow Up, on the Remarkables Range, during the Remarkables Ice and Mixed Festival held in Queenstown at the weekend. Photo from Mark Watson/Highlux Photography

"It was a really incredible response to get - the amount of climbers that managed to come down and stand in the cold.

"It was fantastic."

Mr Joll said the aim of the festival was to promote winter mountaineering and teaching climbers the skills to climb difficult routes during the winter months.

While climbing in summer was an enjoyable experience, winter mountaineering was "the hardest aspect of the sport".

"We're wanting to promote technical, hard climbing in winter in New Zealand."

As part of the festival, the 115 climbers, including about 30 women, attended an awards dinner on Saturday night.

Steve Fortune, of Christchurch, was named the Black Diamond New Zealand Alpinist of the Year, following several impressive ascents over the past year.

Those included climbing the North Pillar of Mt Fitz Roy, in Patagonia, Argentina, and successful first ascents across New Zealand mountains, in particular difficult summer and winter ascents in the Darren Mountains in Fiordland.

Yesterday, the festival concluded with the Grand Traverse Challenge, where climbers raced from the Remarkables skifield base up the Telecom Tower, over the summits of Double Cone, on to the summit of Single Cone, down to Wye Saddle and back to the skifield car park - a route which typically took competent climbing parties between six and eight hours.

Mr Fortune capped off his successful weekend winning the race in just one hour 29 minutes, closely followed by Reg Measures (1:32) and Mr Joll in third (1:35).