TASMAN GLACIER HUT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 72, 26 March 1931, Page 9

TASMAN GLACIER HUT.

RECENT TRAGEDY RECALLED

MEMORIAL IN MOUNTAINS

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)WELLINGTON, this day. It is expected that the hut which is being built on the Tasman Glacier as a memorial to those who perished in the tragedy there over a year ago, will be officially opened at Easter, when the memorial tablet will be unveiled. A suggestion has been made that the opening should be attended by the three pioneer climbers who first established a bivouac on the site of the new hut over forty years ago: these are Messrs. G. E. Mannering, P. H. Johnson and James Annan. The actual date was April 4, 1889, and in Mr. Mannering's book, "With Axe and Rope in the New Zealand Alps," the place is described as "a snug hollowbetween the lateral moraines of the Tasman and Rudolf Glaciers."

Advice has been received from the Hermitage that the hut at de la Beehe Corner was sufficiently far advanced for the builder, to live in it within four weeks of the day the materials left Timaru. This is record time for the erection of a mountain hut. Materials weighing about three tons reached the end of the road near the Ball Hut on February 17, and a team of four packers (under Kenneth Grinling, a former Hermitage guide) transported the whole lot in under a month to the site of the new hut, seven miles up the Glacier, at an altitude of, 4750 feet. None of the men was used to glacier work, and all found the carrying of 50 to (30 pound loads somewhat difficult at first. The hut is being built by Jack Pope, also an ex-Hermitage guide, and should be finished by the end of this week. The cost of the hut itself will be about £325, which is a few pounds less than the amount subscribed by sympathisers and friends of the unfortunate party it commemorates. It is expected fiat after furnishing the hut and paying all expenses, there will be a deficiency of £25. This amount would have been much larger but for the fact that all the equipment, except the blankets, has been supplied through the generosity of Messrs. Armstrong, Ballantynes, Beaths, D.1.C., Mason, Struthers and Co., and A. ,T. White. The hut will be a valuable refuge for parties crossing the divide over Graham's Saddle, and will also serve as a base for climbing some sixteen peaks. In winter it will be an ideal place for ski ing parties. It is the property of the New Zealand Alpine Club, and will be under the control of that body.