The Press Tuesday, January 21, 1930. The Accident at Mt. Cook.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19832, 21 January 1930, Page 10

The Press Tuesday, January 21, 1930. The Accident at Mt. Cook.

There will be very few in New Zealand who will not be shocked by the news that five people have lost their lives in a storm at Mt. Cook; and a distress that strangers must feel will be deepened by friendship in many in and near Christchurch. Though there have been other accidents to New Zealand mountaineering parties, resulting in injury or death, none has been quite so sweeping. A blow that destroys five young lives at once is a cruel and terrible thing. But the suddenness and the completeness of the disaster which overtook this party, as little able to find shelter from the storm as to anticipate and avoid it, should not persuade anybody that such expeditions are too dangerous and ought to be discouraged. It is perhaps not even a slight exaggeration to say that they are safer than a walk across a city street; certainly mountaineers taking ordinary precautions in places of no extraordinary difficulty are at least as safe as the average citizen, going about his

business in Christchurch with the average carelessness. There are risks, even in the sort of mountaineering which to the experienced and skilful alpinist is merely child's play, but they are still unfamiliar to most of us, and the accidents which occasionally result from them cause greater misgivings, though they should not, than the frequent accidents duo to risks that thousands face day by day. Yet life would be impossible if we did not agree to accept the familiar risks it imposes on us, though if we are wise we reduce them to a minimum; and it would be worth much less if none were ready to accept less familiar ones for the sake of certain vital rewards, which can never be won without them. There is no good thing to be had without some adventure, some readiness to endure and to pay. Sometimes the price paid is overwhelmingly heavy, as now. But that is not the truest form of pity and regret which turns tc». look anxiously about for the safest levels of earth.