UP THE WATAROA VALLEY

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21973, 23 December 1936, Page 7

UP THE WATAROA VALLEY

EXPEDITION BY TWO TRAMPERS PHOTOGRAPHS OF LITTLE TRAVERSED COUNTRY Photographs of the upper Wataroa Valley in South Westland, believed to be the first ever taken, were secured recently by Messrs A. G. Bogle, of the Canterbury College Tramping Club, a New Zealand Rhodes scholar for 1D37, and D. V. Apperley, of the Canterbury Mountaineering Club. Messrs Apperley and Bogle set out to traverse the Wataroa Valley to the Whymper Glacier, from which they hoped to cross the Lendenfeldt Saddle and go down the Tasman to the Hermitage. As their progress in the upper part of the valley was too slow for the time at their disposal, however, they had to abandon their original idea to return to Wataroa.

They left Wataroa on December 13 and were assisted in packing stores as far as the Burrows Bluff (seven miles) by Mr W. Gunn, of Wataroa. Travelling as far as Barrowman's Camp (10 miles up the river) Was easy because tracks had been well blazed by old miners. The first day’s journey ended at the junction of the Wataroa and Butler rivers.

Rope had to be used for crossing the Butler next day, an operation which took an hour and a half. The traropers saw unnamed peaks at the head of this river. They pushed on to the mouth of the Wataroa Gorge, where the river flows from the ice. but found the travelling difficult. Their route lay through dense bush and the air was full of sulphur fumes from thermal activity; On December 15, they entered the gorge. It was heavily clad in bush right down to the water’s edge, and progress was so difficult that at the end of the day only two miles had been covered. As this rate of progress was too slow for the time at the climbers’ disposal, the trip was abandoned. On the way back to Wataroa, which was reached on December 17. they explored an unnamed stream and saw unnamed peaks and icefalls on the Callory Range. The Lendenfeldt Saddle has been crossed only once—by Messrs Malcolm Ross and Fyfe, in 1897, the crossing being made from the Tasman side.

A party consisting of Messrs Apperley, B. W. Collins, and R, Burgess, of the Canterbury Mountaineering Club, attempted to cross the Whymper into the Wataroa last year, but failed because of the snow conditions.