HUT AT MOUNT COOK

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27213, 3 December 1953, Page 8

HUT AT MOUNT COOK

Mountaineering Club’s

Venture

MATERIALS TO BE DROPPED FROM AIR

During the Christmas and New Year holidays, the Canterbury Mountaineering Club plans to erect a climbing hut at about 8200 feet on the Upper Hooker Glacier at Mount Cook. Parts of the hut, which is now being prefabricated in Christchurch, will be dropped on to the snow near the hut site from a low altitude by two Auster aircraft. The new hut will be situated in the heart of New Zealand’s most difficult climbing country, and from it mountaineers will be able to tackle Cook, Dampier, David’s Dome, La Perouse and many lesser peaks. Six club members are now preparing the hut in Christchurch, and another week-end’s work remains to be done on it. Measuring 12ft by 9ft. it will contain six bunks. Its exterior walls will be of corrugated iron, and it will have a tongue and groove lining. The materials for the hut are being packed in Christchurch, and they will be taken to the Hermitage airfield at Mount Cook on December 19. Depending on the weather the dropping operations will be carried out on December 28 or 29. Two or three members of the club will be at the airfield to help load the hut materials on to two aircraft of Auster Air Services, Ltd., of Timaru. The aircraft, carrying about 4001 b a load, will have to shift about 36251 b of hut supplies. The hut is to be erected on a rocky outcrop. Nearby a wind sock will be erected, and the snow will be marked with condys crystals to guide the pilots. The materials will be tied into bundles with wire, and it is expected that the Austers will come down to about 100 ft above the snow to drop their loads. Extra timber and iron are being taken to the airfield to allow for damage to material or loss down crevasses. Glass for windows will alone be carried on foot into the hut site. There will be eight or nine men at the new hut site. They will go in a few days before the air drop to prepare the site and with the materials on the ground it is expected that they will have the hut up in two and a half days. In charge of the building operations will be a builder and club member, Mr S. V. Muirson. The building party will live in snow caves and food supplies for them will also be dropped from the air. The new hut will bring the club’s chain of huts and bivouacs to 18.