‘Mountaineer’ for 1977

Press, 19 August 1978, Page 17

‘Mountaineer’ for 1977

The Canterbury Mountaineer, 1977. Edited by Hugh Logan. Published by the Canterbury Mountaineering Club, Christchurch.

This year’s “Canterbury Mountaineer” has been trimmed back in size to become, as it was most commonly in the past, a record of the activities of some club'members. It is, in some ways, a better volume for being tauter and of more certain purpose.

The activities are mostly those of younger club members who are at the crest of the wave of New Zealand climbing. The activities of others in the mountains have been somewhat neglected and there is less in this volume than in some previous “Mountaineers” to interest the general reader. But as a means of experiencing vicariously what young climbers are up to, this year’s “Mountaineer” is excellent reading. Of the individual articles, the impressions of New Zealand climbing by the American climber Galen Rowell provide the best general reading, with the “letter to the editor” from the Canterbury artist Austin Deans closely edging them. The poetry is regrettable evidence that most climbers would be well-advised to stick to climbing mountains and writing accounts of their exploits in the straight-forward prose which is generally the strength of issues of the “Mountaineer.” — JOHN WILSON.