ILL-PREPARED EXPEDITION

Press, 16 June 1979, Page 17

ILL-PREPARED EXPEDITION

Sangay Survived. The Story of the Ecuador Volcano Disaster. By Richard Snailham. 192 pp. $15.30. (Reviewed by John Wilson)

When exploring was a passion, the Recounts of great journeys were usually modestly underwritten and were better reading for that. Since ‘’exploring” has became for some a semi-profession, and income from a book a vital element in most expeditions’ budgets, unremarkable Journeys and exploits have become over-rated and the accounts of them over-written.

“Sangay Survived” is an example of much being made of little, the little in this case being an expedition, to a volcano in an out-of-the-way corner of Ecuador, that would have been well within the competence of any average outdoors New Zealander. The expedition was no more noteworthy than many hundreds of trips made by enterprising South American travellers, except for one

occurrence. This occurrence provides, however, an additional reason for thinking that it would have been better had the expedition been quietly forgotten and not made the subject of a book. The occurrence was a disaster which, although the immediate cause was an untimely eruption while the party was on the flanks of the volcano, underscored the amateurish inadequacies of the expedition’s preparations and organisation. These are not great faults — they had sad consequences only because of a natural event — but a real explorer would have been ashamed of revealing them in print.