Bodies of four youths recovered from mud

Press, 4 December 1979, Page 1

Bodies of four youths recovered from mud

A tramping jaunt ended in death for three periodic detention centre trainees and another youth when a mud slide engulfed their tent at Klondyke Corner, near Arthur’s Pass, early yesterday. Two Christchurch probation officers and four other trainees, who had slept through the night in a permanent shelter nearby, survived.

They looked out yesterday morning to find mud oozing past the shelter, and only a sea of mud and debris where the tent had been. The four youths killed were Christopher Wickham, aged 18, of 69 Marshall Street, Woolston, Christchurch.

Ross Wakefield, aged 17, of 55 Hoani Street, Bishopdale, Christchurch. Len Howard, of 52 Lathiam Crescent, Invercargill, and

Terry Connor, aged 17, of 5 Porritt Place, Dallington, Christchurch, who was not a periodic detention trainee, but had been invited to join the tramping party.

The party was led by two Christchurch probation officers, Mr Terry Easthope and Mr Glen Newman, who are both experienced trampers and mountaineers. The four trainees who survived are lan Smith, Hana Leers, Trent Revell, and Grant King, all of Christchurch.

The party of 10 had camped in a picnic area at Klondyke Corner — 10 kilometres south of Arthur’s Pass and a few kilometres west of Bealey — before starting a weeklong tramp. Rescuers had to fight their way through slips and washed-out roads to reach the accident site after the six survivors walked out to Arthur’s

Pass early yesterday to raise the alarm. Using shovels and highpressure hoses, policemen, rangers and Forest Service staff worked throughout the afternoon to clear the mass of mud, branches, rocks, and tree-stumps which covered the tent site.

The first body was found about 8 p.m., and three others were recovered soon after from beneath more than a metre of mud. The crushed tent was also found. The mud slide would have had to travel 30 or 40 metres from a steep slope to engulf the tent, the District Probation Officer in Christchurch (Mr D. Leech) said last evening. “It must have come down and buried them quietly and insidiously. No-one sleeping in the shelter heard a thing,” said Mr Leech.

The saddest thing was that the trainees “had more or less drawn straws” to see who would

sleep in the tent in the heavy rain. The shelter and the tent had been less than 200 metres from State Highway 73, said Mr Leech.

"If they had gone on to Carrington Hut, which they had intended to, they would have been all right,” he said. Undertakers from Christchurch were sent by the police to pick up the bodies after the road was cleared late yesterday afternoon. The survivors were to return to Christchurch today. The four trainees who survived were from the Forfar Street periodic detention centre in St Albans. Of the three killed, two were from the Bristol

Street centre, and one had recently been released from the Rolleston detention centre.

Mr Easthope and Mr Newman had taken trainees rock-climbing and tramping before as part of an outdoor "communication in action” course —designed to improve relations between the probation service and trainees. Mr Newman is an experienced tramper and climber, and Mr Easthope has spent 10 years with Outward Bound in Britain, the United States, and New Zealand. “I have full confidence in them.” said Mr Leech. He said the question of whether the courses would continue "will depend on what my superiors have to say.”