LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 91, 11 January 1921, Page 5

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

ASCENTS OF TAPUAENUKU Sir, —I was very interested to see in last week’s DOMINION that members of the Tararua Tramping Club had succeeded in climbing Mt. Tapuaenuku, the highest mountain in the Kaikoura ranges. I am surprised that such an asset to Wellington climbers has , not been availed of before. Mr. M'Rae. father of Mrs. J. P. Firth, late of Wellington College, was the first to ascend Tapuaenuku. He ascended from the Awatere side through the Gladstone run, a feat supposed impossible in those days on account of having a razor-back ridge to go along for two or three hundred yards. He left a record of his climb, together with a X's note, for the next man. in a small bott’o on the top. The next man to reach the top was a surveyor, who did not leave the note, but left a tin canister. Who was next 1 never hearth He must have been a bit of a wag, for he placed in the tin. a cheque drawn on an American firm for 1.000.0fi0 dollars. Unluckily for me on finding,it it was unsigned. The next party comprised Messrs. Brown, F. Tr<>love, myself, and two ladies (Mrs. Dr. Galff and Mrs. Sfonhenson Smith). These two ladies for pluck and endurance I have never seen equalled. Not only did tlq>y ride 50 miles, a feat in itself nowadays, but the very next day tackled, the 10.000 ft. climb and reached tho top, and then we rode, back the 50 miles the third day. Although all of us, had lived all our lives in the mountains we had only seen Mt. Tapuaenuku from r distance, and carried no alpine paraphernalia, ropes, axes, etc., with us. On two occasions we nearly had 'to give in. Once on getting to the head of a river-bed we encountered a bluff of 100 feet, in which steps had to be cut to get, up, and about half-way up we ran into a precipice with only a goat truck across it. with a sheer dron of 500 ft. if a false step was taken. On arriving near the top it came on a dense fog from the west, which made it wellnigh impossible to find the cairn and the tin. On hunting round for the tin one of the party found, strange to say. a native rat, almost petrified, too hard even to make an impression on it with a knife. On my reading that the last parly ha'd found a rat’s nest in the tin recalled to my mind the rat we found ■nearly 30 years ago. Should any of your readers care to climb Mt. Tapuae-nuku—and-1 assure them it is well worth their while —if they will communicate with me I shall be only too pleased to direct them as to nearest rind safest route to take. —I am, etc., G. S. M*RAE. Waipukurau, Hawke’s Bay, January 8, 1921.