THE SOUTHERN ALPS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 14, 16 July 1929, Page 6

THE SOUTHERN ALPS

SOME LOVELY VIEWS

SLIDELIGHTS ON CLDIBIXG

There was an interested gathering of members of the Now Zealand Alpine Club at the Masonic Chambers Social Hall last evening, when a series of fine lantern slides of the Southern Alps, keas, and mountain flowers was shown. Her Excellency Lady Alice Fergusson and party were present.

The president of the club (Mr. A P. Harper) described a set of beautiful slides of the western side of the 41ps covering Mount Cook, Mount Tasman' and Mount La Peruse, and all" the wild and largely unexplored country between them and the Cook and Karangarua Eivers. Commencing with a comprehensive view from the Cook River bed, Mr. Harper illustrated the gloriously rugged nature of the stream courses as traced into the mountains by himself and companions on several trips. The chaotic massing of huge boulders—some the size of the largest buildings in Lambton quay—in the beds of the streams, coupled with the fact that cliffs and bluffs from 150 feet to 3000 feet high flanked the rivers, made travelling slow, especially as glacial rivers as big as the Karangarua were unfordable, and deep water ran .along the bases of the cliffs The slides did full justice to the magnificent scenery. Some of them were taken in 1594, when/ accompanied by a Maori, Mr. Harper spent nineteen weeks in exploration of then unknown country, living on native birds and sleeping under natural shelter only. On a trip made down one of these rivers last Christmas, the party saw only four ducks, and little else. Wonderful snow and glacier pictures were shown of the M'Kerrow and Douglas Glaciers, and also of those at the heads of the Landsbro and Cook Eivers. Dispellhiff a common fallacy that Mount Cook stood alone, he showed a panorama of the neighbouring peaks, amongst which it was difficult to distinguish it The wonders of the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers, the foot of the latter no nieher above sea level than Karori, were illustrated by artistic slides of the highest photographic technical .perfection, though many of them were iriade some thirty years ago. Mr. Malcolm Eoss spoke similarly of the eastern side of the Alps, illustrating his points by means of beautiful slides Though ho had reached the Hermitage in the early coaching days on one occasion m a day, with seven changes of horses, he said that it usually took much longer than that. The costumes oi both men and women in the early clays of mountaineering in New Zealand caused much merriment, especially the whiskers and sun bonnets. The Tasman, flaast, Ball, and other glaciers on the eastern side were done full justice Mr. H. F. Wright (Auckland) explained the interest in pictures of the heads /if 3? a?£ ltata alld Bakaia Rivers, and he led his hearers visually and orally through the glories of Mount ■$? B?l*¥'i? ni the Easfc a"d West Matukituki Rivers. The Bart system and. Mount Earnshaw were also dealt with.

Mr. T. A. Fletcher spoke of sidelights on climbing. A remarkable series of coloured slides showed "closeups or keas, engaged in intercourse with boots. Their natural food was be ries found in the grass, and it was tnM J h f '*" keas ate m«<ton. He told of the friendly, inquisitive nature of these wild birds, and related how upon one occasion, a colony of keas had ctahated to similar agrossioli by stonethrowing. The coloured slides of mountain flowers were very beautiful' At the close of the two hours' cxhibi-; ss sxr tlianks to the **