A MOUNTAIN TRAMP

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 11, 14 January 1932, Page 13

A MOUNTAIN TRAMP

MISSING TEACHERS

SEARCH PARTIES OUT

. (By Telegraph.) ■ (Special to "The Evening Post.") CHRISTCHURCH, 13th January. Ronald Keith Loney, a single man, aged 26, of Heathcote Valley, a teacher at Phillipstown School, wandered into a mountain camp near the Taipoiti River on Harman Pass last'night He ■was completely exhausted and delirious, and it is; presumed that ho and his companions must; have been caught by a storm. At the camp ■were Mr; J. P. Wilson, oi New Brighton, and a man named Sweeney; they were on their way b*ek from the West Coast, where they had been prospecting. Loney told the campers his story, saying that Smith was dead and Robbing wandering about lost. Mr. Wilson made all the haste he could to the Bealey Hotel, and telephoned the Christchurch police. This morning they got in touch with Mr. Stnart D. Meares, vice-president of the Canterbury Mountaineering Club, who organised a search party of six, which left by car at noon to-day. In the meantime Mr. H. Cochrane, of the Bealey Hotel, and Mr. Wilson left" for the Carrington Hut with a pack-, horse, and Constable Robb, of Otira, set out with another search party. The three young men, all of whom had had experience,in the mountains— Bobbins' deer-stalking and the other two tramping in the same regions—left Christchurch a week ago last Monday. Going to, Hokitika they left there on either the Tuesday o"r Wednesday, intending to' walk over Browning Pass to the Arthur's ; Pass region, where they intended, Mrs. Bobbins says, to climb Mount Rolleston. From Browning Pass to Harman Pass the journey is very rough, and the way exposed. The men must have gone . from Browning Pass for a mile or so to the Park-Morpeth Hut. From there they would have followed np the Cronin Kiver for about seven miles to the Whitehorn Pass. , STOEM ISWEPT DIVIDE. The Whitehorn Pass is a long rift giving access to the Harman Pass. The country is very rough and treacherous, and being on a divide is swept by storms which reach terrific intensity.' It is several miles from Harman Pass down the Taipoiti and White Rivers to Carrington Hut, in the Waimakariri riverbed, and from there about 11 miles to the junction of the Bealey, near the Bealey Hotel.'■, ' •■■•■■ As soon as the Christchurch police got the message from the Bealey Hotel they got in touch with Mr. Meares, and within an hour and a half he had" a search party organised. The mountaineering club members who left by car at noon are Messrs. Evan Wilson (a brother of Mr. J. P. Wilson, into whose camp Loney wandered), N. Bobbins (who is no relation to Bernard Bobbins), X. Tucker, L. Boot, A. Wilson, and J. D. Pascoe. - ' _ Mrs. Bobbins, to /whom a reporter broke the news of the occurrence, said that the three teachers had been very enthusiastic'over the trip, though her Jiusband had expressed misgivings because Messrs. Smith and Loney did not tlunk a guide was necessary. Ho had v mentioned the possibility of fog, but iiis companions considered that a suide was not essential. .. All three men had been to school and training college together.: 1 Mr. Bobbins went to the West Coast, seven and a Salf years ago, where he taught at the Little: Wanganni 'School. He" married while on the West Coast, and Mrs. EobrT- ♦"if* £ aJ came to Chnstchurch 18 months ago. Messrs. femith and ; Loney were very fond of long walks, and used to tramp hundreds of miles in their vacation!