THE ALPINE TRAGEDY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16493, 7 March 1914, Page 13

THE ALPINE TRAGEDY.

STORY BY MR TURNER. HOW MR KING'S PARTY WAS LOST. THE SEARCH EXPEDITION. (By S. TURNER, F.R.G.S.) The following account of events connected with the recent Alpine tragedy, in which three climbers lost their Jives on the Mount Cook Range, contains a number of details not given in previous accounts of the lamentable accident:— On February 21 1 left Fairiio by motor-car for" the Hermitage, Mount Cook. J. R. Deunistoun was a fel-low-passenger, going to try and overtake Mr "S. L. King’s party in an attempt on Mount Cook, but lie found out on the way that lie had very little chance of overtaking them unless bad weather had delayed them at the Bivouac. .1 therefore arranged to go with Air Donliistunu to tho .Mount Cook bivouac, and if we overtook Mr King’s party he could join that party and J would take Guide J. Richmond or climb the mountain myself, but if we did not overtake thorn Donnistoun and 1 would climb .Mount Cook together. We learned that two separate parties had left about the same time to traverse Mount Cook by directly opposite routes. Mr King, w ith Guides Darby Thomson and J. Richmond intended to traverse Mount Cook by the Linda Glacier up over the highest summit and down the Hooker side, and Mr Frind, with Guides Conrad Kain and W. Brass, intended taking the Hooker side and upover the highest summit and descending by the Linda Glacier. Both, parties we.ro to meet on the summit of Mount Cook and then take each others steps down, and in that way help each ! other. J. JR. Donnistoun and I left the Hermitage two hours after the coach arrived on the. twenty-first, sleeping at the Ball Hut' and going on the following morning to the Bivouac, which we reached at 11.15 a.in. on February 22. Wo saw Mr King’s party many times between 11.30 and 12.30 going up the.final slopes, leading to the summit of • -Mount ■ Coek, and returned to our Bivouac for lunch. Soon after 12.30, wc left the Bivouac to kick steps over the Glacier Dome ready for the midnight journey, but did not again see Mr King’s party on Mount Cook. We rested until 1.30 a.m. on February 23, and were ranking ready to start for Mount Cook when Air Frind, with * Guides Conrad Kain and W. Brass arrived. They asked if Mr King’s party liad arrived, and when wo answered in the negative they said that they traced Air King’s steps from the. summit, which they (Air Frind’s party) only reached at 5.35 p.mj.down to an avalanche at the head of the Linda Glacier, but that they could not pick them lip after that. 1 suggested that perhaps Mr King’s party had fallen into a crevasse, and that it would be well to go and look for them. Air Frind said there had been some talk about a return being made by another route, which would take them down to the Ball Hut without coming back to the Bivouac. Donnistoun and I started to climb Mount Cook at 2.30 a.m., but were delayed by strong wind blowing out the light of our lantern on the Dome, and it was not until 5 a.m. that we reached tho Silberhorn coiner. AVe had followed Mr Frind’s steps most of the way, and soon after took Mr King’s party’s steps upwards, which led up over the ieo breaks and across a huge avalanche. f was loading, about 8.45 a.in., half-way up the avalanche ico opposite the last blocks of ice which are tlm natural surface of tho glacier, when I saw an enormous ico avalanche break away from under the summit, of Mount Cook, below the summit rocks. As it seemed to he making for our direction I shouted to Donnistoun to run quickly on to tho smooth ieo blocks, which seemed to bo tho only place for protection. AYo bad not gone fifteen yards when tho avalanche dust from tho grinding of tho ice-blocks overtook us, so we stood and afterwards sat down to take some refreshment until the mountain was quiet again; _ This avalanche had an important hearing oh the finding of Guide J. Richmond’s body. The avalanche had shot past us between ourselves and the low huttrossevs of Alount Cook’s rock ridge, behind the huge rook face on the right of the Tasman Glacier side of Alount Cook and on about tho level of the lower part of it. GALE AND AVALANCHES. AYe proceeded over avalanche icc, and after sheltering behind some of. its largest blocks from the severe wind, regained the natural surface of the glacier, where the slopes 1-earl to the final traverse on to tho rocks on the. ridge of Alount Cook. Hero the wind would not allow us to walk, and would have blown us off if we had reached the ridge, so we waited in a groove in the slope, to enable tho wind to lift, but it became quite a gale, and at 9.40 we decided to give it twenty minutes to improve. The weather became hopeless, and at about 10 a.m. wc commenced the downward journey, crossing the avalanche ice to the snow slopes on our left, and came down on to Air Frind’s party’s steps, which we followed over questionable ground, in order to evade the avalanches and the risk of being blown into a crevasse by tho strong wind which had boon blowing for about six hours, at times making us stop in a crouching position on awkward places for quite long spells. AYe studied both party’s steps and became more anxious about Air King’s party, but the hope that they had done as Air Frind intimated, crossed to the Ball hut without going to t he Bivouac, seemed to pacify our feelings. AVe descended to the lower Linda slopes, just above the plateau and looked for Air King’s steps in the direction they would toko to cut off the Bivouac, but could see no trace of them. Even then I was very reluctant to accept the belief that the party had perished, and persuaded myself as far as possible that some mistake had been made by Mr Frind’s party, who were travelling by candle-light, and that there had been so many footmarks that one was quite able to persuade oneself the party might .still he down the other side of the mountain. AVo were again delayed by a severe storm of drift snow on the Glacier Dome summit, but reached the Bivouac and later tho Ball hut, the same evening. It was then we became almost convinced the party had been lost, as no entry had been made in the book kept at the hut for ascents to be recorded. AYe left the Ball lint for tho Hermi- , cage at 5.30 a.in., on February 24, but met Guides Peter Graham, Conrad Kain (Austrian guide), A\ r . Brass and F. Afilne (Hermitage guides). After a brief consultation. Ueunistemu and 1 joined the search party, and went on to the Ball hut, rested and had lunch for a while, then climbed to the Haasfc Bivouac in the afternoon. Peter Graham and Conrad Kain kicked stops over Glacier Dome, ready for the early morning climb, and we retired to sleep about sundown. SEEKING THE LOST. At 5 a.m. our party left the Bivouac for the scene of the avalanches, -iiul travelled very quickly. AH six men were, unroped, and remained so the whole of the day, to give each man his chance to escape, avalanches. AYc reached the Silberhorn corner at 6.30, and some distance up, near the end of a high avalanche, we stopped to' examine steps, then wo spread out across the whole of the avalanche ice and searched every crack and possible place likely to contain our missing mountaineers. AA T e eat on tho ico for ( refreshment* «nd a wtsultHior,

after which tc climbed over the remaining blocks of avalanche ice and Guido Conrad Kain explained what they had traced. It became a conviction in all minds that the party were under the avalanche. This was 10.15, a.rn. Wo then spread out across tho actual avalanche that had buried the party, but there seemed little hope of seeing anything, owing to the enormous quantity of ice. RICHMOND'S BODY FOUND.

Just as we were nearing the bottom of the avalanche and quite three-quarters of a mile from where we traced their footsteps, awl while wo were each within about fifty to sixty yards of one another. Guide Peter Graham said:— “There is one ol' them! T can see his feet—it is Jock Richmond.”

Wo were soon on the spot and could recognise Guide .T. Richmond. I now give my own opinion of how the accident happened, with all due deference to other members of the search party who very probably all hold their own views. My opinion, is based on the study of mountain's and their ways since 189(5. The party were not sit-' ting down for refreshments, which is proved by the ruesae being tied, with a crushed tin of pineapple and two drinking cups inside. The avalanche ice had dropped quite 1000 feet on to the steep elopes below the divide north of Mount Dumpier. It did not drop on to the body of Guide Richmond, but having dropped on the steep snow slopes above them it would sink into tho snow four or five feet and push the snow before it, and thus cause a snow avalanche big enough to carry Mr King’s party to their destruction. The smaller blocks of ice would bound over the snow and render them unconscious or kill them almost instantaneously while they were on the avalanche snow. When the avalanche snow found resistance at the bottom of the glacier near the Mount Cook buttress the force would compress tho snow as to turn it almost into ice. and eo crush them in a mould of hard snow nearly as hard as ice. There had been about three feet, of hard snow over the whole of the body when the avalanche off Mount Cook (which Dennistoun and T saw the previous day) had sent large blocks over tho body and cut away the hard snow from the hips downwards, uncovering the body arid breaking the right leg. This avalanche had made two crevasse*, one about throe feet across, which exposed' the lioiul, and one about two feet across, which exposed tho feet, while a block of ice about two ton weight was poised on tho upper lip of the crevasse at tho bond. The head had left a mould in the tho hard snow in the wall of tho top crevasse, and this mould was the exact cast of Richmond’s features. 1 noticed particularly when helping to dig the body out with the ice-axe that the coat and ruesae. also tho clothes on the body, had been compressed into the hard snow, now almost ice. One of the guide's goggles' was not oven cracked, although ho had been wearing them at the. time of tho accident. His watch had stopped at 4.50, but was not badly crushed. Tho guide was on his back, with his face clear of enow, looking up to heaven. His left arm was extended above by tho side of his head across the crevasse; his right arm was by his side, the head pointed towards the summit of Mount Cook and tho feet down 'the Linda Glacier. The rope had been wound twice round the shoulder. as is usual when desiring to take in tho rope to travel fast. Tho end of tho rope led into the wall of the crevasse at his head and was broken, evidently by sharp ice blocks. Tho rope was not attached to anything, as energetic digging proved. The party had evidently been travelling fast when they were overtaken by the avalanche. The position of the body can he better described by photograph but it was about 9090 feet above sealevel just above the huge ice blocks of the Linda Glacier, into which more than one of our party believe tho other bodies have been .shot. If so they lie in the ice at a great depth amongst enormous crevasses and huge seracs, an ideal grave for an Alpine climber. CARRYING DOWN, THE BODY. The three or four feet of hard snow took some considerable timo to cut a\v.av from the guide's body, and Conrad Kain, having had previous experience, was an indispensable man for this work, as ho was all through the whole tragic proceedings. Giving him a band to pack the body, which was done with the greatest care and respect, wo made it secure enough to he taken down; then the Lord's Prayer was repeated in unison. We sat down for a little lunch and afterwards came one of tho most difficult journeys possible. Guide W. Brass suggested carrying tho body over the avalanche ice and did his share, then Guides Peter Graham and' Conrad Kain took their turn; and when we reached tho natural blocks of the Linda Glacier we dragged tho body over tho snowbridges, crevasses and up ever seracs, down.'ice walls, across avalanche ice. The unroped party of six made light of tho difficulties or risks of avalanche. The hardest part of this stage of the journey was up over tho Glacier Dome. Wo had'to’rise about 1000 feet from tho plateau, and a snowstorm made vs keep fresh. The body was left for tho night buried in the last snow of the Glacier Dome. The following day additional assistance was rendered by Messrs I* rind, Franz Maieher, H. Bennett and Guides Cowling and Milne to bring the body to the Hermitage, where the Coroner’s inquest was held, and the remains were then taken on to Fairlie. It is necessary lor the reader to have seen the scene of the tragedy to realise what a difficult task was undertaken by the search party in order that the hist rites might ho paid to a brave and worthy guide. When the accident happened the party would bo in the happiest possible frame of mind at having conquered Mount Cook and tho avalanche would be so sudden as to cause unconsciousness if not death instantaneously. The Linda Glacier over which the rescue .party searched is.about one- mile long and half a mile wide, several enormous avalanches having slic.t down irom time to time within the last few days of very hot weather. All tho ice mountains are so badly broken and so many avalanches are falling; that the climbing of such mountains as Mount C’Ook and Mount Sefton must be put off for this season, according to Guide Graham. It will take years to place the guiding .staff of the Hermitage on a reasonably serviceable footing unless the Government will import throe or four fully experienced guides to enable the mountains to be climbed with the greatest possible skill. It is the Government's duty and it will save other accidents, heeau.se the young New Zealand climber is too apt to underestimate the dangers of the higher Aims, which lie knows so little about. This accident was one of the unavoidable risks a mountaineer has to take.