AN ALPINE CONQUEST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16052, 20 April 1914, Page 4 (Supplement)

AN ALPINE CONQUEST

♦ ' ; ASCENT OF MOUNT SEFTON. A pleasant sense of conquest, and, more tangible—a magnificent collection of photographs — remain with Mr Otto- Frind, i'.ECS., of Vancouver, to reward him for his exertions in sealing Mount Sefton, one of -the most difficult peaks of the Southern . Alps. On March 22 last Mr Frind and his private guide, Conrad Kain (both of thVAlpme Club of Canada), and the Hermitage 'guide, Mr Robert Young, made, the ascent by a new route, up the face of the mam divide, south of Mount Brunner, and up the Douglas Glacier to tho main dividing ' range, between .the Copland and Kar- - angarua Rivers, joining the western ridge, as .leading to the western snow face and up to the. highest ' peak of Mount Sefton (10,354 ft). . . 'This is the fifth, successful ascent of the ' highest peak of Mount Sefton.. Mr E. A. Fitzgerald, A.C., and his Swiss guide, Mathias ' JSurbriggan,'after going out to the Southern Alps, to endeavour to be first on the top of Mount Cook, found that they had been forestalled by a trio of New Zealand amateur explorers—Messrs G; Graham, T. C. Fyfe, and''J. Clarke. They then turned their attention to Mount'Sefton, and, tackling it from the or Footstool, side, from a bivouac between the Huddlestone and Stocking Glaciers they crossed the snow neves of . the former, and up a rib of rock between the '■ Huddlestone and Tuckett Glaciers", ar- ' rived at Tuckett's col. Fitzgerald, in his book, gives a graphic description of the climb. / Thoy ascended from this point up the steep and broken rocks to the main arrete, wl}ich routs led them to the summit of the hfghest peak of Mount Sefton. It was 14 years later that the mountain was again attacked, this time from a new route, Mr L. Ml Earle, A.C., and Captain B. Head, with Guides J. M. Clarke and A. Graham, from the Copland ' River up a trlbu - tary of Stony Creek to the saddle . of the Karangarua Range dividing the Douglas and Copland Valleys. Crossing trie 'high snows of the Douglas Glacier, they Teached the western ridge of Mount Sefton leading to the bottom of the western snow face,' which, under good snow conditions, should always prove the easiest and safest , route''to the highest summit; In March, 1912, Mr S. Turner, with Guides Dave Thomson and George Bannister, made the second ascent bv this, route, - and in. February of tho next year Miss Freda Du Faur, with . Peter Graham and David Thomson, succeeded in linking up the above described two routes and completing the first traverse of the mountain from the bivouac at the Stocking Glacier, ascending by Zurbriggan's r,oute, and reaching Copland Valley by Captain Head's route. From there they returned to the Hermitage bv Copland Pass.