MOUNTAIN TRAGEDY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21543, 15 January 1932, Page 7

MOUNTAIN TRAGEDY

TWO BODIES FOUND SMITH AND ROBBINS DEAD THIRD MAN RECOVERING (Peb United Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, January 14. After an arduous journey the searchers at 4.45 this afternoon brought in the bodies of Harold Smith (of Chancellor street, Shirley, aged 27) and Charles Bernard Robbins (11 Bunyan street, Waltham, aged 27, married). The bodies were taken to Bealey by Mr F. W. Cochrane. Loney, the third man of the party, is safe, and he will be .brought down to Bealey to-morrow. Robbins’s body was found in the Taipoiti Stream at 7.30 a.m. at a height of 4000 feet. The body of Smith was found in the range at the back of the stream, about 400 yards away. Robbins was badly cut about. It looked as though he had had a bad fall. Apparently he fell into the stream and was drowned.

Smith probably died in his sleep. Robbins’s body had to be brought down 2000 feet and carried across a snowfield. 1 It was then carried across the Taipoiti River, which had to be forded 12 times. Smith’s body was carried down a shingle slide to the river; Both bodies were placed on pack-horses and conveyed to Bealey, arriving at 4.45, An inquest will be held at Bealey tomorrow. When Loney staggered into the camp of Sweeney and Wilson in the Harman Pass on Tuesday night, Wilson lost no time in setting out for assistance. He reached the Carrington Hut at midnight, and, after having a meal, he commenced the perilous descent in the dark to Bealey. In crossing a deep ford in, the Waimakariri River he almost met with disaster. He was unable to find his way in the darkness, and was caught in the swift current. Fortunately he was washed back to the bank from which he had set out. He crawled up the bank, and then deciding that it would be futile and foolhardy to repeat the attempt, he went back to the hut to wait for daylight. He left Carrington Hut for the second time- at 6 o’clock yesterday morning, and reached Bealey at 9.20 a.m. ' He had not spared himself on the run down to Bealey, and arrived at the Glacier Hotel in an exhausted condition, having covered a distance that normally takes five hours in three hours and thirty minutes. Attempts to persuade him to remain at Bealey failed, and, mounting a hack, he was the first to set out again to the rescue.

EXPERIENCED MOUNTAINEERS A MATTER OF MISFORTUNE RECONSTRUCTING THE PARTY’S MOVEMENTS. (Special to Daily Times.) CHRISTCHURCH, January 14. It appears that the tragedy was one of misfortune and not of negligence. Each of the three trampers was an experienced mountaineer and a sensible man. Each had on him dry waterproof matches, spare food, and spare clothing. It has been possible to reconstruct then’ movements fairly accurately. The men left Hokitika on January 6. On Saturday, January 9, there was a heavy fog in the region through which they were travelling and probably on that day they missed an important track from Harman’s Pass, which would have led them in safety to the Carrington Hut, and wandered more and more hopelessly up the mountain side. On Sunday afternoon last when they were almost exhausted by their continuous climb they were probably overwhelmed in a severe storm. That night, after shedding some of their clothes, and throwing away part of their baggage, they apparently bivouacked under a sheltering rock about 1000 feet above Harman’s Pass and eight miles from the Carrington Hut. Messers Loney, J. P. Wilson (to whom Loney brought the news), and Evan Wilson have together reconstructed the events of the following morning. Smith obviously died in his sleep that night. Robbins apparently was the first to awake. Ho found Smith dead by his side and believed that Loney was also dead —as, apparently, he almost was. Robbins, therefore, set off by himself to walk to the Carrington Hut. He was on the right track, looking for a safe descent from the precipice, and in his weakened condition he must have lost his foothold and fallen fully 100 feet down a waterfall. Here he was found by Mr F. W. Cochrane’s search party. Loney, waking up later, found one of his companions dead and the other missing. He determined to retrace their track to the Park-Morpeth Hut. He was almost completely exhausted, and crawled several miles on his hands and knees before, by lucky chance, he happened upon a camp in which Messrs J. P. Wilson and M. Sweeney were resting for the night. Leaving Sweeney to take care of Loney, who was now delirious, Mr Wilson set out on the long and treacherous journey to the Bealey Hotel.

“The three men made a genuine effort to get down the cliff, and it was pure misfortune that they failed,” said Mr Evan Wilson, who led the Canterbury Mountaineering Club’s search party. “ They missed the track and went up and up in the fog until ultimately they were overcome by the weather. They were fully equipped. They tried to weather the storm out under shelter, but it was too severe.” That is the story of the expedition which ended so abruptly with Mr Cochrane’s arrival at the hotel with the bodies of Smith and Robbins.

PROSPECTING FOR GOLD TWO MEN IN THE WILDS ANXIETY FOR THEIR SAFETY. (Peb United Press Association.) HOKITIKA, January 14. In reference to two trampers, Merle Sweeney (son of the secretary of the Hokitika gasworks), aged 23, and James P. Wilson, both of the Christchurch Training College, it is stated that they left on December 27 for the hills for the purpose of prospecting for gold. They were to visit the Park, Morpeth Hut, and Carrington Hut, arranging for provisions, and then go over the Mungo prospecting. They had an 801 b swag, provisions, a tin dish, and a rifle and ammunition. No word has been heard of them since they left.