THE SWISS ALPS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23044, 21 November 1936, Page 14

THE SWISS ALPS

INFERIOR TO DOMINION PEAKS WELL-KNOWN GUIDE’S OPINION (Special to Daily Times) AUCKLAND, Nov. 20. In spite of their almost legendary beauty, the Swiss Alps are in many respects inferior to the mountains of the South Island. This is the view of Mr Peter Graham, of the Franz Josef Glacier, who returned to New Zealand by the Strathnaver after his first visit to England and the Continent. “The whole trip has been a delightful experience,” Mr Graham said, “more especially the time spent mountaineering in Switzerland, Austria and Italy. All our climbing was done in summer, and naturally wc had no opportunity to study the attractions of the winter sports for which Switzerland is famous. “ The mountain country is at times almost unbelievably beautiful,” Mr Graham said, “ but it does not have the same wild grandeur as our Southern Alps. When it comes to the mountains themselves, we have attractions in New Zealand which cannot be rivalled in Europe. There is a more rugged magnificence about the peaks here.” Most of Mr Graham’s climbing in Europe was done in company with; Canon H. E. Newton, Dean of York,' who was in charge of a parish on the West Coast from 1900 to 1907, and with whom Mr Graham had been on numerous mountaineering expeditions in the Southern Alps.