LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3595, 6 February 1923, Page 62

LITERATURE.

BOOK NOTICE. MOUNTAINEERING IN NEW ZEALAND. “The Conquest of the New Zealand Alps.” By Samuel Turner, F.R.G.S. Illustrated. T. Fisher Unwin, London. This well-got-up and finely illustrated volume descriptive of a foremost mountaineer's achieve, .tents in our Southern Alps has special interest for New Zealanders, while its circulation in the old lands will draw increased attention to the fine fields for mountain enterprise offered by our country. Mr Turner, who has a record of 26 years’ mountain climbing, has published two earlier volumes—‘ My Climbing Adventures in Four Continents” and “Siberia: A Record of Travel, Climbing, and Exploration.” In the first named of these two books his earlier essays in climbing New Zealand mountains find place. The present volume tells of 10 years’ mountaineering in our country, chiefly in the Southern Alps, from 1912 to 1921. A large- portion of it is occupied with acounts of Mr Turner’s sucessive attempts to reach the summit of Mount Cook single-handed—attempts finally crowned with success. With wide experience of mountaineering in other lands, Mr Turner considers that New Zealand mountains present special difficulties. This is not solely owing to the conformation of the mountain ranges and peaks, but in a very large degree to the climate. The mountaineering season is short, and our variable New Zealand climate shows its most capricious tempers in our mountain fastnesses. It was difficulties of weather that so long defeated Mr Turner’s attempts to ascend Mount Cook alone. Then avalanches and falling stones appear to be specially frequent risks of the Southern Alps. “The bad weather conditions that usually prevail make the mountains much more formidable than the same mountains would be m Switzerland, and one cannot expect to do much climbing under present conditions in New Zealand with less than a month at one’s disposal. Compared with the Swiss Alps, the mountains in the Mount e Cook district are very much alive, and the climber will see a good many more avalanches, and be in wilder parts of the mountain world than he will be in the Swiss Alps.” As to height, “if Mount Cook is judged by the height of its summits from the valley, it is a bigger mountain than any of the Swiss Alps, which might he 3000 ft higher above sea-level.” And in the massive grandeur of its aspect from all points of view Mount Cook is a worthy peer to the European “monarch of mountains.” Chapter 9 gives a. brief history of mountaineering on Mount Cook, with a table of successful ascents from the year 1894 onwards. The first adventurer was the Rev. S. Green, who with two Swiss guides essayed the hazardous enterprise in 1882. Though he did not reach the summit, he came within 300 ft or 400 ft of it. “This splendid failure started attempts by all the New Zealand climbers.” The author’s first ascent was made in 1906. Subsequent ascents in company in the year 1912 and 1916 are described in this volume. Though several lady climbers have now ascended to the summit, Mount Cook is a markedly difficult and dangerous mountain. In 1914 a tragedy occurred, Mr S. L. King, with two guides, being overwhelmed by an enormous ice-fall. The author, who was then on Mount Cook intending to make the ascent himself, narrowlv escaped being swept away by the avalanche; and later, when it became clear that Mr King’s party was lost, he assisted in the search for the bodies. One, that of Guide J. Richmond, was soon found, but search for the others was fruitless. Eventually, the writer considers, they will be carried down to the moraine of the Hochstetter Glacier; but if they were buried very deep 40 or more years may elapse before they reappear. “There is no doubt in my mind that the missing bodies will be recovered, hut probably it will be after most of the climbers of the present May are gone to their eternal rest. I am placing this on record so that my children, and probably other people’s children, will keep a good look out about the time stated.” Tin’s season Mr Turner did much difficult mountaineering, ascending Mount Hopkins (“one of the biggest mountain climbs ever undertaken from the Hermitage”) and the third summit of Mount Cook (11,757 ft high), a new route being followed. In subsequent seasons Mr Turner devoted himself mainly to making a solitarv ascent of Mount Cook. His book “My Climbing Adventures in Four Continents” had attracted much notice, and he says: “T was determined to live up to the‘world’s newspapers’ belief in me, and not allow any climbers (guide or amateur) tr> belittle mv reputation.” Bad weather time after time frustrated his attempts, but finally on the afternoon of March 6, 1919, he stood on the topmost summit of Mount Cook, and there, in sight of witnesses watching from be’ow, ifTanted the- British Ensign m the snow. The ascent was made by the Linda Glacier route. “Standing mi and stamping the snow around my flag I felt that by that act. I had conquered Mount Cook. alone. If the mountain had made me feel cautious and unable to move about freelv. the proud feeling of conquest could not have survived.” “The view was unusually- fine a.s T stood alone on the top of New Zealand, the first Gvhieh turned out to be the onlv) ascent of Mount Cook in the P-ace Year 1919. It was not climbed in 1990 or 1921.” Among his qualifications for mountaineering Mr Turner mentions “a rare gift of balance.” which desirable gift is amnlv testified to in this volume. “Tt took me all my time to stand upright on the

actual top of the Footstool (a peak 9050 ft high), and I don’t think anyone else has actually stood on the topmost tip, which is a good balancing feat even if near the floor, but with 3000 ft of a drop sheer down one needs keenness as well as balance.” A photograph, “Double Balance, shows the author standing on an isolated crag and balancing his iceaxe on his chin! He performed the same feat on the sharp ice-ridge of the third summit of Mount Cook. These feats and the walk of /Oft along the Knife-like ridge of Malta Brun were designed “to show absolute calm conquest of the mountains.” But Mr Turner does not believe in taking unnecessary risks; he lavs stress on the importance of going slowly and taking every possible precaution m d.Tf.ult places. He attributes his steadiness of nerve and his powers of endurance to a good physical endowment, helped by care-, fill living. He is a lifelong non-drmker and non-smoker. Smoking, he holds, affects climbers in many ways, including shortness of wind. To keep himself in training for climbing Mr Turner practises various exercises, including skipping, in which he holds the world’s record. On the Tainui near Panama lie made 10,100 skips in an hour, and his pulse immediately after was only 72. In New Zealand, as a preliminary to a season ip the Southern Alps, he made successive ascents of Mount Egjmont and Mount Ruapehu. “I had made the ascent of Mount Egmont 26 times, 16 o-f which had been alone m the winter—which on occasions has given me eight or nine hours’ step-cutting in hard snow conditions. I also climbed four times to the summit of Mount Ruapehu, on the last occasion four hours to the crater and two and a-balf back to the hut.” In 1919 Mr Turner vistied Milford Sound and attempted the ascent of the very difficult Mount Tutoko. “Tut-oko, from the Tutoko Valley, affords twice the climb that the Matterhorn does frorii the last hotel, and the New Zealand Alps are bigger climbs than any mountains to be found in the Rockies or Switzerland, and afford quite as much climbing as the Caucasus, although the Caucasus are about one-third higher above sea- level. I hope the Government will grant more money now the war is over to put all the tourist and health resorts of this country in good order. Mountaineering will help to keep down the plagues so prevalent in the world at present. Judging by the great number of New Zealanders who have done bush travelling and visiting remote parts, I am quite sure it would pay if the Tourist Department would add the Tutoko Valley extension to the Milford Sound trip. It would afford one of the best trips in New Zealand, if not in the world . . . the scenery is unique even for New Zealand.” While preparing to return to the Totoko- region early in 1920 Mr Turner learned of th loss of Miss Reid, of Dunedin, on the Milford Sound track, and, with a numbeT of men placed at his disposal by the Dunedin Police Superintendent, went to make a thorough search of the track over the ranges. But a party of 12 men from Lumsden had already been searching for 10 days, and all hope of finding the missing lady alive had long been abandoned. The further search revealed no traces, and the disappearance of Miss Reid, like the earlier one of Professor Mainwaring Brown, remains a. secret of the mountains and the forest. Proceeding to the Tutoko Valley, Mr Turner and his two companions made a thorough search of the region with a view to determining which mountain was the real Tut-oko,. and of climbing it. “The scenery all through the climb was very rugged, even for one acustomed to New Zealand mountaineering, the reason being the exceptional sheer-downs that are to be found in this district, covered with dense bush for the first 3000 f- or 4000 ft. and the fantastic, wild, and unexplored regions make it the most inaccessible mountain climbing in New Zealand.” A remarkable discovery wa,s marie. “I looked over a chasm, and it revealed the most amazing surprise I have ever had in all mv climbing carer. Down in the distance, about three to four miles away and quite 3000 ft beneath mo. was a lake about two miles- long and threequartere of a mile wide, nut of which a waterfall was flow inc. In two leans it met the vallev 2500 ft to 3000 ft below, and it was a good permanent flow of water • not spray, like the Sutherland Fall late in the season, but a fair volume of water.” It is surnrising that so little bas been beard of this nr-wlv-discovered wonder in the wav of waterfalls. The final chanter of the -volume gives advice about, equipment for New Zealand mountainpprin tr. Tbo author lavs stress on the importance of an exnlorer t.aki" g sufficient warm clothing with him. ‘Tt navs to earrv extra clotbps a.nv time rather than ri®k bein'* frozen once.” and on one occasion when overtaken bv a snowstorm be was able t,o rr pvl M lit* 'c«s well furnished conTpanions with one nr two extra nieces of clothing from his own kit. He i« against the use of cramn-nns. preferring the slower toit safer method of cutting steps in the snowface This is the book of a practical mountaineer. not of a lit-warv man. and it would he, beside the mark to criticise its went- of stvle. The onlv iustifiable criticism in this department is that sometimes the sentences lank clearness, so that th p meaning is hard to arrive at. Mr Turner hay little- to s,av of the beauties of our mountains, but a few touches show that he is bv no moms blind to tbpm. Of a night on the plateau near Mount Cook lie savs • “It was a perfect, picture of a night. The most lovely afterglow and moonrisp : at, one stage Hie sunset and moonlight were so used by the glaciers and snow-covered peaks as to make one melt into the other, and ‘night kissed the. dav in some of Nature’s most serenely peaceful moments.’ ” Tint in i general the narrative is one of a man concerned with his own .'hare in the con- I finest of the Southern Ups and t.ikine a naive pleasure in his .uicss for the task.

There is a note on the fauna and flora of the Tutoko A alley, anch it is rather surprising to learn that in Mr Turners judgment the kaka ranks as one of oilr finest songsters. At certain times of the year, lie says, it whistles as beautifully as any nightingale, with a full, deep, rich note. It would be interesting to have the experience of bushmen and of other explorers as to the kea's musical powers, and also to have more information about “two kinds of wax-eyes, black and white. ’ Jhe other characterisations correspond with common observation of cur native birds, and Mr Turner has evidently paid attention to the bush birds and their ways. Mr Turner’s record of his extensive mountaineering enterprises in our grand and difficult Southern Alps deserves to be widely read by New Zealanders.