THE OLD MAN ROCK OR OBELISK

Otago Witness, Issue 3823, 21 June 1927, Page 6

THE OLD MAN ROCK OR OBELISK

By

A. H. Tamblyn.

(For the Otago Witness.)

(See photograph in This Issue.) On December 12, 1926, my friend Mr Viale Mitchell and I proceeded by motor early 'in the morning to Fruitlands, where horses were provided to take us up the Old Man range, a height of about 4000 ft, where stands the Ohl Man Rock. We arrived at our destination after two and a-half hours’ steady travelling. The morning was beautiful, and our anticipation ran high. As we reached nearer the summit of the range the atmosphere began to grow cold, winds became stronger, and by the time we were at our destination we were intensely cold, so'that our thermos flask, with its contents of hot cocoa, was very acceptable.

After refreshment, our horses being secured, we investigated the Old Man Rock and proceeded to make arrangements to climb it, which act was accomplished by Mr Mitchell. We used for the purpose a strong long fishing line, attached to a lead weight of Hlb. The operator swung the lead so attached to the fishing line at a speed he thought necessary, and after a number of tries, had the satisfaction of seeing it go successfully over tne top of the rock and landing on the opposite side. The fishing line was attached to a half-inch Manilla rope, which was also attached to a three-quarter-inch rope. When this last was pulled over the top of the rock it was securely moored, so that the climber could haul himself up. Surveyor Murray made the top of the rock a trig station. An iron bar of an inch diameter was securely drilled into the rock, and a careful measurement of the rock made, the measurement being taken on the east face, which is almost perpendicular, having a lean of about 18 inches, so that the line swung clear. Its height is 54ft 4in, and its girth at the base 79ft. We took with us a chain tape-measure for the purpose of measurement. It is composed of schist, with quartz veins running through it. The strata are about level, showing its primitive situation. The dark hollows on its face are caused by the action of the elements, particularly the winds which rage with unabating fury for a great part of the year from the northwest (the prevailing wind) and also from the south. There is a number of smaller rocks of the same nature on the south, standing out in bold relief, from 12ft to 20ft in height. The surface of the spur on which those rocks are situated is bare of vegetation, having an occasional dwarf cottou-plant. The scene as we saw it was a weary one. Looking over snowfields to the west, we saw the Nevis Hills; to the north-west, the south side of the Remarkables; to the north, Mount Pisa; to the north-east, the Ohl Woman or Dunstan range, ar as Mount St. Bathans and the Hawkdun ranges; to the east, the Serpentine, towards the Rock and Pillar country; and to the south, the Blue Mountains, all with snow clad tops. The scene was vast and comprehensive.

The visibility was not very good. A smoky haze veiled much of . the longdistance view, as, for instance, in the Clutha Valley, the St. Bathans basin, the valleys that skirt the Blue Mountains, and the Molyneux. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful panorama. The late snows of October and the beginning of November accounted for the deep drifts in the gullies and Frazer basin. As we looked round on those silent, storm-swept, desolate mountains and ridges, those stately roeks, standing out in bold relief, silent but majestic, defying storms and time to efface them, we felt that the Old Man Rock demanded:— “Why were we left from ages unknown to rebuff all efforts to efface us? We carry the secrets of time in the anatomy of our construction, and give to the student food for thought. No doubt time will efface us, for there is strong evidence that the elements are cutting the ground from under us, besides piercing our sides with ugly scars.” As we contemplated the wild, unfriendly scene, knowing as we did then the treachery of the mountain storms, we marvelled at the brave pioneers who wound their way over those mountains in a wagon, weighted with blankets, a tent, food, and tools, in quest of gold, of which a goodly quantity was obtained from the Frazer River, the Campbell, Potter, Pomahaka, and Waikaia streams, and many gullies. The Old Man Rock, acting as finger-post, showed the way. THE FIRST CLIMB. AN INTERESTING NARRATIVE. To supplement Mr Tamblyn’s account of the recent climb, we present the following from the Otago Witness Christmas Annual, 1908: — In January, 1879. Mr W. D. B. Murray was engaged surveying 30,000 acres on the Old Man Range, Teviot Survey District, Otago. The land was to be cut up into large grazing areas, and Mr Murray’s instructions from the Government were to range his west boundary line due

south from a trig station to be fixed on the summit of the Old Man Rock. The rock stands at the northern end of the Obelisk Range—height over 5,000 feet above sea level. The rock is a solid pillar, something over 80ft high, with straight sides, about 25ft along the base, and 9ft in diameter across the

top. Air Alurray, in giving an account in the Otago Witness Christmas Annual, December, 1908, of how he managed to place the iron rod on the summit of the rock, wrote : “ The fixing of a trig station on the rock had been tried by a survey party some years before I went there, but they failed, and residents in the district predicted for my attempt a similar fate. Of course the only way of ascending the rock . was by means of ropes. Everything had to be packed eight milies up the range. I therefore took up with me three different kinds of rope—strong, thin whipcord for a heaving line; stout, strong marline; and three-quarter-inch Afanila rope for ascending, this latter portion being knotted at every foot—of each 150 ft. Before describing the particulars of the ascent I shall quote from my diary of 1879: —“ January 13, Alonday: Started with men and camp for Obelisk; camped at foot of range. January 14: Started up the mountain. When three narts up it came on to rain hard, with snow and mist. Had to go back to camp. This in midsummer. January 15: In camp, weather clearing. January 16 : Took men and horses up the mountain, ascended the rock, drilled hole, fixed iron l)ar with flag, and camped at foot of rock. January 17 and 18 : Reading bearings to iron bar from surrounding trig stations. Camp at foot of range. January 20, Monday: Camped at foot of rock to start boundary line. Fearful night; snow 9in deep in the morning. Horses and men nearly perished; tents blown to smithereens. January 21.: Back to old camp at foot of range to refit. January 22: Up to Old Man; ascended with theodolite ; set on to distant trigs; laid off the four cardinal points, well out from the rock; pegged the same; started boundary line due south; ranged it five miles and camped at snowshed from Coutier’s. January 23: Finished ranging boundary line: camped for night at snowshed near big swamp.” I shall now give a few particulars of how the rock was ascended and the bar fixed. I had a portion of the ground in the vicinity roughly cleared, and coiled carefully my whipcord on same. I then attached a pointed lead weight sin by lin at the end of the lino; sent my cadet to the opposite side of the rock to look out and hold the weight if it came over, I and'with a flying heave I sent the weight fair over the top of the rock first shot. I should have been well pleased if I had done it as well in hours. I had only 9ft of a sloping top to come and go on, at an elevation of 80ft. I then bent n my strong marline to my whipcord, and my cadet hauled it over. I had the two ends pegged firmly in the ground, with heavy rocks on top; and, grasping the rope, I went up, hand over hand, to the top, the knots giving me great help, both to my hands and feet. I then requested my cadet (Mr E. 11. Hardy, a smart, clever young fellow, and lately a leading surveyor in the Auckland province) to come up, I, meanwhile, lying on the rope on top for fear it might slip off. On his landing safely, we passed down a line for a driH, hammer, a bottle of water, which we had with us for drilling, and the iron bar. Cadet and self then drilled the hole 9in deep in the centre of the rock, fixed the iron bar in the same, and flagged it. We then descended to terra firma, leaving my ropes fixed, as I had to ascend the "rock again, which I successfully did six days afterwards to range the boundary line, when I had read bearings to the bar from surrounding trigs for this purpose. "* I might state that before my time a man, W'ho was lost in one of the howling storms that pass along the range, is- buried at the foot of the Old Man, and when I was there a horseshoe marked the head of his grave.. Many men and horses have been lost on the Obelisk Range. In one gully I was camped in, on the rangeside, there were seven graves, all of men who were lost in the same snowstorm. Three gold-bearing rivers take their rise on this range—the Pomahaka, the Waikaia ,and the Frazer’s River;—consequently both miners and packers were in tho summer continually passing back and forward from the townships on the low country. The Government erected guidepoles, with large cairns of stones, all along the range and down the leading spurs, with shelter sheds every three or four miles for men to take refuge in when overtaken by storms, that even in summer no living man or beast could survive if caught in. Some cases have occurred of men leaving the diggings to go over the range to some township, with good parcels of gold with them, and they were never even heard of again. The bones of their horses have been found, but what became of the men no one can say. Some suppose they may have taken refuge in some of the many piles of rocks scattered over the range, and perished there; or one man or men may have murdered their mates for their share of the gold carried, and so vanished, t-o leave no clue. “ I know my men gave each pile of rocks we passed or came near a rough search on the chance of finding some skeleton with his gold, but they dropped on nothing. One particular case was mentioned to me by a man who had packed with horses over the range for years, of two men with a packhorse who left the head of the Waikaia River for Roxburgh township with £9OO in gold with them; and from the day they left they never again were heard of. The bones of their horses were found among some rocks a year hr so afterwards at the foot of a high cliff, and the story current was that they cither got lost and perished in a storm

(though their bones were never found), or the one man murdered the other for his share of gold, backed the horse over the cliff to get rid of him, and then, by night travelling and under a new name and in a new country, all trace, in those days especially, of the crime was lest. In such country corpses by the score could be thrown into the rock chasms that only the last trumpet will reveal. “ The Old Man may have some fearful tragedies wrapped away in his bosom, but they are safe with him for ever. He stands there, crim and silent, a solitary, sentinel over a vast expanse.” The Rev. A. Don. in a pamphlet published a few years ago describing his work among the Chinese, confirms Mr Murray’s statement concerning the bleakness of the range and the blizzards which sweep over it. Describing the ascent, Mr Don wrote: “About eight miles from the top, the spur we were climbing shut out the Obelisk, which did not reappear till we were about five miles nearer. The magnified reappearance, even at that distance, produced a mental effect very difficult to describe. I never expect to feel again the same sensation of dread and insignificance. It was as if a playful kitten had suddenly developed into a man-eater. A finger-sized spike of rock had suddenly swollen into a massive pillar, and continued swelling while it rushed on to crush the pigmy travellers as a mighty ironclad might a frail canoe. For the feeling was that the rock was moving towards us instead of. our moving toward it- . . . Though midsummer, the southern side was white with frozen snow from top to base. On that side we could not stand for the freezing blizzard. After only half an hour on top we found ourselves getting numb, and had to hurry to repack the camera. If we had delayed another half hour I believe we could not have moved a step.”