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Otago Witness, Issue 3898, 27 November 1928, Page 47

Advice has been received by the local branch of the Government Tourist Department that a Government grant of £lOOO has been made for the rebuilding of the Malte Brun hut at Mount Cook. The work is to be commenced at an early date, and it is intended to provide a mountain lodge to accommodate from 30 to 40 people, with baths aud other conveniences for the comfort of visitors. This lodge will open up one of the finest ski-ing grounds in the world. The Ball Hut road is also expected to be completed by Christmas, and this, with the proposed road to Kea Point and the Hooker Valley, will aid greatly in allowing tourists to visit the various points of interest with a minimum of delay. It might be thought by those who saw the C. A. Larsen’s crew on their return from the Antarctic, the majority of whom wore the long yellow beards associated with their forbears, the Vikings, that whiskers were the fashion in the Far South, but the fact is that hair on the face at the Bay of Whales would not only be inadvisable, but would be an excruciating penance. The Larsen’s crew work under very different conditions from those the Byrd expedition will face. On the Larsen there is plenty of steam, and below it is warm, while outdoor work is carried on only in the summer. Byrd’s men will be out in all weathers. Moisture collects rapidly on the moustache or beard, and efforts to detach lumps of ice from it would be painful if they could be felt. The face becomes so numb, moreover, that it would be quite possible, when incipient frostbite existed, to pull off not only the whiskers, but a piece of the skin as well, without really feeling it. Shaving is next to impossible, and in any case would be very painful on a face seamed with frost cracks, so the hair on the face will be kept short by a daily run over with clippers.