WITHOUT A GUIDE.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12427, 21 August 1933, Page 5

WITHOUT A GUIDE.

TRAGIC CLIMBING HOLIDAY.

FOUR ETON AIASTERS KILLED

United Press Assn.—By* Electric Telegraph— Copyright. , LONDON, August 19. News has reached Eton College that tour masters on a climbing Holiday in Switzerland were killed on the slopes of Alount Roseg, 13,000 feet high, in the Bernese Alps. A search party, starting when a guard arrived, reported that it had seen lour bodies at the bottom of a . high wall of rock at an inaccessible part of the mountain, the climbers evidently having fallen down the ravine together. Their names are: E. V Slater housemaster at Timbrall’s- E w’ Powell, housemaster at Wotton House, tor some years coach of the Eton eight; H. E. Howson, housemaster at Jourdelay’s; and C. YY liite-Thomson, science master and eldest son of the Bishop of Ely All were married.

Al l the victims were members of the Swiss Alpine Club and experienced climbers. It is evident they were roped and had fallen together All tour were popular at Eton Jt is now stated that the Eton masters without a guide, successfully climbed Alount Roseg and were descending, which is the more perilous, when the leader apparently slipped on a loose stone on the treacherous surface, combined with ice and snow, and fell, dragging the others over the precipice. A rescue party from Pont Rosina recovered the bodies. Ihe total number of deaths in the Alps this year is 71. Caspar Grass, a prominent Pont Resina guide, who led five others to recover the bodies, savs he found three lying head downward on the top ot the fourth, whose head was upward. All yvere in a terrible eonclition their necks being broken ana their bodies covered with wounds. Ihe rope with which thev were tied together was twisted about head first 3 ’ J ' ey llad clea rly fallen

Grass found their watches still nf a ' ld Ti the '‘i7 ebmbing irons full ot snow. They had not cut steps in the ice; consequently, when thev f-TS +l° faU T, the difficult surt.ic-®, thev could not stop themsehes. Their bodies were ' put in wbenc <>U +p klS aUd dra SS ed to Coaz, whence they yvere taken to Pont 'V'7"YI: "here a car could l>e used, 1 l 1?, 11 reached Pont Resina A bell was tolled and the bodies “ et V 4 he other nota-wll-e3 En ,S ]lsb visitors, who to rm® head a profession }, * , The Bttle church, where the bodies were placed on stretchers and covered with sheets. Alpine flowers were placed before the altar in the v ! irtim* ary ’ ? hlch has sheltered many |7", ln , ot + , mountain fatalities tnroeghout the centuries.