UP THE MOUNTAIN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 30, 18 January 1912, Page 8

UP THE MOUNTAIN.

SOME HOLIDAY EXPERIENCES v ON EGMONT’S SLOPES. (By a Visitor.) At this point the gorge is exceedingly hare and forbidding, and a sudden impulse seises ns to scale to the top of tho rocky lodge that at some considerable height shuts in the valley on the right. After considerable trouble and several attempts at different points, we ultimately succeed in gaining tho top, and what a magnificent panorama strctchces out before ns from our vantage point some 4500 foot above sea level. First the belt of dense native basil, j bordered at its lower edge by a fringe of unstamped pasture land: in tiie near distance the broad fertile plain falling away to tiro sea at Waitara on the loft and Haw-era on tho right; still further afield the rough, jagged, hilly, stump-covered back country that must almost take the heart out of the young settler with its forbidding aspect and roadless isolation; and away back of all, bathed in the sunshine, and forming a fitting background to a magnificent picture, the giant mountains of the Tongariro range—Ruapehu rearing its long, jagged, many-peaked summit over 9000 feet into the air, snow-capped for the last two or throe thousand feet and throwing its glaciers like tongues of white far down into the valleys, Nganru'iioe, with its ever-lasting column of grey smoke rising from the summit of its cone-shaped mass, reminding one of a huge blast furnace, and stretching away behind like the hack of a spouting whale the long mass of Tongariro. Behind us rises the remaining 4000 feet of the mountain—scrub, tussock, moss, .shingle, and rock in ascending .belts, and crowning all, glistening in j the mid-day sun and thrusting its 1 folds far down the gdllies, tho cap of snow. Mr S. Turner, E.R.G.S., who has mountaineered all over the world, was surely right when ha wrote: “The view from Mount Egmor.t is unique in tho respect taut it has tho most beautiful uninterrupted view of any mountain in the world.”

Our object in gaining the top of the cliffs was to make our way along the scrub-covered ridge till wo reached the track that skirts the base of the mountain all the way from Dawson Falls to the Bell Falls on the opposite side of the mountain, and from which the patiis leading down to the Stratford and North Egmont (Inglewood side) Houses branch off. .But we had not calculated on the impenetrability of New Zealand iscrub. A few minutes’ struggle against the interlacing branches of tho shrubs and creepers convinced us that progress along the ridge at anyratc has a practical impossibility. 1 About a couple of chains back lies a shallow gully, parallel to the one we have just left, w'hichc scorns to offer a way of escape: but how to get there? After battling for some threequarters of an hour, sometimes forcing a way through tho interlacing labyrinth’ by main strength, sometimes creeping through underneath on all fours like a rabbit, sometimes riding over the top of a shrub with legs and feet shooting down through in unexpected places, lighting every foot of tho way, wo at length reach the edge of the gully. .Peering over the edge, the prospect looks anything hut inviting. The sides arc decidedly stoop and tho bottom seems, if anything, more densely overgrown than where we stand. Reluctantly we are forced to the conclusion that our only hops lies in retreat, and tho exasperating part of it all is that just across on the far side of the Manganui gorge we can see the track winding away I round a steep face. Had we hut mounted tho other side of the gorge! Slowly we light pur way hack, and now comes the problem—how to get down the steep cliff face we had so much difficulty in scaling np. We try several places, still struggling through the douse scrub, but each time wo hind at the top of a perpendicular rock face twelve to twenty feat deep. At last wo find a slightly shelving part where the shrubs have boon able to 11 1 id root hold here and there, and by swinging down from shrub to shrill) wo at hist roach the shingly, rock-strewn bottom, some four hours from the time wo commenced tho upward climb. 'A short rest under the shade cf a huge boulder, some iigs for lunch and a drink of cool water from the stream

just at its source, and we n sumo our progress up the dry bed, the,huge water-worn boulders and frequent land-slips bearing evidence to the rushing, raging torrent that no doubt swoops down the valley in the early spring, hearing in its bosom tne accumulated snows of winter. Alter proceeding upward about a quarter of a -mile we espy the long-looked-lor track winding along the steep sides and across the head ol the gorge. At once we make a hbe-line up the steep incline to the path on the Inglewood side, glad to he able to step out on a fairly level surface alter the many sours of clambering. It is now lour o’: lock, and we debate for a minute w.-ether we shall go on to Egmont House or return homo. Vtc decide to go on for part of the way at least, and presently arc stepping out at a bnsx pace along tho well-graded pa to wc.ich winds out and in round the ridges and galleys, gradually climbing upwards and revealing fresh scenes as each ridge is crossed. Away far down in the bush wo notice the Jong, straight, yellow line of the Surrey Road track, now laid out as a railway for tho conveyance of ballast from the gravel pit situated about halt way up the hush. Almost in line with this track is the “Tahuna a futawa,” or Warwick Castle, a huge mass of rock of peculiar formation, tne strata or cleavage being almost perpendicular and conveying in no small degree the idea of a castellated struc-

ture. Near this point the _track reaches its highest elevation,_ 5400 loot, and !u re a magnificent view of the surrounding country is obtained—from Stratford on the right to New Plymouth and far out to sea on the the left, tho “Sugar Loaves” by Now Plymouth harbour being particularly conspicuous. Ruapehu and Tongariro range are still beautifully clear, though the intervening landscape is somewhat shrouded in haze. Still the path winds on out round tho ridges and winding back to skirt tho gullies till we reach the finger-post on tho razor-hack ridge at the bottom of which the corrugated roofs of the North Egmont House arc clearly visible. It is now half-past live, and tho Egmont House is still distant 1) T’ik'S'down tho hill. To go on lurcher r s out of tho question, if wo are to return to Stratford House before dark, so after a quarter of an hour’s spell, during which wo munch' a low more tigs ia lieu of tea, wo start on the return journey, a distance of live miles. By 6.50 we have reached the head of the Manganui gorge, by 7.10 tho )M Stratford House site (Curtis’ Cr.np). As tho sun sinks in the west the shadow of the mountain •rast on the plain below—a gradually lengthening isosceles triangle—he•omos more and more clearly defined, then for a few minutes decreases as the sun sinks over the edge. Ruapehu : s still bathed in tho mellowing sunlight, hut gradually the shadow creeps up to the edge of the snow, higher and yot higher, till presently the last glistening peak is merged in the gathering gloom. It is now delightfully cool, and we step out at a good pace over the last stage of track, reaching Stratford House at 7 45, just two hours to tho five miles from the razor-hack. (Conclusion.)