MOUNTAIN RANGER

Stratford Evening Post, Volume I, Issue 257, 8 October 1931, Page 3

MOUNTAIN RANGER

TEN YEARS.ON. RUAPEHU MR. COWLING'S REMINISCENCES HORSE AND CAT COMPANIONS The lonely ranger of the Tongariro National Park, Mr. Arthur Cowling, •wlio for 10 years' inhabited a tiny wooden cottage at an altitude of 4,500 feet- on the slopes of Ruapehu, has left his mountain home as a sequel to the Government's retrenchment policy. and has come into the city to seek other employment. The guardianship and patrol of that, mountainous region has-been left to the staff of the Chateau Tongariro. For months every year Mr. Cowling led a hermit existence on the moun-tain-side, with not a living companion but his horse, known to visitors as Kitty the Outcast, and his cat, a wild creature of the woods, which strolled 6»t' of the forest one night, attracted by-the blaze of the ranger's fine. Both animals were his firm friends, and the sharers of his solitude. ■■"lt was a lonely life but a healthy one,"' said Mr. Cowling on Saturday,, "and when the snow lay thick in August and September each year, crowds of holiday-makers came to the Whakapaap huts for winter sports. Those were jolly times and made" up for all the months of solitude. And at high; there would be cheery fires, a singsong, a gramophone' to dance to, hoi cups Of tea, and stories, the telling of'-which lasted long into the night." About 50 Wild Horses in Park

On Kitty's back the ranger roamed the' base of the mountains winter and summer, packing stores to the little huts- at the foot of Tongariro and Ngauruhoe; keeping a watchful eye on the beech forest reserves to prevent unlawful felling or the lighting of. fires, arid* poling the mountain routes u> guide- climbers when the winter shows obliterated the tracks. On these excursions he often spent a night in the mountain huts or in unoccupied ' shepherds' shacks, the silence of the night broken only by the tinkling of snow-few streams over their rocky beds and the far-away weighing of wild horses. • k .*"There may be about 50 wild horses in the park," said Mr. Cowling. "I have seen them in groups of tv,<o and three, and in packs of 25 and 30, but it is very difficult to act near tnern. Sou often' hear the cries of rabbits caught by stoats, which are numerous in the park, and .there are lots of rats, including a peculiarly-marked animal which 1 think is the native rat. 'T have also seen wild cats. My own cat, a fine black animal, came to- -my- cottage starving one winer many years ago. It was ravenous and as savage as a young tiger, but I gave "it food and it stayed with in'; ever afterwards*", becoming very tame and domesticated."

Long Trek for Food * When Mr. Cowling first went, to the park 10 years ago there was no road to- his hut, and* he had no horse. When Re wanted -fresh meat and bread he had to : walk more than 20 miles to s. Raurimu., as there was no store at National Park station in those days. :> The life Was not without its soice of-adventure. There wore the mountain peaks to- ; be scaled', and 'wlien climbers became lost, as- 1 they sometimes did; search parties had to be organised to comb -the mountains, fraquently in- snowstorms ami at night. On one occasion Mr. Cowling helped to carry in a man who had. been injured through falling down an ice slope on Ngauruhoe. i. Another time a man who had broken one-of his ankles on Scoria Flat was dragged down to the huts on an improvised toboggan made by lashing a pair of skis together. When the recent tragedy occurred on Ruapehu Mr. Cowling was a member of the party which'set out at 2 a.m. to search the mountainside,.and was only prevented By a severe attack of iniiuenza from participating In the search on subsequent days.

• : Cry of Lost Trampers '•"•■Mr. Cowling was resting in the Salt Memorial Hut when the mysterious cry was heard at 8 a.m. the same day. He says it was- a distinct cooee and is satisfied it came from the lost party as they were making their way down tne Whakapapaiti Valley, two miles away. The searchers had been out all night in the snowstorm and were exhausted. They failed to find any tirace'of the party within a radius of half a mile of the hut, but, Mr. Cowling is. of the opinion, that had a fresh party been, available to push out in a Johg string over the mountain all the members of the lost party would have Keen found by 9 a.m. or to a.m. that day. 'Mr. Cowling gained his alpine experience in the South Island. "A love of' adventure took me to the Southern Alps," he said. "Twenty years ago I was sheep-farming on the West, Coast when a guide I knew spoke to me about the life on the mountains. It so fired my inn l :-, nation that i went straight to Mount, Cook,"

Feats in Southern Alps '■ Among Mr. Cowling's many feats was a climb of Mount Cook with an American archaeologist, Mr. 11. Seager, and the well-known guide, Mr. P. Graham. He was the official witness' when the late Mr. Samuel Turner climbed Mount Cook alone. He helped to build the Mueller and King Memorial Huts and the Sefton Bivouac in the Southern Alps, the work requiring' months of strenuous toil, often carrying heavy loads of timber on his back. Mr. Cowling recalls the flooding of the old Hermitage at Mount Cbok when the Mueller Glacier broke away hi 1912. The building was undermined and had to be demolished. In 1914, When Guide Richmond was killed on Mount Cook, Mr. Cowling was a member of the party which brought the. body clown from the 9,000 ft. level to the Ball Hut under exceedingly arduous conditions. ', On., another occasion, when a lady broke one of her ankles, he carried her on his back seven miles from the Malte Brun Hut to the Delabache Bivouac until ,he could obtain help. "She weighed 13 stone and it took me 20 hours to cover the distance, from 5 a.m. to 2 a.m. the next day," he said.

On the Brink of a Precipice A considerable amount of exploration work was also done by Mr. Cowling in the Southern Lakes region. He was with Mr. Samuel Turner on the first unsuccessful expedition to Mount Tutoko (9,042 ft.), the highest peak in the Darran Mountains, near Milford Sound. On that occasion they searched for four days for Miss ,Reid, a school teacher who was 'oS'r in the McKinnon Pass. She way , never discovered. ■

It was on this expedition, too, that Mr. Cowling had his narrowest escape from death. Mr. Turner had started out to climb Mount Pembroke, but, overtaken by darkness, he decided to return to his camp and wait /unitil morning-. The two men had retraced their steps for about an hour when Mr. Turner said, "Stop, we will camp here for the night." Mr. Cowling stopped, lit a match, and found he was standing on the brink of a sheer precipice 1,000 feet high. Although Mr. Cowling has been compelled to give up his ranging duties at Ruapehu, his heart is_ still obviously on the snowy peaks. And lie still has a soft spot for Kijtty 'the Outcast who, after seven years on the mountain, is now a victim of rheumatism—the legacy of a life of privation among the eternal damp and snow.