Tragedy in Beauty

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1042, 5 August 1930, Page 8

Tragedy in Beauty

EGMONT AND DECEPTION FOR the exquisite beauty Mt. Egmont lias bestowed on the whole of the Province of Taranaki, it has exacted sufficient payment in human lives. Who, gazing from the fringe of tlie deep-green forests nestling in the shadow of Egmont, would imagine that the sheer delicacy of the snowy volcanic cone masked dread qualities? Another life has been taken by a mood of Egmont. The tragedy of mountaineering accidents on New Zealand s most finely modelled peak is difficult to reconcile with the enchantments of its slope. In that is poignancy.

Egmont holds a prominent place in the growing list of alpine fatalities in the Dominion. Yet the mountain must ever be a delight to New Zealanders. Its endowment of forest, the absence of harsh upthrustings of rock masses to mar the ease of its outline —these must ever entrance watchers and assist the illusion that Egmont is a mountain without menace to unwary alpinists. Those who appreciate Egmont and its moods know that alpine hazards should not be courted by inadequate preparations when negotiating its slopes. In winter, when the snows crowd down into the forests and bleak winds whip drifts into the numberless ravines seared into the mountain sides, Egmont is no place for simple ascents. Its moods vary with startling rapidity. The Maoris wove fantastic stories about Taranaki, to give Egmont its true name. Taranaki was given a personality and was represented to have been the luckless one in a lovers’ quarrel ih the family of volcanoes huddled in the heart of the North Island. In the manner of rejected lovers. Taranaki sought solitude. He raced to the .coast, carving out the bed of the Wanganui River, and stayed in the wide domains of Taranaki to sorrow over his misfortune. Mount Egmont has been ranked by travellers as comparable with Japan's wonderful mountain, Fuji Yarna. It is S.2GO feet high and, from the bush clustered at its base, prattling rivers and streams, almost 400 in number, spread spokewise into the rich lands of Taranaki. There are three mountain houses—North Egmont, Stratford and Dawson's Falls —each at an altitude of about 3,000 feet. North Egmont is reached easily from New Plymouth, Stratford is near to all the towns on the eastern side of the mountain, and Dawson's Falls, considered by many to be cn the most interesting side of the mountain, is reached from Hawera, Eltham or Opunake, through Kaponga. One remembers profoundly the forestland the mountain noises in the gloomy rift of the Kaponi Gorge, carved in the southern slope, the clean sweep of Dawson’s Falls as the icy waters spurt from a huge cliff of rock into the unknown depths of a ravine, the loveliness of the bush hemming in Psyche's Pool, and the musical chatterings of ’Victoria Falls. These adornments of Egmont are on the Dawson’s Falls side. Above the line of the thick forest at this part, Fantham’s Peak, formed in a distant age when volcanic eruptions pierced Egmont's side to make the most considerable Paw in its outline, rears its summit well above the line of vegeta-

tion. Forest ends at 3,700 feet on Egmont and five-finger, broadleaf and leatherleaf scrub takes the place of the bush. Tussocks and mosses, bejewelled in summer time with golden Egmont snow-buttercups, come next, but vegetation ceases at about 5,500 feet. For the rest, slopes of loose scoria and hard rock confront the alpinist. Egmont, of course, can be climbed at any time of the year, but the most pleasurable period for an ascent is in December. From Fantham’s Peak there is a marvellously comprehensive view of districts sweeping southward down the North Island southwest coast, or directly inland. On the way to the actual peak of Egmont, the journey over Rangitoto Flat merely prepares one for a steady climb of no great difficulty. If an ordinarily brisk wind is scurrying round the summit, a climber generally hastens over Opunake Gap to seek the best possible shelter. From North-west Summit, the highest point of Egmont, on a clear day, the whole of Taranaki is set out at the climber’s feet in extraordinary detail. Far inland are Tongariro. the cold mountain woman who sent Taranaki to his exile with not a pang: Ruapehu, the successful and obviously conceited lover; and Ngauruhoe. who seems to have played no active part in this ancient amour. Near at hand are the Pouaka Ranges and the Kaitake Hills, and, on the coast at New Plymouth, the Sugarloaves—Paritutu, Moturoa, Mikotahi—past which Captain Cook and French voyagers sailed, and where Maoris fought sea battles. Cook called Taranaki’s elegant peak after Earl Egmont; the French named it L.e Pic de Mascarine. Much Maori history was made under the brow of Egmont. Before European aettlers detected the agricultural merits of Taranaki land, the powerful tribes of Ngati-Awa, Ngati-Ruanui, Ngati-Mutunga and Xga-Rauru lived in smiling villages. They were the followers of Wiremu Kingi, Titokowaru and Te Whiti, and claimed kinship with the fierce cannibal leader of Kapiti, Te Rauparaha. In their pride, they sternly resisted the intrusion of the Europeans, and one remembers the bloodshed of *mmy skirmishes near Egmont, more particularly Von Tempsky’s engagement at Te Xgutu o te Manu. So centuries of Ma »ri guardianship of Egmont were sliat:ered. Just as barbarism had lurke l beneath the veneer of content in those Polynesian communities before he invasion of the Europeans, Egmont in modern times sheaths its crvelty in a cloak of pure beauty. D.C.S.T.