ASCENT OF NCARUHOE.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12767, 8 February 1910, Page 4

ASCENT OF NCARUHOE.

Tho "Wanganui Herald" gives tho following account of a party from Wanganui ascending th© Ngaruhoe volcano : — After nearly three hours' hard climbing from the base of the volcano cone we came to an. easier slope, leading to tlie southern edge of the crater. The leaders of our party, just oufc of sight, gave a cheer, and with a final sprint and scramble we followed them to the lip of the gaping hole which seemed to lead to the middle of the infernal regions. The actual lip of the crater, ior mor© than half-way round was very narrow, and took the form of a cornice protruding over the hollow, but sound enough for us to look well-over into the middle of it, and I think the first feature to strike ' the eye was the sooty brown blackness of everything in and immediately around, for fche volcano had been in pretty lively steam and smoke eruption for a day or two without the fall of any rain, and so the soob had not been washed away. Rock buttresses supported the outer shell but we could hardly see on what foundations they were supported. They disappeared some 100 or 150 feet below us in a bed of black mud, over which a stream of yellowish white ooze was slowly creeping towards an inner and deeper hole, from whioh dense volumes of steam aiid occasional smoke flew up with great rapidity. It was from this -vent we heard the 'ncessant roaring. These two divisions of the crater were seperated from a third and smaller basin by an irregular wall of rock. Par xound to the right of the spot on which we first stood the crater lip was led down to the stream Whioh I have mentioned, and to the brink of the big vent, and wo thought thai by skirting the crater's edge we might reach this lower part, climb down into the first bed of it, and by following the stream get to such a place that we might sco down into the central tube of the volcano. As the one side of the path wo had to tako was a steep, slippery- slope of greasy mud. covered with soot, on -which we had to walk, and tho other was a sheer drop over the rocks into the crater itself, our 'rout© was not entirely devoid of interest. In single file we climbed to the highest point of the whole cone., and then descended to the gap, from which we slithered down into the evillooking stream. It was a trickle, of watery liquid 18 inches across and • alf an inch deep, crawling over a layer of sulphurous slime towards the fumarole. As we made our timorous progress along it the foul stream swelled, the slimy bed of it quaked, the mud engulfed the soles and sides of our boots, little steam jets gasped about us, and finally the fumes of sulphur and hydrochloric acid, closiug upon us, caught us by the throat and, filling our nostrils, checked our course, to that we deemed it only prudent to retrace our steps to the edge of tie main crater. And glad enough we were to greet the open sunshine. From this point we went on again to have a look at the third division — a small crater, apparently developed later on the north side, hidden from onr first view by the rock wall. This was a very even, oval shape, having a flat, black mud base, without any vent, from tho edge of which slopes of the same mud," fluted by runnels of water, I presume, rose to an angle of 60 or 70 degrees, very regularly. Both in the bottom of this hole and around us on the muddy ooze we found stones and cinder lumps three or four inches across, fallen with a splash, and it was evident from the freedom of the stones from any sort of deposit ancl from the condition of the mudsplash, that they : had been ejected from the crater only very recently, possibly within a few hours. From this side even more clearly than from the southern side, we heard the tumultuous roaring and groaning of the pit. It was only four days before this that some of us had climbed up -Ihe cone to the crater in dense mist *nd rain, when the muddy ooze had been so soft that we had scrambled up with our hands as well as feet. Now we found the hand and foot prints we had made all covered with soot. No rain had fallen since that ascent. On that occasion we had not been able to cc into the crater at all. ' Nothing but a dense grey cloud lay before, below, and around us. The roaring and bellowing of tho imprisoned volcanodemon filled our ears. That was all ; ' and very uncanny it was. In all probability, when the volcano is ?.ot so_ active and there has been | heavy rain, the crater presents many features of geological interest and of a sort of weird beauty. But as we saw it — a soot mantled, sharp-toothed, hungry-lipped, yawning entrance to Hades — I doubt if any more horrible aspect of it is to be conceived.