PERISHED ON UPPER SLOPES

Taranaki Daily News, 5 August 1930, Page 5

PERISHED ON UPPER SLOPES

DEATH OVERTAKES WOMAN/ •FATAL RESULTS OF EXPOSURE.For 22 years climbers came and went Unharmed. Then death overtook a young, woman, 22 years of age, on the tipper slopes of the mountain. Miss • Evelyn Oxenham, New Plymouth, perfehed on Sunday. January 26, 1913. ■■’‘On the previous day Miss Oxenham had walked'from the radius line to the jSTorth Egmont house, getting little or nb 'sleep°that night. A party often left; at 5 a.m. on Sunday for the sum'mit, later breaking up into two parties. Miss Oxenham was accompanied by Ernest Locke and Henry Marfell. "Some distance up the scoria Marfell left the other two, gained the summit and met them on his return trip & few hundred feet down. They were still climbing. Miss Oxenham remarked that she was very tired and said she was not looking forward to the long downward trip to the house. However, Locke and the girl pushed on to the summit. Snow began to fall shortly after their ascent. * On their return they missed the track. Locke left Jus companion resting in the shelter of a rock on a ridge leading from the crater and endeavoured to locate the track. After a fruitless search he tried to return to the girl. He could not find her, and wandered further and further astray. Two hours later, exhausted and distracted, he Mfi found by other members of the original party at the 5009 ft. level near Humphries Castle. Mr. J. I'. Murphy, then in charge of the North Egmont Hostel, set out for the--top rod made a vain search. Reaching the house at 10 p.m., he found Locke sufficiently recovered to give more exact details of the locality where, he iial left Aliss Oxenham. and at 5 a.m. $l party left the house. The body of the dead girl was found at the spot indicated. She hud died from exposure during the night. It is a queer coincidence that Miss Oxenham, the second victim, was bo:it in- the year in which Mr. Southwood was killed.