DAWSON FALLS RESCUERS

Taranaki Daily News, 5 August 1930, Page 11

DAWSON FALLS RESCUERS

THREE HOURS TO NORTH EGMONT.

HUGE SLIP IN MANGANUI GORGE. Anxious to take their part m the rescue work a party of South Taranaki alpinists comprising Messrs. J. P. Murphy (Dawson Falls), Rod Syme, Len Wills, Bert Murray and J. L. Osborne left Dawson Falls house at 11.20 a.m.- yesterday for North Egmont, which they reached at 2.20 p.m. Under the prevailing conditions their trip of exactly three hours was a remarkably fast one. On their way they saw Alessrs. Rowe and Addis, who at that stage had not found Gibson’s body. It was too late to do anything when they reached North Egmont, so they returned late in the afternoon to Dawson Falls by a car sent up for them by the secretary of the Egmont Park Board (Mr. H. Baily). Mr. Alurphy stated that the party encountered a huge slip which apparently came down in the Manganui Gorge on Sunday night and Completely obliterated the track. Hundreds of tons of rock had fallen, he said, and the party experienced great difficulty in negotiating the slip. Some of the members of the party had to remove their packs in order to cross the slope with safety. Mr. Murphy paid a tribute to the hardiness of Mr. Haldane in surviving Sunday night’s ordeal. For a man nearly seventy years of age, he said, Mr. Haldane’s accomplishment was little short of marvellous, as Sunday night was one of the worst nights he had ever experienced on the mountain.