The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, JULY 27, 1931. WINTER SPORTS IN THE ALPS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXV, Issue 18939, 27 July 1931, Page 6

The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, JULY 27, 1931. WINTER SPORTS IN THE ALPS.

If thou are worn and hard beset With sorrows, that thy would’st forget, If thou would’st read a lesson, that will keep Thy heart from fainting, and thy soul from sleep, Go to the woods and hills! No tears Dim the sweet look that Nature wears. Whoever described that most wonderful snow-carpeted region in the heart of the Southern Alps, as a playground “thousands of feet above the worry level,” must surely have had in mind Longfellow’s poetic lines. It is the majesty and mystery of the eternal hills that call so persistently to tired humanity to come away from the monotony and difficulties of everyday life to drink at that unquenchable fountain of spiritual and physical refreshment. It was Dickens who said that “Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own.” Hence, at this season of the year, the call of the mountains is irresistible, more so in this district where the majestic Aorangi, the glorious, “The Cloud Piercer,” is at his best, as he rises supremely above the expansive Alpine region, dressed in full winter garb. It was as if Robert Browning had Mt. Cook in mind when he penned these eloquent lines: “I know a mount, the gracious Sun perceives First when he visits, last too, when he leaves The world; and, vainly favoured, it repays The day-long glory of his steadfast gaze By no change of its large calm front of snow.” But this monarch of the mountains, dressed in a robe of clouds and crowned with a diadem of snow is not the solitary attraction in that region of dazzling splendour. For the first time, the athletes of the snow from various parts of New Zealand, are to match their skill and nerve in the most wonderful stadium in the whole world. What a setting! For many weeks Nature lias been preparing the playing fields: A cheer for the snow—the drifting snow; Smoother and purer than Beauty’s brow; The creature of thought scarce likes to tread On the delicate carpet so richly spread. With feathery wreaths the forest is bound And the hills are with glittering diadems crown’d. ’Tis the fairest scene we can have' below. Sing welcome, then, to the drifting snow. Silently like thoughts that come and go, the flickering curtains have descended upon the playground in the Tasman Glacier and the stage is now set. for the winter 'sports. Far excelling in dimensions and in the glory of its surroundings all other glaciers in the habitable zones of the globe, the Tasman Glacier offers the enthusiastic devotees of winter sports an amphitheatre of unsurpassed magnificence: eighteen miles long, two miles in extreme width, and walled by mountain peaks whose sun-bright summits mingle with the sky—ten, eleven, twelve thousand feet high! What a playground! From each side glaciers and ice-cascades descend into the valley and swell the volume of the main glacier. Is there another wonder in the whole world comparable to the Hochstetter icefall -—the most glorious of sights flowing thousands of feet in steeply-slanting broken streams of glittering white into the majestic gently-sloping icebed. It is a spectacle B of snowy magnificence beyond compare. Here we have a playground which has been described by one enthusiastic visitor as “the architecture of God.” “As an all-round field for mountain sport I doubt if the New Zealand Alps can be beaten anywhere,” declared that muchtravelled Alpine climber, Mr L. S. Amerv. “It. is true there are not I so many rock climbs of the first! magniture as there are in the Swiss Alps, though plenty at a somewhat lower altitude; but for snow and ice craft of the, first order, for ski-ing and ski mountaineering, the opportunities seem to be to be quite unequalled.” Here then within a few miles of the main railway at Timarn, is an Alpine playground offering unrivalled facilities for snow sports, in a setting that for majesty, grandeur and splendour is not | surpassed in the most famous European snowfields: Above me are the Alps, The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, And thron’d Eternity in ice halls Of cold sublimity where forms and falls The avalanche, the thunderbolts of snow! All that expands the spirit, yet appals, Gather around these summits, as to show How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below. Although Byron wrote of the Swiss Alps, experienced alpine climbers have acknowledged the towering grandeur of the highest peaks of the New Zealand Alps; indeed, it has been frequently conceded that the wonderful opportunity which this Alpine country offers New Zealanders seems to have been hardly realised. “1 see no reason,” said

Mr Amery, “why like the Swiss, New Zealanders should not find their main recreation and training in mind, limb and courage in their own beautiful mountains.” New Zealanders are reminded that there is unlimited scope there for holidays of infinite variety and interest, well within the means of every class. Who can describe the unsurpassed grandeur of the Tasman Glacier surrounded by crystal white sentinels in all their mysterious majesty literally piercing the sky, j and it is on this grandest of all | mountain playgrounds, so easy of j access from Timaru, that the i most exhilarating of all pastimes, j the winter snow sports, are to be | staged this week. Obviously, if this district and New Zealand generally will only come to realise the wonderful tourist and other potentialities in the allurements of the Alpine snowfields, not only will the stream of tourist traffic through this district be materially increased each year, but enthusiastic New Zealanders who delight in adventure and the thrill of exciting sport, will find their way to this Alpine playground in increasing numbers each season.