ALPINE TRAGEDY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20928, 6 January 1938, Page 6

ALPINE TRAGEDY

FOOTING LOST ON GLACIER WELLINGTON RESIDENT KILLED By Telegraph—Press Association HOKITIKA, January 5. Norman A. Dowling, aged 26, of Victoria Street, Wellington, was killed on Friday when he slipped on a steep snow slope and rolled 1000 feet to the rocks below. His two companions, F. E. Davies and J. D. Freeman, who fell with him, suffered abrasions and bruises. Davies was unconscious for a period. The accident occurred on the McKenzie glacier at the head-waters of the Whitcombe River, about fifty miles from Hokitika. The three men were returning from a successful ascent of Mount Evans, 8630 ft., and were roped together. Dowling was leading when he slipped and hurtled headlong. His two companions made frantic efforts to halt the rush but to no avail. After the fall the two survivors crawled back and reached their camp at 3 a.m. on-New Year's Day. Later on in the day, they made their way to the junction of the Whitcombe and Wilkinson Rivers, where they luckily struck another party made up of Messrs W. H. Scott, P. F. Scully, A. Dean, and Misses J. Singleton and E. Lorimer. Al) returned to the scene of the fatality and attempted to recover the body from the foot of the precipitous slope, but after several attempts the party gave up the struggle and set out for Hokitika, which they reached today. Parties under the direction of the police are at present searching for the body. It is estimated that eiglit to 10 feet of snow now covers the body of Dowling and that it would take 10 men a month to get the body out if successful in finding it. Davies and Freeman left by train this evening en route to their homes. Dowling had been a member of the Tararua Tramping Club for the last five or six years, and for the last three or four years had done quite a lot of serious mountaineering. He had had wide experience in the Tararuas and Southern Alps, and spent the last three Christmas vacations in the Southern Alps. Last year he took part in a very comprehensive expedition which crossed the Alps from the Canterbury side to Westland. He was regarded as a very reliable mountaineer.