GUIDE GOES TO FACE

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31094, 24 June 1966, Page 1

GUIDE GOES TO FACE

(From Our Own Reporter?

ARTHUR’S PASS, June 23.

Mr Hans Bohny, proprietor of a restaurant at Arthur’s Pass, a former Swiss high-altitude guide and a guide at Mount Cook, set out up the Otira valley to Mount Rolleston today, independent of the official search and rescue team.

Mr Bohny, who in 1961 played a major part in rescuing at night seven persons on a rock and ice sheer face at 17,000 ft in the Swiss Alps, was not to be convinced that the Otira face could not be climbed under existing conditions from the bottom.

He felt that if it could there was a better chance of the four climbers being rescued alive because severe weather was hampering rescue operations from the summit

This afternoon, Mr Bohny exchanged shouts with the stranded men from the Otira slide. The face was shrouded by cloud and falling snow and he could not see anyone nor understand what was being shouted.

Mr Bohny is an expert in climbing with pitons and ropes but has not climbed in the Rolleston area for several years.

A reporter of “The Press”

accompanied Mr Bohny to 4000 ft. The reporter then left Mr Bohny to go to the Rolleston basin to visit a radio! relay station bivouaced on a' rock at 5000 ft From the bivouac the Otira face, the start of the Otira slide (a narrow shingle scree running up from the basin between the Otira face and Goldney ridge to a col below the low peak) and the low middle and high peaks of Mount Rolleston could be seen.

It was freezing at 5000 ft! and gusts of wind whipped particles of semi-frozen snow into the face. The wind further up the valley grows stronger as the valley narrows. It is stronger still in the narrow gut at the top half of the slide. The Otira face was shrouded with swirling snow and the peaks were almost hidden by , clouds. I The mountain looked most formidable from the bivouac and the skill, perserverance, and courage of the climbers seeking to rescue the stranded men in getting a high camp established was obvious.