"BENIGHTED," NOT "LOST"

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2873, 11 September 1916, Page 7

"BENIGHTED," NOT "LOST"

-—. » AN EXPERIENCE ON MOUNT ■ EiGMONT. Writing to his wife at Lower Hutt, Mr. 6. Turner gives the following details of his recent experience on Mount Egmont. Bomo particulars of which have already appeared in The Dominion :— "I left Dawson Falls Mountain House at 7.20 a.m., Sunday, August 27, and had to chip stops in hard snow before I was half-way up the track. For over 4000 feet of mountain I had to cut steps in hard snow and ice. I only .reaohed the summit at 4 p.m., and expected to bo able to slide down if the hard snow in parts became soft, but it remained hard, almost ice. and I had to walk down carefully, which delayed mo so that' I got down near the commencement of the track when it was quite dark. The show had frofcen hard and was 3 or 4 feet above any scrub,' or quite 6 feet over the track, w'hich cfttsrges into the mountain, and as one piece of snow is like another piece of snow, I could not pick out the patch that led to the track, and got off it into what seemed to me to Tie a disused track. I followed this track down three miles or so into the bush, and it was very rough going, hut getting down in the bush, it was wanner than on tho mountain (but all snow and ice). At 10.80 p.m. I had prepared a nice bed of leaves and twigs, and was just going to lay down and. take off my wet .putties,-socks, .and boots, when someone on the Mountain House track' (tho one leading up to the Mountain House) coo'-od. I then decided to try and get to the track, and the house that night, but struggled in very thick scrub for five hours without getting half a mile. I went to sleep on some leaves, from 3.15 a.m. till 5.15 a.m., and started again at 6.30, but went up .tho bush' for one hour to evade tho worst holes in the dry creek which I had come.,down.. I. then dropped into the dry creek and walked up, - and whon 1. was two-thirds of tho • way hom6, I came across tho search party, but they had not -been /out all the night because the caretaker (Mr. Murphy) had traced my steps in the hard snow, and saw that I had not tumbled, but had gone off the track.- I had no food, but a- fair amount of clothing, and plenty'to drink when I broke the ice oh the pools in tho creek. I poked my eyo .with a piece of stiok in the bush, and had a narrow escape of'losing it; that is-the only thing that happened to me, and I was none the worse for the benighting. I knew exactly where I was all right, but could not got through that part of the scrub because it was too dense* I did not leave the track that brought me down because I knew that the safe way was to go up it on to the mountain again. I got back from the" bush to the Mountain House at 9.30 a.m. on Monday—and was thankful for a hot hath and a sleep."