BIG NATIONAL PARK

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 71, 20 September 1930, Page 11

BIG NATIONAL PARK

ALPINIST'S IDEAL

ARTHUR'S PASS TO SOUNDS

NEW WESTLAND

RESERVE

. • A'big national park, taking in all the serrated backbone of tho Southern Alps from Arthur's Pass to the Sounds, ivcrc there arc already .2,266,000 acres • of reserve, is tho magnificent conception Of tho president'of tho Now Zea- .. -land Alpine Club (Mr. A. P. Harper), ■••■who recently added to the debt owed him.by mountaineers as the pioneer : explorer of some of tho most iuaoe- ' ible parts of Westland's mountain wonderland, by making representations id tho Scenery Preservation Board •which, resulted in the acquisition by : the Government as a scenio reserve of 64 000 acres in the Karangarua water- , -shed.: This is tho biggest piece of land so set apart for many years. By Mr. Harper's efforts this was added to the existing Franz Josef and contemplated .. Cook- River reserves; , In all the world it would be hard to find as majestic a series of alpine peaks as extend southwards from Arthur's Pass to the southern fiords. Tha taking by the Crown of a further 125,----000 acres in Westland adds to the splendid adjoining playgrounds set apart for all time for the people, on country unfit for cither settlement. or milling, and which would otherwise have undoubtedly offered merely the drab spectacle of a struggle for bare life amongst the stumps. Far too much forest has already .been sacrificed on poor lands in other parts of New Zealand, merely opening up the way for -a. tangle of noxious weeds, and even the lower foothills of the Southern . Alps offer little to the settler in Westland. What makes Westland unique ..' jfrom a scenic standpoint, however, is > the variety of forest-looked lakes and ... bush-clad spurs that, jut out into the ' fertile flats and craggy gorges with • jfoaming streams, all accessible to tho :iaoßt cursory visitor, and forming a picturesque, dark pedestal for the .mounting scenic glories of the eternal .smows that have attracted the world's best climbers to their crowning peaks. HARMONISED CONTROL NEEDED.

There are already reserves under various Acts scattered along both sides of the Southern Alps., at present variously administered. Mr. Harper's aim 3S to harmonise their control under an honorary board, including Government •representatives, and ultimately to consolidate the whole in a truly magnificent national park, parts of which, in his opinion, should be conserved in their wild state, to give trampers and mountaineers the opportunity of exploration as best ploase themselves. Whatever is done to open up South Westland by t"he. bridging of the rivers south of ■:tfhe Cook "and the reading of the district —roading the Haast Pass is frequently pressed by motorist* —there -should, " »ays Mr. Harper, be parts of Westland left 'just as they are for the young tnen and women who like to carry their pack and enjoy their trip in the mountains none tho less because their holiday costs arc only those of their outfit and stores. The chief joys in such excursions are the feeling of independence, the pleasure of blazing onste. own trail,' and the opportunity of see>: ing Nature unspoiled. In the Co&lc and' Marangarua Valleys these conditions have been safeguarded for all time by the proclamation of the new ■reserve. Acquisition, of the land under the Scenery Preservation Act of 1908 does not make it a national park, but "ii makes the latter ideal possible ultimately. • . ' • LITTLE KNOWN REGION. ■ South of the Franz Josef and the Fox Glaciers, Westland is little known to: the people of New Zealand, because ;ij£ the, many swift, and sometimes treacherous, rivers such as the Cook,-Ka-langarua, and others as yet unbridged. tourist traffic, of the comfortable type, Stops at the Fox, but beyond that lies some wonderful country, part of which is taken in by the new reserve, iiover,ing the Cook River Valley and the Sarangafua ''Elver Valley. Tho two blocks of ■ land comprising it, 64,000 acres- and 61,000 acres, adjoin each cither and in turn adjoin the Franz Josef Be'serve, 48,500 acres, and a small reserve of 14,120 acres; making in all nearly 190,000 acres of continuous reserve in Westland. On. the eastern side of the Southern Alps, in Canterbury, lies the Tasman Park, 97,800 acres, so that there is now a block of national reserve of nearly 300,000 acres, spreading over the backbone of the central portion of the South Island. Much of it is not explored, and some of it has been penetrated only by tho first exploration, an exception being the middle branch of the Cook Eiver, which was .■yfain. visited by Mr. Harper and the late Mr.O. E. Douglas, and the only other branch of the Cook Biver again visited waß that toured by Dr. Teichebuan and his party in. 1905, eleven years after the first exploration. This 'party followed this branch up and crossed to the Hermitage. . WHAT NEW RESERVE HOLDS. Describing the country thus set apart'from the commercial vandal, Mr. ' 'i^Jarper,- who knows it thoroughly, having been the first to explore thoroughly tiie middle branch of the Cook Biver . yj. 1894, with the late Mr. Douglas, since : that country has been visited by no. other party, said that in no other sjrea of its size that he had scon, even in Switzerland, waa there such a varf'*ty and magnificence of scenery. He elieved that the river route of the , middle branch of the Cook Biver was impassable. Foi- seven miles it was practically filled by the Balf our Glacier, . a narrow defile shut in on the east by Mount Tasnian, a precipice of 7500 ft. J&e north branch, from the Fox Glacier, was well known, but the third • and south branch ran through a very deep and narrow valley, only getting , ihe sun at. midday, and presented as one obstacle a big bluff, to circumvent which .one climbed almost vertiealiy 700 ft through the bush, while Jarther up were huge boulders. For Sixee weeks in 189-1 Mr. Harper and $Cr; C. E. Douglas explored this regioa. .3$ took them four days to go four miles in the part just mentioned. One of the ■ huge,glacially depositod boulders - was 3s>6£t. high and 843 ft in circumference, .and the bottom of the valloy was coy- ' ered by similar boulders in varying ■girfes.' Four miles again from the last '»£ tie boulders was La Perouse Glacier, . in a valley walled by magnificent precipices, with La Perouse (10,101 ft) and ■ Hicks (10,401 ft) at its head. KABANGASUA'S WONDERS. The valley of the Karaugarua offered uniqtte attractions, said Mr. llarrvr. The north branch of the Karangarua was the Copland, from which was i.acued.the Copland Pass, now a well-known, alpine route from Westland to Canterbury, but the middle and south branches ■were finer in some respocta, and very little known. The middle branch, cotnjpg from the Douglas Glacier, had an ■ irnmissable gorge.1 "The whole river is walled in ou south b,y sfr/Upendous cliffs, rifling :(>i>"o"TCr 300O?t. sheep," sand ~Mu Harper.

"The head basin is the weirdest place I have ever seen, surrounded by precipices, bleak and barren, from which the roar of the ice avalanches from the Douglas Glacier echo and re-echo throughout the day. Dr. Macintosh Bell, the late Director of our Geological Survey," and his pa/rty are the only ones to havo followed this route, some fourteen years after my exploration, and his official account of it confirms my original opinion that the place, is uniquo in any alpino region. The bush of the wholovalley is tho gem of South Westland."