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Hokitika Guardian, 24 January 1923, Page 2

Enthusiasm imikfs every hook :ittrn«t i%v. Imt to books of Alpine adventure it <rivcs a zest <|iiite irresistible. Mr 1! Turner (lives tins to his •‘conquest of t-.e New Zeal Old Alps.” He tlitl tin- same for bis •■Climbs in I’onr Continents” and to bis book on SibenTravel. Practice lias evidently made bim perfect in imparting enthusiasm of the info tions order. Practice lias, as bis leaders v. ill very soon discover. also made bim perfect, in the art of climbing. How to ''e perfect therein the reader will also learn. First tiling is to keep lit. Just a few simple rules sucli as constant use of the skipping role breaking records of 1000 skips an hour; play golf in Alpine boots over 51b in weight on hot days; climb Mount Kgmmit now and again before lunch: use your bands until you can cut steps in bard ice lor eight hours without getting weary or even out of breath; carrying a heavy swag for -2(1 miles or so at top walking-tour speed. A few little things like that done w ith the enthusiasm of ibis writer will make the task of tackling Mount ('ook with your life in your band not comparatively easy for there is no ease about that business but quite sate from i’m personal physical point of view. And the book supplies instances; in which the punishment of slackness in keeping fit might easily have been death. As to the other dangers. Longfellow's Tie ware 'the Awful Avalanche ” gives the chief of them and ohe of Air Turner's most interesting chapters gives the story of the great tragedy in which an English climber and two guides from tile Hermitage were overwhelmed in tin* Undo Glacier. The other dangers are too numerous to be listed here; the book fells all about them. The volume besides the history of Mr Turner’s climbs in our Alps sketches the whole story of New Zealand climbing—from the plucky attempt really a great success though not from the narrow technical point of view of Green's ascent of Mount Cook in 1882 wherein the hook has done a great service. Mr Turner's main adventure was the siege and filial conquest alone of Mount Cook a few years ago. Other climbs have put several well-known summits on both sides of the Tasman to his credit and there is the remarkable story of his ascent from Milford. Sound, and exploration of Mount Tutoku. in the course of which his expedition w. « driven through a terrible wildernc - to Martin’s Hay. Tn the course of llus one learns much of the JTollyford and I’yke rivers and the country between them and the head of Lake Wakatipu. Also there is the store of a rash at-

tempt to eliml) Mount Pembroke fp in Sound level, which nearly ee*t i<> writer and a companion their lives. The stories of all these Alpine excursions make fascinating reading, with their rock work with handhold*, P otholds and squirming without either up “chimneys,” their narrow escapes from crevasses, their magnificent views of glorious mountain country, their intense hardships, and narrow escapes from falling stones and tumbling seines. And there is much information about equipment, weather condition* and all things the man who climbs in the Alps must know. Without the personal note the hook would not bo so compelling. And if the note js its strength is justified bv the unique conditions of the work as well a-, the buoyancy of the writer’s spirit, without which he could not have done that work at all.