THE COPLAND VALLEY.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 April 1924, Page 1

THE COPLAND VALLEY.

AND SO-.li: ALPINE (HIDES

(By B. E. Baughan in the “Lyttelton Times.”)

The account of the recent accident in the Copland Yalley, and of Guido Williams’s faithful and selfless has brought back such vivid memories (J my own experiences of that track that, though now some dozen years old, they call me to the typewriter and insist upon upon their say. Their hearing is, of course, another matter, but I know L shall enjoy my part, for who that has over walked, borne a swag, slept in a sleeping-bag under tile stars, and had the loyal comradeship of our splendid guides through our native Alpine-land, but loves to think bad-: oil it. all? It was in 19'12 that I Walked over the Copland Pass from the Hermitage to the Franz Josef Glacier, and then, after a week or two, turned and went hack the same way. How much has altered there in the meantime I do not know, but am certain of one thing, and that is that, so far as Nature is concerned, much it cannot be, and that the glories of that fascinating expedition are hound to be just as glorious still. Three of us started from the Hermitage, and three returned; they were not the same three, but the most important member of the party was the same, and that was the guide, Dave Thomson, known to all Alpinists of that time as “Darby”—good comrade and Urug guide if ever there was one. He lost his life in one of our i cry rare mountain accidents a few years later, but whenever 1 think of the mountains I think of him, and there must lie many others who do the same; it is a tribute lie would have valued, too.

Perhaps the best way to loarn appreciation of a good guide is to have experience of a bad one; and that, too, I can claim, having once spent a

breathless day or so in the company of an amateur, who led oil’ by being bear-leader, but ended by being very much of a bear (tobacco having run short), and whose routes appeared to lie invariably among rotten rocks (that most detestable of footing and hand-bold) and yard-wide crevasses upon whose brink the only encouragement his quailing charges got was apt to be it jeering, “Your nerve’s no good to-day, is it?” How grateful after that lurid memory, comes the picture of Darby, steady as a rock, weighted with many of our possessions yet never fatigued, his every step safe to follow, his help never offered unnecessarily hut unfailing when needed, cheerful always, faithful always, and never with any thought for- himself. I can see him now, on a shelterless rocky route in torrents of rain, somehow producing a roaring lire and a boiling billy, or plodding unerringly ahead through a high fog that turned to icicles on the wool of his coat; or steadying the rope through a dizzy wind-blown descent; or laughing, and making mo laugh, when, lo come back to the Copland, and even to Welcome Flats, he and 1 found ourselves obliged to break camp there before daybreak by such tiny little things as mosquitoes. There was then no hut at Welcome Flat, to which we had come at the end of the day from the Hooker Hut, over the snow of ihe Pass, over the flowers of the Alpine “scrub,” and through tlie twiggy gloom of orlearias that comes after that. It was not raining, so Darby decreed filial we should sleep in the river bed, and he cooked

n sumptuous din nor of tliroo. omirs.es, chose onr several lairs, spread omi 1 sleeping-bags, and sleep no doubt would bare followed in its due place in the programme if only the mosquitos bad not been so wide awake. On my wav back, which was solitary till be overtook me at the Douglas Dock bivouac, which is just below the Alpine scrub, I cheated them by taking refuge with the wife of one oi the track-men, who had a most comfortable tent with a line large open fire at one end, and who fed me, 1 remember, on pigeon slew, and later sent mo a little kit of pigeon feathers, which I was showing off with pride only yesterday. ] wonder whether anyone else lias ever met with a misanthrope among the mountains? Certainly 1 never have, and one of my sweetest memories of them is their human element, which seems always, as 1 look hack, to have been of the very best, so far as their habitues are concerned at any rate; and even we tourists, I seem to remembr. improved as wo proceeded. Welcome Flats is a kind of midway basin in the Copland Valley, where the mountains that form its sides stand apart for about three-quarters of a mile, and the Copland .lliver, which one has followed down all the way from its 'birth in a glacier, widens out and runs in streams lietwoten pebbly beaches. A little further down one comes to a boiling lint spring, and a pool of delectable bath water, which smells quite otherwise, but puts new vigour into the bather it only be or she will not allow its satiny embrace to detain the willing walk-worn limbs too long. Before 1 had that pigeonstew I got rid there of all the fatigues of my up-valley march. Ribbon woods for a dressing room, and a glorious view of tile snows of Sel'ton to keep me awake and alert against the wiles of the water. Not far off there is an immense rock-overhang, that makes a cavern about forty feet long, and this while the track was being formed bad, my hostess told me, sheltered quite a number of the men as a permanent camp. Ido not know how near the lint now is to this.

Below the Flats, one is really in the bush, following a rocky track beside the river, which, blue as a sapphire, rushes along below you, and flashes up at you through the thick foliage. Here and there a considerable creek comes dashing down towards it from above, and you must cross on ■stepping-stones (unless this has been altered, as probably it lias), and not mind getting wet feet. That, hovv-

ever, you have long since learned, no doubt, before getting so far, and indeed, not the least of the benefits of stick outings in the hardening they bestow against the feeling of minor discomforts—l am net sure that this was not tlid very gist of Darby's miith about the' mosquitoes. For seasoned tramps like ourselves to notice them, far more to be actually made by them to break camp, seemed s,o exquisitely absurd.

The first creek we crossed below the Flats was “Potter’s Creek,” and what that roaring torrent of boulders (it wa« dry that day) can be like when flooded I would rather fee than feel. How Williams got across it in the dark I cannot think. Another guide, one of tlie Grahams, those mountain-lovers dear to many a mountain friend, bad occasion once to cross it while in flood, as be hastened to the sick-bed cf bis mother. Darby showed ire the place, which made me f-liudder. If I remember aright, lie l:nd to swing himself partly across bv overhanging boughs. Unless one. lias seen the rearing, wide, white volleys cif water that these creeks l:e pmc after heavy rain, one can. form no cxpcreiitcc of the skill, courage and nerve required; they are amazing.

Further down is beautiful Architect Creek, where in my day there was a swing-bridge, loitering on which one could look down at tlie perfectly pellucid, crystal water beneath, and back and forward at tlie lovely bush enbosoming all. It recalls the bush of the Milford Track, but with differences for the place' of the “birches”, with their foliage as of giant-maiden-hair, is taken by toweling white p.ire and red-pine. But otherwise there is much tlie same lovely, friendly “jungle,” with no snakes or tigers or fever lurking in its luxuriance; a world of every tint of woodland green and brown, splashed through with sunshine dropping from one leaf to another, ntul chanted through by tlie tinkle and drip of little waters, as well as the louder song of the river down below. Ferns and mosses and the “nioisty smell” of bush are all about you as you walk the narrow, rocky track down which those stretcher-bearers walked six hours of late, till they came to the coastal flat and the hospitality of a Karatigania-—and I know not which to pity most, the liearers or the borne, for a road full of wrenches that must have been. I can only hope that it was fine, and the Ipauty all around some consolation. It always is, if only one can get enough away from one’s immediate aches (whether of body or mind) to be aware of it; and one of the blessed things about it is that one forgets the pain, because it is but transient, while the beauty one remembers, because the essence of it is eternal.