SLEEP OF DEATH

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 123, 16 January 1932, Page 5

SLEEP OF DEATH

canterbury trampers took too high a path

STOPPED BY BLUFFS AND FOG CHRISTCHURCH, Friday. The story of the trampers' battle' against weather conditions is obscure, but they seein to have held out for two or three days. The fatal mistalce that led to the deaths of two of the party, Robbins and Smith, was in following too high a path after they had crossed Whiteborn's Pass into Canterbury. They should have descended several hun- > dred feet to reach the saddle at the head of the Taipo-iti Gorge, instead b they kept on at a high level and ended up in the fog and gathering darkness on the bluffs of a spur of Mount Isabel, whence they fopnd it impossible ' to proceed in any direction. During the night on which they re-

mained there the sleep of death overtook Smith. . Robbins apparently awoke m tane, but his frantic efforts to release himself from the maze of bluffs and precipices ended in his slipping over a bluff into the Upper Taipo-iti Gorge, where his body was found. Loney, the survivor, made his way back over Whitehorn's Pass and found help at a camp in Wilberforce Yalley. The heroic efforts of the searchers were favoured by good weather. ^ Te retrieve the body of Smith it was necessary for the rescuers tp make an almost complete circle round Mount Isabel, ploughing through deep masses of sliding shingle. _ Five men took turns at carrying the body, but aR they could inapage at a time was ten or fifteen steps. The body was finally taken by packhorse to the Carrington Hut.