MOUNT SEFTON.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 84, 6 April 1912, Page 3

MOUNT SEFTON.

MR. S. TURNER'S EXPLOIT. A few: days ago : it was 5 announced' that Mi"S-: 'Turner, the produce agent', 1 who is wcllli known in Taranaki, had reached the.summit of Mount fief ton. In recounting his exploits to a Christchurch newspaper, Mr i Turner said that it was six years since he * had; made his first traverse of Mount Cook, and it was interesting to note that both tlfe route up to the • summit and the route down had' been abandoned as being too long. An easy rock route had been found from the Hooker Glacier to the summit, representing a climb of about six hours. Last year, lie continued, the season had been .an extraordinarily good one, but this year there had been an extraordinary bad one. There were many spells of bad weather, with snow on the high altitudes. At one time it was questionable if any climbing at all would be done this year. Captain Head, Dr. Teichleman, and Messrs Chambers and Wright had been through and returned without any results worth mentioning, with the exception of the assent of Mount Cook by Messrs Chambers and Wright by Green's route, which was climbed by Mr Turner on a previous occasion. His own Mount Cook climb was one of the two ascents made this year, and he also ascended, Mt. Seftbn, making the third ascent of that peak. The first was made seventeen years ago. Both his recent climbs were very interesting, and somewhat dangerous on account of the loose character of the snow and tho changeable weather. As a matter of fact, the weather was so bad that nobody expected that the party would be successful on Mount Sefton. On the Sunday when they were climbing that mountain they did not sec any of it until twenty minutes before they reached the summit. All the time a, sou'-west gale was blowing-, it was specially boisterous and ferocious 'when the party was on the knife-like ridge at the head of the glacier- connecting a high plateau of rocks wi'fch the actual pass leading to the summit. The ridge was 'between Ift. and 2ft. wide, and was precipitous on both sides. There were really two ridges, and they were about 300yds long. The members of the party ' walked along them by digging their ice axes in the snow ajs much as possible and by istooping towards the wind in order to prevent it from blowing them off the ridges. At that place a halt was called, and a discussion took place in regard to the serious risks tha.t were being run. They decided to press on and to sec if the weather would become worse or improve. Fortunately the laist slopes were reached' soon after the discussion had been brought to an end. They went up a fairly large "bergsehrund, which practically

cut off the summit from the main body of the mountain. Just .after climbing up a steep plaec, a kind of ice ladder, using pieces of ice for hand grips, they had the satisfaction of Beeiug the clear summit. To reach the summit they had to surmount a steep ice wall 40ft or 50ft high. 1 Tlie wind was very strong at the time, and they were careful to climb well away from the precipitous sides. In the circumstances it was impossible to stay on the sumimiit for long. They remained there for about twenty minutes taking photographs, and then descended and rested in a snowdrift hole between the summits, about 13ft deep. After that they went down the mountain the best way they could. They went from the summit ridge down to the lower ridge, walking over the snowfields in three hours. In order to reach the bivouac camp they had to do 4000 ft of precipitous climbing over scrub, snow, .grass, bush and ■tussock, all covered with thick snow. They also had to climb up the stsep bed of a stream. They had a. very thrilling experience going down b\ Scott's creek. It seemed from the bivouac to be all right, and was so for about thrce-quartes of the way down, after that they had 1500 ft, of the most sensational boulder-climb-ing is was possible to imagine: One obstacle was a boulder that made a junction between two huge waterfalls. Precipitous rocks on each side of the waterfall, made it almost impassible to get down that way. The party could see welcome flats close to them. and tried to get down before dark. They lowered one another by ropes off the boulders, sometimes into the ■stream, out of which they had to scramble.