WOMAN’S ACHIEVEMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 March 1939, Page 8

WOMAN’S ACHIEVEMENT

ASCENT OF MOUNT TASMAN. . (By Telegraph—Press Association.) TIMARU, February 28. For the first time in two years, Mount Tasman, the second highest peak in New Zealand, was climbed on Sunday by Miss C. Irving, of Albury, South Canterbury, with the guides M. Bowie and S. Brookes, of the Hermitage. Symes Ridge was climbed for the third time and for the first time was used for the descent. Miss Irving is/the second woman to reach the summit by the route from the east side since 1914, and no other party including a woman has used the Symes route, a slender ridge of ice and snow rising at a uniformly steep angle direct to the north shoulder from the Linda Plateau. Miss Irving’s climb was made during the longest spell of fine weather above 7000 feet this season after months of summer snowfalls on the high mountains and she was able to take advantage of the opportunity to climb while the ice was unusually unbroken. The Hermitage guides stated that it was difficult to remember a more continuously bad climbing season, but conditions at the moment were ideal.