MOUNT HOLDSWORTH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 April 1939, Page 4

MOUNT HOLDSWORTH

(To the Editor.) Sir,—As a name relative of one of the first three persons (including the surveyor after whom this peak was named) to make a trigonomical ex pedition into this then all-primitive region of the ever-picturesque and rugged Tararuas, I naturally have taken a keen interest in all Tramping Club endeavours to open the beauties of this, and other as beautiful, sentinel peaks we daily gaze, upon with awe and admiration, to Wairarapa, and even further afield inhabitants, one and all. In about 1918, I think it was, 1 was therefore easily induced to become a foundation member of the Tararua Tramping Club, of which Mr Von Haast and Mr F. W. Vosseler were perhaps the only real active mountaineers of any of the new members forming this since famous club’s for most part “financial vanguard,” at the initial outset of its today’s hundred per cent “active participant” career. Beyond taking a rather inglorious part in the Louisa Mack “relief expedition” of early January, 1919, and nearly causing a second “relief expedition” to be formed to rescue a lone comrade and I from perishing in the same regions, a few days later on, I lay no sort of claim whatever to having added one iota to Tararua Tramping Club fame, in any other shape or form. Were it not for this misadventure of mine I might have achieved some slight distinction, by reason of a near halfcentury,ago first (and last) attempt to scale the summit of Mt Holdsworth, with five other as rash Wairarapa youths associated in the then memorable Scobie McKenzie exploratory expedition of those now seeming far-off days. Beyond the always stalwart physique of its leader, who literally blazed the trail for his weaker brethren to find their way out again “to home and mother,” its record, too, might be numbered among things attempted, and poorly done. As someone has to begin things (or they won’t get started) I can yet say I am one who has lived to see that hardy off-shoot (the Hutt Valley Tramping Club) of the now old club I helped to form, carrying timber and iron up to the snow-level height of Mt Holdsworth, to further assure the safety (additional to the Mountain House en route) of any new bold and chance foolishly-intrepid aspirers to peak climbing fame, as once was I. If it were not too bold a suggestion on my part, I would like, to see this new hut named the “Mark Maxton Hutt,” if only in recognition of the pioneer services that Greytown celebrity has rendered'to mountain climbers in association with the name of “Field,” a peak already nomenclatured, for a reason of like kind, on the other side of the range. “To old at sixty” to take advantage of all the growing inducements for easy travel to the Holdsworth, Hector, and other glorious peaks of Tararua — our eyes scale daily and sigh for adventures among, I can at least say thank you to the young men of today who are responsible for the new hut, above the snowline, which beckons even the aged, if willing, to come and stay.—l am, etc., N.J.B. Masterton, April 12.