HAZARDS IN THE MOUNTAINS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 397, 31 January 1947, Page 7

HAZARDS IN THE MOUNTAINS

Care and Experience Can Reduce Them Further

(Written and illustrated for ‘The Listener" b y

JOHN

PASCOE

HE pleasure of climbing | mountains may be anything between quiet satisfaction and excitement, but it carries its responsibilities, My purpose is to outline the causes of tragedies in the Southern Alps and to strike a mean between the extremes of condemnation voiced by some of the alp'ne Jeremiahs, and of nonchalance affected by some people too young to know that a party is not well equipped unless it has clinkered boots and an ice-axe for each climber, and that the whole. is best secured by rope correctly used. By comparison with the accepted hazards of industry and of the roads, 18 mountain accidents, with their total death roll of 32, over 50 years, do not seem extraord nary for any sport. Their news-jnterest is often overstated by metropolitan papers, because of their sensation. Examine the attitudes of the readers. The public includes interested parties-friends and relations and acquaintances of the men who died in the mountains, whose anxiety is sharpened by the uncertainty and incoherence of the first reports that start by bush telephone and end in headlines. The public includes readers whose interest is heightened by the sense of vicarious adventure. It includes the very young

mountaineers who goggle but do not relate the stories as those that may one day be theirs, if they ignore warnings. It includes the retired mountaineers who see in the tragedies a chance to tell the young not to do what they once did, or nearly did. But most important of all it includes the hundreds of sane and active climbers who are fearless without being reckless, who are sensitive enough to feel sorrow for the dead and the injured, who admit past errors of judgment without becoming intolerant of youth and inexperience, and who seek to face realities. The early days of exploration, surveying, and prospecting included deaths

from alpine causes; drowning in mountain r.vers, deaths by fall, and by exposure. Many of these are unrecorded. Musterers and hunters who worked in rough back country also had their tragedies. But the first serious accident to mountaineers, as such, was in February 1914, when S. L. King and his two guides were killed by an avalanche on the Linda glacier route to Mount Cook. That this was the first is a great tribute to the sense of the pioneers in the alpine field and to the sound principles established by New Zealand guides. It followed that the guided period remained one in which relatively few men and women climbed mounta:ns. Thus the sanctions of experienced men were firmly established and the number they affected was small. The advent of guideless climbing broke, even with the start of the depression of the ‘thirties. This statement is not the over-simplification it may seem, It was true that before 1930 there was guideless work in the mountains. But it was after that year that there were many parties climbing where before mere handfuls had travelled. The New Freedom Like all periods of change, this one had its debunkers. Look: guideless climbing was hailed as the new freedom, but the obligations which are fhe price of freedom were but faintly recognised or not at all,

And look again: technically they have made great strides; mentally they remain where they stood at the beginning of the decade ... . the bad young days of guideless climbing. These overstatements are from the same article by a man who wore his prophet’s mantle like a hair-shirt, and with a dour sort of joy. The guideless parties of 1930-1940 had their troubles but in the main they accomplished much important work on virgin peaks and on technically difficult routes. They faced the same hazards as their predecessors, and, in the main, reduced them by the same combination of

enterprise and skill. It would be churlish and a sign of age to condemn a period of climbing that banished the inferiority complex which had hindered development, and whose results were so rich in achievement, and in the patience that wes the background of most successes. Remarkable also in this period was the progress of sk:-ing, and the unpublicised alpine travel of Government deer-killers whose chase of deer and chamois gave them a proficiency that is not recognised as widely as it deserves. South Island Only It must be emphasised that this discussion affects only the Southern Alps, and excludes the North Island mountains, Egmont and Ruapehu, and lesser ranges whose accessibil.ty to the inexperienced or the unequipped has caused a considerable roll of fatalities. The Southern Alps include in their dangers swift, tricky, glacier rivers. Over a period of years, Park, Morpeth, McStay, Townsend, and Barker were drowned in circumstances that could have been avoided by an efficient use of rope. A slope near Graham’s Saddle accounted for Carroll in bad weather, in 1938, and in the previous year Dowling fell to his death on Mount Evans after taking part in its second ascent. Lerchenthal and Lees died in a "recce" of the low peak of Mount Cook, No comment can be madé on this year’s d.saster in the Dobson Valley because the inquest has not been held. Guide Christie fell into a crevasse on the Fox Glacier when travelling solo in 1935. Five died from exposure on the Tasman glacier in 1930, and two on the Harman Pass in 1932. Dobbie died in the Hollyford in 1936, and Morton and Wallis on Mount Malte Brun in 1943. Divers, Stevenson, and Edwards in 1937, died in a crowded climb of Mount Trent. Avalanches killed Russell in 1933 on Avalanche Peak, Susman in 1942 in the (continued on next page)

HAZARDS IN THE MOUNTAINS

(continued from previous page) Temple Basin, and Jackson and Tozer that year in the Cass valley. Statistics No Comfort Shades of experience are represented by this list. It includes professional and amateur,. mountaineer and skier, and parties of varying sizes. Every major club is affected. No statistician can deduce that one type of mountain man died or that periodicity was constant or that any given set of circumstances was the same. One fact emerges; experience teaches. I know that for myself. I was mixed up in the Avalanche Peak fatality of 1933, and because that concerned a large party I have been fearful of them since, I feel it necessary to exam’ne the influences that affect the margin of safety, as they supply initial inspiration and form attitudes, Literature of the mountains has its part. Many young mountaineers of th’s and preceding generations were stimulated by» Whymper’s book about his triumph of the Matterhorn that .ended in a bitter tragedy. An honest description of difficulties overcome can fire young men to meet them for themselves. Sober warning without sepulchral prophecies or n'ggling can inculcate reasonable caution. "Avoid it this way" is better advice than "thou shalt not." Access to mountains should be access to sense and not merely to folly. It follows that suitab'e equipment should be .chosen with a full appreciation of its use. Experience should be regarded as. a pr'ze to be won first hand, end not to be acquired by upcritical imitation. Contours and conditions should be studied with the knowledge that unseasonable snow or rock in places of apparent simplicity are.tranps, and that weother affects condit'ons. Balance, the ability to control pack weight, and judgment of angles can be practised in_traininge country. With the serenity of mind that is the cheracteristic of the experienced man must go the necessity for physical fitness that is the essence of endurance. Finally, men who climb as a team will always be safer than individualists. _ The ideal with en unguided party is that a man with a special capacity for ce, or rock, or river, or bush, will lead or change lead as the necessity arises, Aftermath of Tragedy With mountaineering as with war or epidemic, sudden emergency will reveal the qual.ties of natural leaders. The adaptation of a party to rescue would interest a psychologist. Foremost and most reliable are the guides. Their training and humanity fits them to organise help with a speed that saves survivors. Backcountry sheep-farmers are the second line of defence. Always they use their stat'ons, their horses and provisions, and their transport to help climbers in trouble. As with yachtsmen, mountaineers will hurry to the rescue where they are needed. At the back of their minds they must admit that the cactus may get them one day; till then they will help the other man, The Police accept unexpected burdens cheerfully; (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) in this they are in the company of Public Works or other Government officials who are at hand. It is the thought that he may trouble all these fine men that counsels a climber to keep a high margin of safety. Now for precautions. It is good insurance for parties to leave notes of their intended routes whether they write them in hut books or leave them in a tin by the ashes of a camp fire or under a bivouac rock, If the party is large, it is good insurance to split it into mobile groups each led by the best experience available. You may be Careless crossing a street in a group of twelve, but you will look both ways if you are few. Thus with mountains; you are more alert to danger if you are not in a procession. Conversely, climbing solo is the most dangerous of all, and the most unfair to search parties. The Club and the Individual The most profound influence for safety can be exercised by a wise club. Memorial huts, reports of accident committees, lectures on technique, climbing schools, sensible but not intolerant articles (rea- son not rant) and the development of a responsible professional outlook are necessary. When every amateur leader realises that his responsibility for his party is morally as great as though he was a paid guide, he has.come of age. There are still virgin peaks and new routes in the Southern Alps. No one has had a real sniff at the South Ridge of Mount Cook or the Coxcomb ridge of Mount Aspiring. So there is much for maturity to aim at. Valid improvements have yet to be made, such as the licensing of guides and recognition of their status by generous pay and the training of' new men. And always the background must be tolerance for the ambition of the young and its further mountain adventures.