Great Days in New Zealand Mountaineering

What were the sensations of the three young men who on Christmas Day 1894, first climbed Mount Cook? Did gold prospectors explore the Westland approaches to an icy Main Divide peak sixty years before it was climbed from that side? Could a rescue party carry an injured woman from an ice ridge at 10,000 feet down to near sea level on the West Coast? Are some gorges impossible or merely impassable to men with heavy swags? These and similar questions are answered by this book, whose sub-title The Rock and the Snow gives a clue to the variety of the alpine terrain familiar to mountaineers in both islands of New Zealand.

Whether it is Edmund Hillary in a characteristically cheerful dilemma on the Kaikoura Ranges under winter snow, or Samuel Turner praying on the summit of Mount Tutoko above Milford Sound, Jim Dennistoun forcing the heights of Mount D'Archiac from the Rangitata Valley, or "Snow" Williams dreaming under the shadow of the then-virgin Black Tower on the Main Divide - the characters in this book are notables in their own right and their adventures are vividly related. Pungently written portraits give a new dimension to men as well as country.

Format: Hardback - Great condition for its age

Publisher: A. H. & A. W. Reed

Published: 1958