EERIE MUSIC NZ has a legacy of deadly disasters,... The whole party seemed to fall at once. Praying to God, cos I wanted to survive. Scary. Bloody scary. ...disasters that shaped this country. Where I'm standing is where my grandfather got involved in the battle with the Turks. PETER MONTGOMERY: Two yachts were lost forever. The worst motoring accident in NZ history. Seven well-known NZers retrace our darkest days, bringing history alive... YELLS: Help! ...through the eyes of descendants. It stayed with me. Probably always will. It was something that we will never ever forget. All of us. On the 26th of July 1953, just two months after Sir Edmund Hillary had conquered Mt Everest, the New Plymouth Nurses Tramping Club organized a day trip ` a climb to the summit of Mt Taranaki. They'd enlisted the aid of the local Taranaki Alpine Club. Chief guide Keith Russell set out on a cold, clear winter's morning to lead 31 climbers up the north face of the mountain known as Egmont. TENSE TONE The ascent to the summit went without incident, but the climbers had been running late all day. Just 30 minutes from the safety of Tahurangi Hut, Keith's tired and freezing group traversed the final icy slope above Hongi's Bluff. Then without warning, all seven climbers fell. SNOW CRUNCHES, WIND HOWLS My name's Toni Street and I know first-hand how dangerous this mountain can be. I've climbed it myself, and I grew up here in Taranaki, down the road in between Inglewood and New Plymouth. My parents are still dairy farming here. Over the past 150 years, 82 people have lost their lives on this mountain, making it NZ's deadliest peak. And on the 26th of July 1953, six people were tragically killed, making it NZ's worst ever mountaineering disaster. TENSE MUSIC Copyright Able 2015 OLD-TIME MUSIC Just like today, people living in Taranaki in the 1950s took great pride in their mountain, and Mt Taranaki was a magnet for locals and serious climbers alike. When Sir Edmund Hillary knocked Everest off in 1953, the local climbing community discovered a new enthusiasm. Mountaineering quickly grew in popularity. Small local climbing and tramping groups sprung up all over Taranaki, including one started by nurses and students at New Plymouth Hospital. Now, New Plymouth had one of the most prestigious nursing schools, and the trainees set up a tramping club so they could get out and about in the region on their days off. Opened in March 1922, the hostel was home to many of the country's brightest young women who were embarking on an exciting career in nursing. I've actually got a statement here from one of the nurses. READS: 'A meeting of the Nurses Tramping Club was held early in July 1953.' 'It was then decided that in order to create interest for members,' 'a winter climb of Mt Egmont should be arranged.' Now, the Alpine Club was helpful, but they decided not to officially involve themselves in the climb ` a decision they would be heavily criticised for after the accident. Instead, one of the most experienced climbers in the region, 25-year-old Keith Russell, led the party of 18 nurses, four visitors and nine members of the Taranaki Alpine Club. JAZZ MUSIC On the morning of the 26th of July 1953, 22-year-old trainee nurse Maureen Alexander was disappointed she was going to miss the day's climb. She had to start duty at midday. Instead, she encouraged her friend Janet Cameron to borrow some climbing gear and take her place on the trip. There's so many people going. Fellow student Ellen McBeth had only been at the school for three weeks. Always keen to be involved in activities, she was looking forward to the climb. Just weeks before, she had written all about it to her younger sister, Marlene. WOMAN: Everything she put her hand to just came naturally to her. She was just one of these people who fitted in anywhere. This is a photo of her at her 18th birthday party, which was held in a local hall in Marton. Betty had a great time that night. There was photos of her taken with everyone. It was also her farewell, and had a band and it was dancing. There was lots of tears when she went, but there was lots of cuddles. And she just got in the car and drove off. Yeah. To her new life. Each week, I'd get a letter from her; she'd tell me what she'd done during the week. And it was in the letter that I was told about the` that they were going to do this trip up the mountain ` some of the nurses were going to go up. That would be the last letter Marlene would ever get from her sister. When the 26th of July arrived, Ellen McBeth, Janet Cameron and other nurses and climbers boarded the bus heading up to the mountain. One of the passengers was experienced climber Richard Williams. He'd also volunteered to help Keith Russell with his large party of 31. A winter climb is always a good challenge, because it's different and you're doing it with, uh, people you know. Keith, being chief guide, was our natural leader. Right from when we got out of the bus, he made sure we had, uh, various items of equipment. All members wore woollen clothes, hobnail boots, most had parkas, and all but one had gloves. Pretty standard equipment for the early '50s. The bus had dropped the group of excited climbers off at the hut locals know as the Old House, before making the hour and a half trek up to Tahurangi Hut. Keith Russell was one of my best friends. He was a outgoing person; great climber. He had the manner of helping people, and, uh, he didn't want to let anyone down. Tall and wiry, Keith was built in the mould of Sir Edmund Hillary. At Tahurangi Hut, he had split his large group into smaller roped parties, each to be led by a more experienced climber. It was normal for us on Mt Egmont to have four or five people on a rope and a leader who led from the front going up and led from the back coming down so he could keep an eye on what was happening. By all accounts, the climb went without incident. All 31 climbers reached the summit in clear weather. Standing on top with the spectacular views, nursing students Janet Cameron and Ellen McBeth must have felt a great sense of achievement to reach the top. But the ascent had been slow-going, and they had only arrived by 3.30pm. So Keith announced to everybody that we would not stop for refreshments or sightseeing, and we would return immediately and descend down Crater Valley. SNOW CRUNCHES Things went well, and at about 7000ft, we ran into Ron Shorter and Derek Quickfall and Barry Hartley. They were experienced Taranaki Alpine Club members and had been watching the party's descent. Becoming concerned by their slow progress, they had climbed up to help out. By now, it was after 4.15pm, and the winter sun was slipping off the northern face. We were all feeling the effects of the drop in temperature, which was, uh, quite dramatic. I said we must keep moving to keep warm and, uh, importantly, get off the mountain. At about 6000ft, I looked back and I saw Ron Shorter's party lagging behind and appear to be in trouble. So away I went up on my crampons and with my ice axe. Some distance from Ron Shorter's party ` probably 500ft ` I saw one of the girls slip, pull the whole party over and slide down head-first out of control towards me. SNOW CRUNCHES The bloody terror that went through my mind momentarily. All I could think of was, 'I've got to stop these people. I've got to stop them.' I stamped my crampons hard into the snow, and I braced my body with my ice axe at an angle into the snow. And the party, uh, hit me, and, uh, I stopped them. Straight away, I got them on their feet. And, uh, we would keep moving and we will not stop. A potentially fatal fall had been averted. But the benign face of Egmont had revealed its dark side. Shortly after that, Keith Russell made a critical decision. Approaching Hongi's Bluff, he decided to follow the same steps they'd used earlier that morning. The roped parties were following the steps down over towards Hongi's Bluff area, and I knew that this was not the right track to follow down to Tahurangi Hut. I asked Ron to cut fresh steps down the normal route. It was going to slow things a little bit, but, uh, I didn't want to pursue those other steps out to the side around Hongi's Bluff. I` I didn't want any of that. Keep away from that. Richard, Ron and Barry guided their cold, exhausted parties down along the normal route and finally reached the safety of Tahurangi Hut. But where was Keith Russell and his party? As night fell, they were still out there on the freezing slopes of the mountain. SOUL MUSIC On the 6th of July 1953, a fresh intake of trainees arrived at New Plymouth Nursing School to begin their training. Many of them would live at the Barrett Street Nursing home, a home away from home for hundreds of young women over the years. For most of the new trainees, it was their first time away from home, and the friendships they would soon forge here could last a lifetime. Maureen Alexander struck up a firm friendship with fellow student Janet Cameron. Oh, that's Janet. She was a happy-go-lucky, friendly, gentle sort of a girl. That's our first graduation ball, um, that we went to. That's our class, plus the class above us. This is Janet here. Um, that's Ann. That's Marie. She suffered frostbite in the accident. Um, that's me at the back. REFLECTIVE MUSIC When the ball came along, um, we would submit the name of our male friend. It had to go to the matron for her approval. BOTH GASP, CHUCKLE If she had heard anything adverse about them, they would, um, be written off the list so that you would end up without a partner. BOTH GIGGLE When you start nursing, you're in prelim and then you go up to year one, two and three. And she was a conscientious, quiet girl. Very kind nature. Dedicated to nursing. # You put your right hand in. You put your right hand out... # Trainee nurses were allocated few days off, so made sure they didn't waste that precious spare time. The Alpine Club used to send us out a schedule of what they were doing, and I used to pick out what, um, fell on the days that I was off and able to go. Um, on this occasion, I had a duty change the day before, so I was unable to go. So rather than ring them up and tell them I wasn't coming, I asked Janet if she would like to take my place. She was somewhat reluctant, as she'd never been up the mountain before, so I told her that it would be good for her to go up. And after a little bit of coaxing, she decided that she'd go up the mountain. To further convince Janet that she should go, Maureen leant her some of her own climbing gear. Did you alleviate her fears, do you think? Um, yes. She was quite happy to go after that. So on the 26th of July, Janet joined the other nurses that had gathered outside the nurses' home to be picked up by the bus that would take them to the mountain. REFLECTIVE MUSIC One of the last people to see Keith Russell and his party of six climbers was 22-year-old Derek Quickfall. He's brought me to the base of Hongi's Valley to describe what took place further up on the bluffs that day in 1953. Just around the corner here, and you see that line of rock coming down there? Yep. Yep. If you go to the left of that and a bit further around the corner ` you can't quite see it ` is the feature called Hongi's Bluffs. Of course, it was greatly different on the night of the accident, because this landscape was all covered in snow, and you could only see the tops of some of the larger rocks protruding. Derek was already an experienced climber and a member of the Taranaki Alpine Club. He and his friend Ron Shorter had made their own ascent to the summit earlier that day. We were young and fit. We'd just finished our compulsory military training about four months before. And, uh, off we went. At quarter to 3 in the afternoon, as Derek and Ron were on their way down from the summit, they encountered Keith's group of 31 climbers, still on their way up the mountain. Once they were back at Tahurangi Hut, Derek felt this was worth mentioning to TAC club captain Tom Herbert. Tom might've been a little concerned about the time, because he was mindful that once the sun goes off the snow, it becomes very hard and icy. Coupled with that, there was a strong southerly wind blowing down the mountain which would've, uh, increased any icy factor. About quarter past 4, when they hadn't appeared, he was going outside periodically, looking through his binoculars. Uh, he alerted Search and Rescue. MAN: ZLVA5 calling ZLVA. ZLVA5... Then about a quarter of an hour later, uh, the parties appeared in sight, and he cancelled that call. Over. But Tom was still concerned about how long it was taking for Keith's party to descend. At about 20 past 4, he asked Derek and Ron, along with Barry Hartley, to head back up the mountain to help them. Just over 7000ft, at a feature called Bryant's Rocks, we met up with the parties. Both Ron and Barry tied on to ropes and took control of them. There were no other ropes that were long enough for me to tie on to, so I went to Keith Russell and asked him if I could assist. Keith asked Derek to keep the ice steps clear and to support nurse Ann Tomlinson, who was at the front of his rope. All the parties continued down towards the final section of the descent. It was here that each of the parties had to decide whether to follow the normal route along the ridge or down through Snow Valley using the steps they'd cut that morning. I suggested to Keith that perhaps I could go ahead and cut new steps straight down the ridge. He said to carry on because, um, it would take time to do that. Were you feeling pretty good at that point? Well, I thought we'd soon be back at the hut. I mean, that's how close we were. In fact, so close, it was barely 30 minutes away. I can remember that I had a bit of a roving commission. I was at times above the rope; other times below it. The, uh, leading girl on Keith's rope slipped several times, and I was walking alongside her to reassure her. So each time, I was able to pick her up and stand her on her feet again. Several times she said, 'How much further?' and I tried to reassure her by saying, 'Well, it's not far now.' OMINOUS TONE I was standing on the uphill side of the rope when she slipped, and I picked her up and held her and, um, put her on her feet again. And I'd no sooner done that than the whole party seemed to fall at once. SNOW CRUNCHES And the rope was torn from my grasp. There was nothing I could do. I didn't have time to even attempt a belay. It all happened so quickly. TENSE TONE It just all seemed to go like that. (CLICKS FINGERS) How close were you to her when` when she, sort of, got taken away? Probably not` About as close as I am with you now, holding onto the rope on the uphill side. WIND HOWLS It` It was almost a sense of disbelief, I guess, that I` I saw what was happening, and my recollection is of Keith Russell's ice axe clattering on the ice, trying to stop them if he could. Derek rushed back down to Tahurangi Hut, where Tom Herbert had been waiting. Tom immediately alerted Search and Rescue, put that call` telephone call through to North Egmont. What had begun as an exciting day on the mountain had quickly turned into a nightmare. Now in the freezing darkness, Derek had the daunting task of finding the fallen climbers. Having watched in horror as Keith Russell's party of seven slid away from him, Derek Quickfall now faced the desperate search to see if any of the climbers had survived the fall, and to reach them before hypothermia and frostbite set in. I was wondering what I'd find. Would they be all together? And shortly afterwards, I` I found the first nurse. She had broken free of the rope, was sitting up, disoriented, had bad facial injuries. I suppose you could say she was semi-conscious, and she had a broken ankle. As far as I could see, she didn't have any back injuries, and, uh, so I lifted her behind the shelter of a big rock out of the wind. And it was a feeling of helplessness, you know? (SIGHS) 'What do I do next?' I had a bit of basic first aid, but certainly not to the level that was required. Derek was joined by Barry Hartley, and together, they found two more of the nurses. Janet Cameron was already dead. But Ellen McBeth was still alive, with facial injuries and a badly broken leg. While I made her as comfortable as possible and wrapped her in blankets, Barry went on, and shortly afterwards, he gave four flashes of his torch to indicate he'd found the remaining members of the party. The climbers had fallen over 10m, and continued to slide down the rocky Hongi's Valley ` some for almost a kilometre ` resulting in serious head injuries, lacerations and shattered bones. The dead and injured were stretchered down to the recently built Nissen hut. It became both a triage station and a temporary mortuary. Toni, this is where the site of the Nissen hut was. And that was pretty important at the time of the accident, because this is where all of the injured nurses were stretchered to. Was it warm inside? Was it warm inside? No. It was freezingly cold. It was just a shell. I can't even recall whether there was a floor in it or not. To try and heat it a bit, uh, they put stones on top of the stove at Tahurangi and, um, carried them down to the Nissen, and used them as, sort of, hot water bottles to warm. Because after two and a half hours of lying in the snow, uh, most of those injured nurses were hypothermic as well as- as frostbitten. Five people died on the mountain that night. Janet Cameron, Ruth Caldwell, Andrew Lornie and Julie Cassells all either died immediately in the fall or succumbed to hypothermia while waiting to be rescued. It's thought Keith Russell had died while being stretchered down to the Nissen hut. For a 22-year-old, uh,... it was rather a` a harrowing experience. Even several of the nurses who had made the successful descent suffered from serious frostbite. The following morning, Ellen McBeth was one of the last nurses to be taken off the mountain, still alive, with a badly broken leg and serious facial injuries. It's just incredible how the conditions can change up here. I mean, we've been here all day, and we started out perfect blue sky, and now there's just complete cloud cover. Half an hour. They were so close to finishing that perfect day, and it all just went so horribly, horribly wrong. SOMBRE TONE All the nurses who had survived the accident on the mountain had been taken to New Plymouth Hospital for treatment. On duty was Maureen Alexander, who was yet to find out that her friend Janet had died in the accident. I went into the ward and, um, suspected something was wrong. The atmosphere was very quiet, and everybody was sort of whispering in the background. The matron called us in and told us that, um, some of the girls had been killed, and just to get on with the job. That's when the shock hit. And I found it very difficult, with the patients reminding us of the fact that something was wrong, to go about my duties. I was in tears, and they were streaming down my face. How`? How do you possibly get on with the job when you hear news like that? Well, in those days, you were expected to. Um, we didn't know what counselling was. Um, to` Better for you to be working than sort of sitting around moping. And, of course, Maureen would then have realised her friend Janet Cameron was one of the dead. If I hadn't talked her in to going, she wouldn't have gone. And if I hadn't given her my clothes, uh, that's another reason for her not to have gone. And, uh, she would have been doing the things she does best at home, out of harm's way. The following day, still coping with the grief of Janet's death, Maureen was on duty again and nursing Ellen McBeth. Ellen's leg had been put in a splint and she was being treated for frostbite. Her parents were on their way to New Plymouth to see their daughter. Ellie was quite alert while I was talking with her. We chatted a little bit about the mountain, what happened and where she was at the time, and how lucky she was to have come back. I had to finish giving her a bed bath and sat her up in bed ready to receive her parents. When I came back, um, she'd passed away. It` It was terrible. I couldn't, sort of, believe it. She'd come down the mountain, and everything was going to be fine, and then to suddenly pass away on me was just more than you could cope with at the time. Ellen had died of a suspected embolism, and looking on in disbelief were her helpless parents at her bedside. Six young lives had been snatched away on Mt Taranaki. Of those who fell, the only survivor was Ann Tomlinson, and she carried the scars of the accident for the rest of her life. SOMBRE MUSIC On the evening of the 26th of July 1953, Ellen McBeth's family were comfortably at home in Marton, blissfully unaware of events unfolding high on the freezing slopes of Mt Taranaki. Those events would irreversibly affect the life of Ellen's 12-year-old sister, Marlene. We'd had dinner, and we were` I know that we had the fire going, listening to the radio. PHONE RINGS And I remember my dad taking the call saying there'd been an accident. (SOBS) Just give me a minute. The next morning, Marlene's parents went straight to New Plymouth Hospital to be at Ellen's bedside. Marlene and her brother, Len, were left in the care of a neighbour. She took the phone call, and then she shot off out the front door, and my brother said to me, 'Something's wrong.' And about quarter of an hour later, she came back and she just put her arms around us and told us that` that... that Betty had died. (SOBS) She'd passed away, and that Mum and Dad would be home first thing in the morning. I know I went back to my bedroom, and I cried. I must've cried myself to sleep. And the next morning, we got up and just thought that it'd go away, but it didn't. And then Mum and Dad arrived home, and... we were at the door waiting for them. And that's the first time I've seen my dad cry; as they got out the car. And they just came and hugged us kids. Um.... (SOBS) Yeah, they were just heartbroken. A couple of days later, they brought her home. They brought her back to the house in a closed coffin, cos she had injuries. We had her photo on it,... and it took me two days before I could` it was the day before the funeral before I could even go in the room and look at the casket. I just didn't wanna believe that she was there. And I just couldn't get it in my head that she wasn't gonna come home, because to me, she was invincible. Nobody ever talked about the accident or what happened. It was` It was never discussed. And I think, at my age and probably my brother's, that was the hardest thing for us to come to terms with. My mum and dad's marriage broke up a couple of years later. Mum left. My brother was sent away to school; I don't think he could handle it. And I remained here with my dad. It was like everybody abandoned the family, really, apart from my dad and I. Mm. But I do miss her dreadfully. I'd give anything to have her back. SOMBRE TONE REFLECTIVE MUSIC The death of Ellen McBeth, Janet Cameron and four other climbers shook the New Plymouth community, and remains etched in the minds of those that were involved. How did such a tragic event occur? Was it simple human error or were there other factors? I've come back to the mountain in winter. I want to see Hongi's Bluff, the scene of the accident, for myself. The conditions this morning give me a real sense of the perils of this mountain. When the weather turns harsh, this is a dangerous place to be. Safety today is taken extremely seriously. For me to climb up to Hongi's Bluff, I'll be relying on the expertise of alpine instructor John Jordan. It's an easy gradient to start with, but it will probably get to maybe 30 degrees angle. As we get higher up, it will get steeper as we get through the top end of Hongi's Bluffs. How dangerous is it up there? How dangerous is it up there? It can be as dangerous as you like to make it. Um, if you concentrate, um, get your techniques right, um, anchor well, you can minimise that danger. There's always a danger on the mountain, like there is on the road. A lot of the nurses didn't have one of these ice axes, but I do, so can you teach me how to use one, please? OK. The ice` ice axe basically is for walking in snow. You use it as a third leg. You drive it in; it's good support. You hold it around that way in event of your feet sliding out. Holding your axe that way, you can swing it across your body, drive the pick into the snow and put your body weight on top of the shaft, and that keeps the pick in and that will stop you in the snow. OK. OK. OK. All set to go? OK. OK. All set to go? All set. Snow again. Always have your ice axe on your uphill hand, and that gives you a lot better support, keeps you better balanced, and particularly in windy conditions, you'll find it's much more comfortable, and it's safer. Even though the temperature's dropped below zero and visibility is barely 20m, it's still amazing being up here. It reminds me that this mountain has been a playground for generations of young men and women. A social hub. A place to get away and be with friends. But maybe that familiarity can nurture complacency in an environment that can suddenly become unforgiving and hostile. We've come up about, what, 100m, 150m from where we were, and I've noticed the snow's getting a bit harder, and you're getting me to put my crampons on now, right? Yes. This slope will steepen up a bit as we go up further, and also the snow conditions will be a little harder. So while we're in a nice safe position, we'll put on crampons and the rope now, and then when we get on to the steeper ground and the harder ground, we'll be already geared up, ready to go. Heel right back. Lock it off here. So, John, these feel pretty light. They wouldn't have been this light, I'm guessing, back in '53? No. The crampons they'd worn then would have been steel, so they would have been, uh, you know, quite a lot heavier. We'll attach you to the end of the rope now; we'll clip the end of the rope in. So we'll do a figure-of-eight knot. OK. Clip in and release that, and that will automatically lock itself so you can't open the gate; it can't open accidentally. it can't open accidentally. So how far away from me will you be? Initially, we'll just walk together, so there'll just be a short length of rope between us. And as we get higher and it gets harder and a bit steeper, we'll start putting in snow anchors, a snow stake. I'll go ahead and put in the snow stake, and then I'll bring you up on the rope and you'll stay there; I'll move ahead and put in the snow stake again so we're fixed to the mountain at all times. Great. TENSE TONE We're still below Hongi's Bluff, and I'm seriously grateful for having crampons and an ice axe. I just can't imagine how the nurses in Keith's party coped with only hobnail boots and ski poles on the icy slopes above. John, Hongi's Bluff is just above us here. Yes. Yes. Where exactly would they have fallen off? They would have fallen from the` the top. Hongi's Bluff's a series of three to four bluffs, so they would have come off the top one, down onto the next one and down like that, right down to the valley here below us. They fell quite a distance, didn't they? Yes, well, conditions were fairly hard at the time, and so, um, they` they would have kept sliding for quite a way. 50-odd years later and this is still NZ's deadliest peak. What is it that makes this mountain so dangerous? You have a solitary mountain on the West Coast, and the weather changes extremely quickly. The type of snow we get here has got a high moisture content, and that can freeze over very quickly once the sun goes off the slope. And that catches a lot of people out also. Do you think people underestimate it? I think a lot of people do. Um, the more experienced people who are here often on the mountain treat it with a lot of respect, and understand the quick changes in weather and conditions. OK. We'll turn again. This is the spot. Hongi's Bluff is just above me, and the nurse's would have fallen right through this valley behind me. I'm trying to picture what it would have been like for them. They came up here; it was a beautiful day; they had their friends; they were relishing the chance to be away from the nursing home for a few hours. But even having climbed up here today, you can just see how dangerous this place can become. You know, when they were walking down, it would have just got colder and darker by the second. You know, one mistake, one slip, and six lives were gone. EMOTIVE MUSIC In the wake of the accident, the NZ Alpine club undertook a thorough investigation. The report attributed the tragic deaths of Keith Russell and the others on his rope to four critical faults. I now want to find out what exactly went wrong that terrible night in 1953. There had been many climbing accidents on Mt Taranaki before 1953, but none had been as deadly as this one. A full inquiry was held into the incident, and the tragic deaths were attributed to four faults - personnel, time, equipment and errors of judgement. I've come to Puke Ariki Museum in New Plymouth to meet Graham Langton, one of NZ's leading mountaineering historians. The nurse's accident fits into the long history of accidents on Mt Egmont, Taranaki. The Taranaki Alpine Club has been running open climbs to the summit of Taranaki since 1950. And they organize them really well. They took hundreds of people to the summit, and in fact, in the open climb in 1953, they recorded the 1000th ascent on an open climb. But just six months later, the nurses would have a very different outcome. Right from the initial planning, mistakes were made. The nurses organised the` that climb, but the TAC should have organised the climbing. But no one seems to have taken responsibility. Keith ends up at Tahurangi Hut between 10 and 11 when all the nurses are arriving, he ends up having to organise because there's no one else to do it. And he's a nice guy; he's a very generous guy; he's a very willing guy, and he's unlikely to have wanted to turn would-be climbers away. With little time to prepare, the parties began their ascent much later than what was considered normal. I cannot believe that they started so late, because that was just against all mountaineering practice of the time. Everyone knew that you needed to give yourself that margin of safety at the end of the day, so you started early. A lot has also been said about the equipment the group had on them that day. None of the nurses wore crampons, but they did have climbing boots. They're leather boots, and they've got a multiple leather sole ` three layers there. And what they've got on the bottom here are hobs in` in the middle of the foot in here. But these are called Tricounis, and they actually did a great job cutting into hard snow or even ice. So essentially, the nurses were wearing... Standard` Standard` Standard` Standard` ...standard equipment. Standard` Standard` ...standard equipment. Standard equipment on their feet. But there was a shortage of other equipment, including ice axes. Only 20 axes were available. Now, Keith would have had his own; possibly one or two of the other guys had their own axes, so there's not enough axes for 31 people. This is a really lovely example of an ice axe from the period. It's got the ferrule here, and the big spike, which would normally have been much sharper. You've got the adze here, and the pick here, and a little bit of notching on the pick, which was supposed to make it safer when you used the pick. Keith's roped party of seven had one set of crampons and one ice axe between them. Most were relying on ski poles or sticks. Ski sticks just don't function like an ice axe. They're about the same length, but they bend. They don't have` They have a point, but that's not a solid point. You can't smash them into hard snow or ice in the same way. And they just are not solid enough to hang on to. And of course, if you slip, there's no way with a ski stick that you can self-arrest. Did they have enough ice axes? No. Did they have enough ropes? No. Something that I think most leaders, even in the 1950s, would have been concerned about. SNOW CRUNCHES With inadequate gear, the groups had descended in fading light and worsening weather, and then Keith Russell took the fateful decision to return down the ice steps above Hongi's Bluff. So what happened as they approached Hongi's Bluff, then, before the accident? What went wrong there? Well, there was a choice of route, because when you get down to what are called the staircases, which are on the ridge above Tahurangi Hut, the choice is there to` either to stay in Snow Valley, which comes down on top of Hongi's Bluff, or you get onto the staircases. And so at the top of the staircases, a decision had to be made ` 'Do we cut a new route down or do we follow the steps we've got?' Derek Quickfall suggested he cut steps down the ridge, and Keith clearly thought it would take too long. By this time, uh` by 6.30, it's been icy for a couple of hours. The wind has got up. The wind` People talked about the wind getting up, but` and, um, I think it was Richard Williams said it was about 50 knots, which is over 90km/h, and it's gusting. And a gusty wind is more likely to push you off your steps. And if Derek Quickfall had not been with that party of seven climbers, we may never have known how or where they fell. And he said, quite clearly, all the other six seemed to fall simultaneously. SNOW CRUNCHES So there does seem to be quite a bit of evidence from the strength of the wind, from they all fell simultaneously, and the fact they seem to have fallen head first, that does suggest they were blown out of their steps by a gust. SNOW CRUNCHES, WIND HOWLS REFLECTIVE MUSIC From what I've seen and heard, there was no single, crucial mistake that caused this tragic accident. But you can only hope that the loss of those six young lives on Mt Taranaki that day in July 1953 will never be surpassed as NZ's worst ever mountaineering disaster. Captions by Jake Ebdale. Edited by Ingrid Lauder. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2015