Mountains near Fox River, south Westland

Mountains near Fox River, south Westland

In 1941, geologists Harold Wellman and Dick Willett travelled down the West Coast between Hokitika and Lake McKerrow in search of minerals. They noticed that the Alpine Fault formed an abrupt western boundary to the Southern Alps. This sketch from Willett’s notebook shows a notch (far left) where the Alpine Fault crosses a saddle and the steep mountain front.