Jack Clarke (left), George Graham (centre) and Tom Fyfe (right) pose at the Hermitage the day after their successful ascent of Aoraki/Mt Cook on Christmas Day 1894. In the radio recording Tony Nolan tells the story of the last stages of the climb.
Transcript
Around midday the three men started climbing again. They were at last on the slopes of the final peak. Soon the angle was less severe and with the top of the mountain in sight above them, they let out a shout and charged happily upwards. Fyfe himself admitted later that the way they rumped up those last rocks was rather full hardy. But as he said, you couldn't blame them for getting little excited on such an occasion. Above the last of the rocks they came to the final ice cap. Without a pause, the little party set to work to chop footholds, sending the chips of eyes hissing down the slope in a continuous stream. A hundred or so steps, a few more, then above them, nothing but the sky. And so at 1.30 on the afternoon of that Christmas Day of 1894, the three young climbers, Jack Clarke, Tom Fyfe and George Graham stood at last on the summit of New Zealand's highest mountain.
Using this item
Reference: Programme 372 – Cook for Christmas by Tony Nolan, OHInt-0002/336
Image: Private collection, by George Mannering
Audio: Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision. Reference: 32059 (1894). Not to be used without permission
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.