Birthday boy still at his peak
A legendary and eruptive love feud is, according to Trevor Kitson, partly to blame for not quite making his 24-hour mountain-scaling deadline.
For his 50th and 60th birthdays, the Palmerston North chemistry lecturer climbed the North Island’s four highest peaks – Mt Ruapehu, Mt Taranaki, Mt Ngauruhoe and Mt Tongariro – in a day.
Recently retired after 45 years at Massey University, Kitson attempted the 24-hour four-peak feat again on Sunday in celebration of his 70th.
Because, according to Māori myth, Mt Taranaki had fled to the coast away from the other central North Island mountains after losing the love of the alluring Mt Pīhanga to Mt Tongariro, it’s a ‘‘disappointingly long drive’’ there from the Central Plateau.
Couple that with a blanket of dense trail-obscuring cloud on Taranaki’s flanks, and the newly minted septuagenarian whose odometer turned over on February 27, took 25 hours to complete his high-level birthday bash.
An experienced tramper, keen mountainbiker, and bush track runner, the cryptic crossword aficionado, former Manawatu¯ Standard ‘‘It’s Only Words’’ columnist, and full-time ‘‘apostrophe nazi’’ is still pleased with his achievement.
‘‘I was standing on top of all four mountains entirely alone,’’ Kitson said.
Taranaki was the last peak on Kitson’s list. He left the North Egmont car park 952 metres above sea level on Sunday at 5.02pm, and was atop Taranaki’s 2518 metres at 8.28pm as the sun was disappearing.
‘‘It was clear on top, but there was thick cloud on the way down. A torch is no good in that sort of cloud, it just shines up the white mistiness.
‘‘I was following the [trail marking] poles down on a rocky section called The Lizard, but it was too hard to see any footprints to follow and it was slow going.
‘‘I have fired off an email to [the Department of Conservation] about the poles. On the Tongariro Crossing the poles are marked with luminescent paint. On Taranaki it’s red paint, which is OK during the day, but not in the dark.’’
Not wanting to miss the trail, the lack of visibility caused him to wait an hour chilling on the mountainside before making it back to his car at 1am on Monday.
Kitson’s long mountain-climbing day had begun at midnight on March 4 from the Tongariro National Park Mangatepopo car park.
Accompanied by a personal locator beacon and ‘‘Stick’’, his trusty ‘‘pet’’ tramping aide, he had climbed the 2287m Ngauruhoe by 2.46am, and reached the top of 1978m Tongariro at 4.32am. Two-and-a-bit hours later he was driving to the Turoa skifield car park for his attempt on the 2797m Mt Ruapehu. He reached the top at 10.31am after a 21⁄2 hour climb. Then came the descent, followed by the long drive via State Highway 4 to Whanganui and SH3 to Inglewood’s North Egmont Rd.
‘‘After doing [the climbs] at 50 and 60, I had to do it at 70. A lot can happen before I turn 80, but it’s still a dream,’’ Kitson said.