Is Derek man or magpie?
Fifteen thousand pieces of glass. That’s how many pieces 76-year-old Derek Andrews has picked up off Mt Taranaki since his obsession with what others leave behind began on January 4, 2007.
Andrews can tell you exactly how many pieces he picked up on a certain date, on one of his exactly 743 trips to the top of the mountain in the last 10 years.
It’s by no means a record number of summits, he said, but what makes his journeys to the top and back so noteworthy is what he brings down with him.
‘‘I bring down everything manmade I find up there,’’ he said.
And his home is testament to that. The man is mountain mad, everything in his living room is in honour of Mt Taranaki. He even got married in the Stratford Mountain House.
Almost every book on his bookshelf is a tramping club manifesto, mountain guide or other mountain-related faded book, which he carefully removes and gently blows the dust off.
You can’t ignore the piles of glass, rusted metal, coins and other assorted junk. But to Andrews it’s not junk.
‘‘It’s part of the mountain’s history...I don’t know if anyone else will see it that way though,’’ he said. ‘‘That’s the way I see it.’’
‘‘I can’t remember when it started, or why, it was a long time ago now.’’
Though he can’t remember why it started Andrews can remember the details of almost every climb he’s done. He’s also got stacks of diaries filled with details of his climbs even including the time it took him.
Many of his finds are labelled and dated, spread across tables and the floor of his cosy home in New Plymouth.
To this day he’s still finding bits of glass. He recently lugged down two kilograms of the stuff, the most he’s ever found on one trip.
‘‘The reason I find all this glass is because I take different routes,’’ he said. Because of this he doesn’t often run into anyone until he gets to the summit. Sometimes he’s the only Kiwi up there. As for why he climbs up so often and why he feels compelled to bring every trace of human existence down with him Andrews is a bit vague. ‘‘You’ve got to do something when you retire and I’ve been here all my life. It just sort of grows on you.’’ Andrews said he and former mountain guide Ian McAlpine – who also brings glass and other treasures down – used to climb a lot together.
‘‘Ian must be nearing 1800 climbs by now,’’ he said.
‘‘We sometimes used to fight over the glass and other bits, we both wanted them for the collection.’’
There’s no sign of him slowing down on his climbing frequency. In January he reached the summit eight times and he’s already climbed to the top five times this month with two more trips planned this week.
He’s not going for any record, goal or any specific number. He’s just climbing for the sake of climbing.
‘‘I’ll never get to 1000, maybe 800. I’m getting on a bit now,’’ he said.