Hemp ropes and oilskins
For many climbers, history in the Darrans probably begins in 1968, when Harold Jacobs and Murray Jones climbed the north buttress of Sabre. This book will correct that misapprehension: with one or two incongruous exceptions, the entire era of high-standard alpine rock climbing which that route inaugurated is ignored.
By 1970, writes Hall-Jones, almost all the peaks had been climbed, along with all the more obvious new routes. His Darrans is not a place where half a dozen climbing routes can coexist on a single face of rock, and the image of a man hanging in etriers from a sheer, dark and damp Fiordland cliff, which in my mind typifies the 1960s, does not find a place here.
The Darrans, however, seem to provoke (or even encourage) wilful infatuation. This is unapologetically Gerry Hall-Jones’s book, and it celebrates the old school of Darrans climber, carrying hemp ropes, oilskin parkas, long wooden-shafted axes and nailed boots (although gym shoes were taken for tricky rock sections).
Essentially an annotated chronology, it is remarkably comprehensive, even down to listing the first 15 ascents of Mt Christina. Although I would have wished for more annotation – more stories, more anecdotes – Darrans enthusiasts will enjoy immersing themselves in the seven chapters that progress along the road to Milford. The author is clearly a stickler for accuracy and there seems no reason to question his grasp of the facts. A couple of the photographs have been printed the wrong way round, but perhaps that is something best left for enthusiasts to enjoy looking for. The photographs are a highlight, especially the full-page colour images of climbers in the 1950s and 1960s from the collections of Hall-Jones, Jacobs, Graham Dainty and others.
Mountaineering from the Milford Road: an illustrated history of the first mountaineering in the Milford region, 1895 to 1970 by Gerard Hall-Jones
https://tepuna.on.worldcat.org/oclc/271085750
This review appeared in the Climber 66, Summer 2008–09