A Grave ADVENTURE

I kicked my boots into the soft gravel slope and searched for a solid handhold, feeling acutely aware of the weight of my pack and the band of cliffs below. Above was a steep pinched gut, which looked climable, but I was battling with my nerves, as was my mate. I turned back to see his eyes wide. He didn’t look keen to follow me.

We were attempting to follow a route described in Moir’s Guide that hadn’t changed since my dog-eared 1986 copy was published. The intervening years had seen rockfall make things much more… interesting. We were climbing alongside Flower Fall, en route to Marshall Pass, in the hinterland of the Milford Track. As we kept reminding each other: this was just meant to be tramping.

I had learned of this route while reading about the Fiordland explorations of W. G. Grave, whose party was the first to cross and name Marshall Pass in January 1906. The original party of