La Perouse (New Zealand)

La Perouse
La Perouse
	La Perouse (middle) and Aoraki (right)
Highest point
Elevation	3,078 m (10,098 ft)
Prominence	496 m (1,627 ft)
Coordinates	43°36′12″S 170°5′53″E / 43.60333°S 170.09806°E
Geography
	La Perouse South Island, New Zealand
Parent range	Southern Alps
Climbing
Easiest route	glacier/snow/ice climb

La Perouse, originally called Mount Stokes, is a mountain in New Zealand's Southern Alps, rising to a height of 3,078 metres (10,098 ft).

Geography

La Perouse is located in the Southern Alps of the South Island, four kilometres to the southwest Aoraki / Mount Cook.^[1] Unlike Aoraki / Mount Cook, La Perouse sits on the South Island's Main Divide, on the border between Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park and Westland Tai Poutini National Park. On the northern side, the La Perouse Glacier feeds the Cook River that flows into the Tasman Sea.^[2]

Eponymy

It was originally named Mount Stokes after John Lort Stokes, who was assistant surveyor during the second voyage of HMS Beagle (1831–1836) and captain of the survey ship HMS Acheron (1848–1851). Because of the prior naming of Mount Stokes in Nelson, the mountain was renamed La Perouse in honour of the French explorer Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse (also spelt comte de La Pérouse) whose expedition foundered on Vanikoro in the Santa Cruz Islands of the Solomon Islands in 1788.^[3]

1948 rescue

La Perouse was the scene of the most arduous rescue in New Zealand's climbing history in 1948, where Ruth Adams was injured and had to be carried on a stretcher over the summit and through deep gorges to the West Coast road.^[4] She was a member in a climbing party including Harry Ayres, Edmund Hillary and Mick Sullivan.^[5] The rescue was the first time that Hillary and fellow climber Norman Hardie met; they started a lifelong friendship, with Hardie having been on the board of Edmund Hillary's Himalayan Trust for 22 years.^[6]

References

^ Palman, Alex. "Climb NZ route database". NZ Alpine Club. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
^ "NZ Topo Map". NZ Topo Map. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
^ Reed, A. W. (2010). Peter Dowling (ed.). Place Names of New Zealand. Rosedale, North Shore: Raupo. p. 212. ISBN 9780143204107.
^ Barnett, Shaun. "New Zealand Geographic, The Forgotten Climb". Retrieved 27 August 2016.
^ Wilson, John (14 October 2014). "Mountaineering - Climbing faces". Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
^ "Man of the mountains". The Press. 29 November 2008. Retrieved 27 August 2016.