Hewitt Leonard Rodney

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Biografie:
Leonard Rodney Hewitt (1913-1964)
The sudden death of L. R. Hewitt in February, 1964, removed from the New Zealand scene one of its best known, most experienced, and certainly most consistent climbers.
Rodney Hewitt was brought up in Christchurch and educated at Christ's College. He soon became interested in mountaineering and, like so many of us, had the good fortune to be able to participate in the great resurgence of climbing activity which occurred in Canterbury in the early 1930's. There were still many virgin peaks to be climbed and virgin passes to be crossed, and for many years he served his apprenticeship in the Canterbury ranges. It was an excellent apprenticeship and laid the foundation for the subsequent climbing skills which he possessed in such full measure. He was a safe and faultless climber on rock, a brilliant exponent of snow and ice techniques and of more than average competence in bush work, boulder hopping, river crossing and other aspects of New Zealand mountain travel. Above all he displayed superb judgement in route finding, in assessing snow and ice conditions and, so important in New Zealand, in understanding the vagaries of alpine weather.
In the later 1930's he moved to more southern valleys and climbed extensively in the Mount Cook region. He served as a bomber pilot in No. 75 Squadron, R.A.F., during the war, and this together with a short post-war period was the only interruption of a long and continuous climbing career. His post-war activities, with which I was privileged to be associated, ranged far and wide and a list of his ascents would read like a gazeteer of New Zealand mountains. Amongst them were Cook, Tasman, Haast, Elie de Beaumont, Haidinger, Malte Brun, Silberhorn, Minarets, d'Archiac, Earnslaw, Whitcombe, Arrowsmith, Couloir Peak, Chudleigh, the High Thumb, Green, Waiter and a host of others. Most remarkable about this list is the wide range of districts in which he climbed. He was always intensely interested in mountain scenery and mountain geography, and peak-bagging, if not entirely incidental, nevertheless still very much took a second place. This geographical interest in mountains, combined with his wide reading of New Zealand alpine literature, gave him an encyclopaedic knowledge of New Zealand mountains. He was thus a most fitting person to collaborate with Mrs. Mavis Davidson in the publications The Mountains of New Zealand and A Guide Book to the Central Alps. My own small collaboration with him was on a revised edition of a New Zealand Alpine Club handbook; as on a mountain, I found that he was doing most of the work.
In 1955 he was a member of the Canterbury Mountaineering Expedition to Masherbrum in the Karakoram Himalayas. In this he fulfilled a long-standing ambition, and even although the party did not climb Masherbrum he gained great pleasure and satisfaction from the expedition. He was one of the final assault party which reached 23,300 ft. before being turned back by adverse weather conditions. With a little more luck they would certainly have made the ascent.
During his relatively short life he had two successful professional careers, in insurance and in hotel management. He could well have had a third, in Antarctic administration, for in 1960 he was leader at Scott Base and in charge of all New Zealand activities in the Antarctic for that year. The Antarctic had always fascinated him and this experience fulfilled yet another life-long ambition. He planned to return to the Antarctic and he might well have devoted the later years of his life to Antarctic affairs. Those who were with him at Scott Base testify to those qualities of his which we who have climbed with him knew so well, tolerance, calmness, good humour, infallible judgement and, when necessary, implacable firmness. He had been a member of the Canterbury Mountaineering Club since 1931 and the New Zealand Alpine Club since 1932. He was elected a member of the Alpine Club in 1939.
One hot afternoon in February, 1964, he walked up from the Hermitage to the Hooker hut to join friends in a climb of the South peak of Mount Cook. He suffered a sudden heart attack at the Hooker hut and although he was brought out by stretcher and flown to Timaru Hospital, he died a few hours after admission. Mountains played a large part in his life and he would have wished to be close to them when he died.
He was a rich and lovable character and a staunch friend to many; he will be sorely missed.
A. P. Thompson
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 69, 1964, Seite 320-321


Geboren am:
1913
Gestorben am:
02.1964