Ian Blackmore

In late 2021 Rob Greenaway sat down with Ian Blackmore in his lovely house in Richmond to capture some of his memories of his ranger days in Tongariro National Park in the 1960s and ‘70s, as well as stints in Westland National Park and his final role at Arthur’s Pass as Chief Ranger. Ian had also taken the time to pen some of his recollections. Ian sent further details of the 1975 lahar past Whakapapa Village in emails to Harry Keys. The article is a combination of Ian’s writing, the conversation and the emails.

Ian worked a series of jobs before applying for the position of National Park Ranger, including fruit picking in Nelson, cheesemaking in Temuka, and making barrels in Mataura, all the time maintaining a keen interest in tramping. While in Temuka Ian applied for a Park Ranger role at Tongariro National Park, and went through series of interviews with the Lands & Survey Department in Invercargill, Mataura and finally in Wellington.

When employing staff in those days Lands & Survey would look at whether you were a tramper or a carpenter. Ian was practical and had an interest in the outdoors, and had also worked for an Acclimatisation Society, so knew a bit about wildlife. On the day of his appointment he travelled to Tongariro to meet the other staff at the Park. There weren’t many. At Tongariro in 1960 the total employed staff at the Park were:

• The Chief Ranger, Alec Peters, who was followed by John Mazey in July 1961;
• An assistant ranger, Jim Purdy, who Ian replaced. Jim had been an active member of one of the greater Wellington tramping clubs;
• Australian ex-policeman ranger Mike Gardiner who returned to Australia (later writing ‘Recollections of Ruapehu [1950s]’ published in 2011) and was replaced by Noel Blackbourn;
• Bill Hislop who managed the Whakapapa Motor Camp, starting in 1961, and became a Ranger. Bill was a capable builder who worked on various construction projects in the Park;
• A seasonal extra to look after the ski patrol in winter. Max Pemberton of the Hutt Valley Ski Club was the ski patrol supervisor in 1960.

The Chief Ranger lived at Whakapapa Village near The Chateau in a house designed by the Ministry of Works. Ian had a little cabin with a shower but no toilet, located at the Tourist Hotel Corporation (THC) staff quarters (“not far away, but far enough”). The other Ranger lived in the men’s quarters of The Chateau.

Meals were provided at The Chateau staff dining room. Ian preferred cooking for himself.

The Chateau Manager was on the Tongariro National Park Board, and some people thought he ran the Park. Ian thought that he might have had some influence on Alec Peters, but when Alec departed, Ian (then aged 24) became Acting Chief Ranger, “and the Chateau Manager certainly didn’t influence me” he says.

The Chateau operated the ski hire and mountain shops at the time. Later, THC ceded control of some services in the Whakapapa Village to the Park under John Mazey’s stewardship.

One of Ian’s first actions as Acting Chief Ranger was overseeing the instalment of an ex-WWII wire telephone cable between the ski field, as well as telephone lines for the Rangers, shops and to the National Downhill Lift (the wire was replaced after four years by a protected cable).

Management planning for the Park in the early days was to a large degree dictated by the suggestions of user groups, such as skiers and trampers, who communicated their priorities to the Park Board. There were quite a few ski lodges already built when Ian arrived, and in 1960 there was a boom with four new lodges built at Whakapapa (Alpine Sports Auckland, Wellington Tramping Club, Rangatira Alpine Club from Auckland and a Matamata club). Ian attended all their openings, usually around Queen’s Birthday Weekend. The ski fields required a lot of work from the Park staff, cleaning up rubbish, providing toilet and rubbish facilities and communications. Nobody gave much thought to the problems clubs and their activities were creating. “Perhaps they should never have gone there in the first place?” One continuing problem was septic tanks, which never operated properly. There was often an area of green growth showing where the discharge wasn’t working correctly – often caused by long periods of no use and then sudden activity.

The Tongariro National Park Board oversaw the work priorities for the Park, in accordance with the National Parks Act. There was a close relationship between the Park and Lands & Survey District Office (Wellington for Tongariro). The Lands & Survey Department provided a secretary (Stafford McDonald), and a budget to the Board. The Chair of the Board was usually a Commissioner of Crown Lands, but, due to the scale of the District, at Tongariro it was an Assistant Commissioner (Noel Coad, later Director-General of Lands & Survey). Tongariro was therefore run largely independently by the Board, although it also came under the ambit of the National Parks Authority which was chaired by the Director-General (David Webb from 1958).

Ian describes John Mazey, Chief Ranger from July 1961, as a very good boss. John was a draftsman with a tramping and skiing background and, importantly, got on well with Ray Cleland, the recently appointed National Parks Supervisor. Ray had previously been a Ranger at Arthur’s Pass, and started his new national position in a little office at the top of the Lands & Survey building in Christchurch. He was later shifted to Wellington, which he didn’t like. He stuck it out for a while but when Aspiring National Park was established “he was down there like a shot”. John was interested in the staff and their training, especially in first aid and park management. Ian says John was “interested in doing things better than they’d been done in the past”.

There was quite a resurgence in national park management systems at that time, particularly after a visit by an American national park ranger, Myron Sutton. He promoted national park management plans and got John quite excited, along with Vince McGlone who was Chair of the Tongariro Park Board at the time.

Lands & Survey also employed a parks planning officer, John Stewart, a surveyor from Palmerston North. He would assist with applications for new lodges, survey their sites, and work on other park development projects. He also surveyed what Ian describes as a far superior route to the existing Desert Road, passing through parts of the Park but it never gained any interest.

In the 1960s the Park focused mainly on building and updating huts and tracks. Many existing ones were quite ancient. The Round the Mountain Track was still being built and was relatively crude. In 1965 Ian worked on the Lockwood-style Whakapapaiti Hut, which was the first time a helicopter had been used in Tongariro for construction work (helicopter’s hourly charge-out rate was £75). The following year the Ketetahi Hut was built. Ian chose the site which John Mazey approved. Ian also assisted the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) at the Seismic Observatory. He changed seismographic charts, developed the recordings which were taken on photographic paper, and posted them to Wellington. Ian oversaw the construction of a pre-fab shelter on Dome Peak, which had been started prior to his new role, but material onsite had been broken.

In the early 1960s there was a commercial Sno Cat operation that took visitors up to the Crater Lake. However, it left large track marks up the glacier and many people were against it. Another large Sno Cat was built and went through two owners, John Willems and Barry Pearson, but was too large and never worked. Ian never felt isolated, but it was a long way to town.

National Park township had a butcher shop and a little store, but they had to go into Taumarunui to buy most things. Many items for the Park itself were supplied through Colsons at Taumarunui. Some wood was supplied locally by the Puketapu Timber Company at National Park, such as 2x2” totara track poles, some of which might still survive.

Weed control was an annual operation, largely via manual control with backpacks and herbicide. A mechanical pump on a trailer, towed by the standard issue Landrover, with a 44 gallon drum of 2,4,5-T, was used to treat the broom on roadsides between Whakapapa and Waikune. It always returned. Heather was ignored as it had spread too far. Pinus contorta was a problem right from the ‘60s, and in particular was all over the Desert Road-side and to high altitudes. Bill Cooper was responsible for the southern end of the Park and took a great interest in eradicating pines, while the Army was doing their bit on their side. In summer, students were also employed. There was some excellent cooperation and Ian notes that it’s very nice to see the difference (i.e. few wildling pines) nowadays.

Summer interpretation programmes started in a small way in the ‘60s with Ian and other rangers giving a little talk at the overnight shelter at the Whakapapa Motor Camp in the evenings, for example. Ray Cleland arranged for a carousel slide projector, funded by the McKenzie Trust. The idea of interpretation was generally copied from the USA, and Ray brought some ideas back from his travels there. Ray originally started interpretive talks in Arthur’s Pass where they had a suitable building. There wasn’t one at Tongariro until the Whakapapa Visitor Centre was built. The ground for the Visitor Centre was prepared in 1961 by the Ministry of Works (MOW). Ray Cleland might have had a hand in its design, and John Mazey upset the MOW by re-orienting its frontage “just a little bit.” The MOW team was concerned that the ground hadn’t been compacted enough in one corner, “but the building is still there” says Ian. 

The Centre opened in 1962 and the Chief Ranger’s new house was part of it. John didn’t like that, since people came knocking at all hours. He wanted accommodation elsewhere, so the house component was converted to offices. Ian, Ray Cleland and Alan Braid from Westland (now also retired to Richmond) worked on the stonework on the exterior.

Winter was very busy with skiing. The Park had a good relationship with Ruapehu Alpine Lifts (RAL) and servicing the ski fields was a large component of the Ranger’s roles. Buses would turn up from all over, from Auckland to Wellington. Mana Transport would hire their furniture trucks to ski groups who would throw their sleeping bags in the back and sleep on the journey. Many groups were poorly prepared with the wrong clothes and equipment. They’d go up in the Goats and perhaps hire skis from the THC to use in Hut Flat and Happy Valley, “and if there was a bit of dampness in the air, they’d drop like flies” recalls Ian. The Goats were originally ex-US Army four-wheel drives, left-hand drive and operated by Chateau Transport.

Roy Turner ran the National Downhill Ski Tow in opposition to RAL from 1961. He worked very hard to establish it through 1960. His concession ran for only four or five years and the Park Board refused to renew it as RAL had a right to use the area. Jimmy Johns, an engineer from Stratford, was Roy’s main partner, and with the Chair of Board (Vince McGlone) he did a deal for RAL to take over the area. RAL quickly added lifts to reach Roy’s tow. Happy Valley was later developed independently by John Willems with rope tows, and RAL then bought him out.

Ian left Tongariro in 1966 after marrying his first wife, Nicola Titler, who was English, and travelled to the United Kingdom with their daughter for 12 months. When he returned there was no work available in the Park, and after a stint on the Tongariro hydro scheme he was employed for three years he was a Fisheries Officer based in Turangi. He wanted to go back to parks, and ended up in Westland National Park. Ian recalls it as a great place but with fewer active users compared with Tongariro. He began work in Fox Glacier in 1971, where Peter Fletcher was Chief Ranger. Visitors mainly looked at the scenery in those days (“they didn’t wear it out with their eyes”) and tramping and climbing was just on the increase, with several deaths of young climbers who were exploring new terrain.

Ian met his second wife Marie, who worked at a local motel, at Fox Glacier, and they were married in 1973. 

While at Fox Ian did a six month exchange with a Ranger from New South Wales National Park. When the NSW Ranger returned to Australia, he told Ian that Ian had been the successful applicant for the Senior Ranger position at Tongariro National Park.

When Ian returned to Tongariro in 1974 for his second period of employment, staffing had markedly changed. Ian had 47 staff in the middle of winter, including lots of car parkers. John Mazey was still there, but only for a few weeks. Kerry Mawhinney took over as Chief Ranger, coming from Egmont. Bill Cooper was Senior Ranger at Ohakune. Paul Green started that year at Ohakune, along with Murray Reedy and Herb Spannagl as Rangers at Whakapapa with John Clay and John Blount at Tūrangi – and later Neil Simpson. Neil Clifton started in 1975 and Ian attended his farewell 37 years later.

Sherpas from Nepal came over to learn about park management and conservation, and studied at Lincoln and went on to work in both New Zealand, Nepal and the U.S.A. The work still included renewing eroded tracks (but with a fulltime employee), eradicating wild pines, and managing broom and gorse.

In 1976 Ian and Marie had their first daughter, Heidi, in the middle of winter. All the roads were blocked with snow and Ian used a Toyota with chains to get out at 4am. “A beautiful drive” he recalls.

All Park staff were housed close together at Whakapapa, so life at the Park was relatively social. Marie and Ian also bought a boat for use at Lake Taupō, Whitianga, Bay of Islands, Kawau Island, Tutukaka, and Lake Tarawera. Staff housing had improved by the 1970s and Ian had a “proper house” at Whakapapa Village.

John Mazey had learned how to use the Government’s budgeting system (“the bane of all Senior Ranger’s lives.”). March 31 was the end of financial year and the Department wanted final accounts to be in around March 1. The budget was often only confirmed several months into the year, and staff had to spend it as quickly as possible and get the invoices back to Wellington. Surpluses had to be spent and buying such items as new vehicles at the end of the financial year was common. The new staff house was designed by John Mazey and, with spare budget available at the time, he wrote out a work order to buy all the materials from a business in Taumarunui before they were available. He was lucky no one went bust in the meantime says Ian. Senior Ranger work was mainly office-bound.

A lot of time still went into managing the ski fields, before the issuing of the concessions to RAL in 1977, after Ian had left. One staff member working on cleaning toilets at the time remarked to Ian, “THC and RAL get all the money, and we get all the shit.” “Which was quite right to a degree” says Ian.

The Park also still provided ambulance and safety services, relying on significant volunteer effort specially in ski patrols. Rangers were expected to be Jacks of all trades.

The most memorable thing for Ian about Tongariro was “just being there” says Ian. He was conscious of living on an active volcano but was never worried; although he thought about it a lot while stuck with two others in the Dome Shelter in very severe weather for three days while looking for a Colombo Plan student from Borneo. (He was found in the shelter thinking he was at Blythe Hut). 

Several spectacular eruptions were notable, particularly Ngauruhoe in 1975. The Rangers had been aware the volcano was warming up for a short while. The first explosion left a massive convoluting cloud in the sky, and it was followed by a series of eruptions. Thankfully the ash drifted away from Whakapapa. The team drove immediately to set up an SSB radio at Mangetepopo Hut (Marie also came) from where they could see heat shimmering above the crater. Immediately before each eruption the radio would crackle with interference and a huge boom would follow. There was a lot of dust in the air and each shockwave was obvious through to about 5pm when the volcano went quiet. On the same day, Herb Spannagel was escorting a school group near Red Crater, and they were pummelled with ash and small stones. They carried their packs over their heads for protected and came out “looking like coal miners.”

Ruapehu erupted at 3:59 am on 24 April 1975. Ian’s emergency phone rang, but there was no one on the line. Another call came 10 minutes later, and Ian assumed that it was some prankster. He returned to bed but could hear what sounded like a jet plane overhead, which slowly grew louder. After damaging some ski lifts, a lahar came down the Whakapapanui River and topped or splashed the surface of the bridge above the village but did not result in any flow down the road. Some residents in Hepi Terrace especially those nearest the stream got a big fright. Murray Reedy got his family out in a hurry and, with someone’s dogs barking and other vehicles leaving, Ian thought it was probably worth getting out of bed. He went to the Park Headquarters to let everyone know. There was no general alarm (as there was no system on the mountain at that stage, although it was planned) and people made up their own minds whether to leave or not. The lower SH 48 bridge was unaffected. Ian’s earlier mystery phone calls were caused by cables being torn out by the lahar at Delta Corner and The Staircase. Ian phoned the Tokaanu Power Station to warn them of the lahar in the Whakapapanui River heading their way. Unfortunately, they relied on a slow, three-hour closure mechanism for the gates on the intake, rather than the instant emergency closure, and so ended up with a lot of material in the hydro scheme and into the Tongariro River.

Ian assisted with search and rescue as required. They had a few funny stories like people who walked out and hid deliberately, occasionally after arguments. There were also a few sad deaths, such as in 1963 when Colin Crosby was separated from his friend on Mount Ngauruhoe and died of hypothermia. Although Colin’s climbing companion had seen Ian at the Mangetepopo Hut earlier in the day, he didn’t report him missing until that evening at the Park Headquarters. This search involved Bill Bridge from the Tararua Tramping Club (who the police later took on to train their staff), the police and an independent search and rescue team. It was the first time a helicopter not hired by the Park was used (the police paid). The search took three days, and Colin’s body was found near Tama Lakes. But deaths were relatively infrequent at Tongariro.

Ian recalls that while at Tongariro in the 1960s, they did the same work as at other parks, but they did not feel part of an integrated national parks network. Tongariro had its closest relationship with Egmont National Park. The staff from Egmont would visit occasionally, including Wally Sander and Ted Atkinson. While they had the same uniforms, the Parks were managed entirely separately by their Boards through to 1981, when the National Parks Act was replaced.

Ian completed five six-week block courses at Lincoln College for a Diploma in Parks and Recreation Management, starting in 1975 and graduating in 1980. The block courses included natural history, landscape, park management and surveying, and he completed a dissertation on weed control at Arthur’s Pass. Pat Devlin was one of his lecturers, who Ian recalls starting at Tongariro in 1964 to help with the interpretation programmes, and doing “an excellent job”.

In 1981, when Ian was Chief Ranger at Arthur’s Pass, he noticed a big shift in management. After the new Act came into force, he was left alone as Chief Ranger for about a year until “someone in Lands & Survey thought we’d better have a committee to manage these parks.” A management committee was formed with a Commissioner, Executive Officer, and specialists in history and landscape, holding monthly meetings. Later there was a large change when the North Canterbury Parks and Reserves Board was established, which Ian saw as an improvement on the old Parks Board system. Ian had also transitioned from being employed by the Parks Board when he was first appointed, to being a public servant at Fox Glacier. This change gave Rangers more job security and better terms, and Ian could better see a career path ahead.