The forgotten half of skiing tragedy

Its origins are also well known, built as an emergency shelter with funds from the grieving parents of Laurie Seaman after the young adventurer went missing while skiing near Mt Kosciuszko on August 14, 1928. A blizzard blew in and despite an extensive search unprecedented in scale, Seaman's body wasn't found for almost two months. The coroner ruled that Seaman's death was due "to continued exposure to extreme cold consequent of being caught in a blizzard".

However, Seaman wasn't the only back-country skier to ski into a white-out that fateful August day. His ski-buddy Evan Hayes also lost his life that day, his body not found until later the next year. Not that it seems many people (readers of this column aside, of course) know this. In fact, in a series of straw polls conducted by your akubra-clad columnist during visits to Seamans Hut (have you seen the new toilet out the back of the hut? Talk about a loo with a view) over the last 12 months, not one single person I spoke to was aware of the plight of poor Hayes. Not surprising, given the name of the hut.

"So why isn't there a memorial for Evan Hayes as well?" responded one puzzled picknicer sheltering from the wind inside the two-roomed hut, a thought mirrored by several readers of this column's recent review of Nick Brodie's account about the double tragedy. "Evan seems the forgotten man in this saga, where's his hut?" asks Keith Smith of Kambah. Where indeed.

I suspect there are several reasons for the lack of a specific memorial to Hayes, including the relative wealth of the two families. Funds for Seamans Hut came primarily from a £200 donation by Seaman's well-heeled parents. Meanwhile, Hayes's parents were long dead before their son's tragic misadventure and coming from a working-class family, his siblings were hardly flushed with cash.

Family circumstances aside, there was a general desire among the skiing community for some sort of memorial to Hayes. At the official opening of Seamans Hut, there was even a pledge by the ski club both men had belonged to, "to erect a chalet to the memory of Evan Hayes". However, perhaps because funds ended up being funnelled into a new chalet at Charlotte Pass, or maybe because of the onset of the Great Depression, the memorial chalet never eventuated. A proposed public memorial for Hayes put out to tender in 1937 also failed to materialise.

Further, the remote location where Hayes's badly decomposed body was found by boundary rider Jack Willis on December 31,1929 was likely also a limiting factor in erecting a memorial in situ. Even today very few people, including most park rangers, know the exact location and even fewer have visited the site.

One man who has hiked there is experienced mountain man Graham Scully of Watson, who along with author Klaus Hueneke and Henry Willis (son of Jack who found Hayes's body), using historic photos as a guide, 'rediscovered' the site back in 1988.

Aware of my interest in the tragedy, at the end of last season's snow melt, Graham kindly offered to take me there. Great, finally a chance to shine the spotlight on Hayes. Joining us was Stef De Montis who spends almost every weekend exploring the spine of The Snowies.

"We couldn't have picked a day in more contrast to that when Laurie and Evan went missing," says Graham as under a blazing summer sun we step off the busy Kosciuszko summit trail at Etheridge Gap and head towards the terminal moraine just south of Lake Cootapatamba.

The precise spot where Jack and his dog stumbled on Hayes's body is a closely guarded secret and I'm not about to publicise the coordinates, but wow, what a vista. Tucked under the Kosciuszko cornice and looking out towards the sparkling waters of Lake Cootapatamba, it's hard to imagine a more spectacular spot to take your last breaths.

Of course, in the midst of a fierce blizzard and possibly badly injured, Hayes probably wouldn't have even been able to see his hand in front of his face.

A haunting photo taken just before Hayes's remains were hauled off to Sydney for burial of his skeleton laying atop his skis prompted speculation about the events leading up to his death. Most theories are consistent with those of Klaus Hueneke who reports in Huts of the High Country (1982, ANU Press) "that after reaching the summit with Seaman, Hayes decided to take an alternative route down, injuring himself in the process. As a last effort to survive he may have dug a small depression [and] lain down on his skis [to] await rescue."

"That picture of Hayes's skeleton atop his skis is seared into my brain" says Stef, standing at the very spot where the skier was found. "No matter how well I think I might know the mountains and the volatility of their weather, I'm sobered by the fact that this could happen to me". Now, if Keith Smith of Kambah was looking for a lasting legacy from Hayes's untimely death, there's one right there.

In terms of a more formal legacy or memorial, to carve out a walking track to where his skeleton was found would impact the highly sensitive nature of the very wilderness that Hayes loved so much, but surely a simple tribute to him would be a worthy addition to Seamans Hut. Oh, and I'm pretty sure it would come at a fraction of the $400,000 Parks spent on the loo with a view. RIP Evan Hayes (1898-1928).

When Murray Johns of Aranda recently visited the University of Canberra Hospital (UCH) he discovered a large internal courtyard. Surrounded by walls two storeys high and protected from the wind, it's a great spot to catch some sun in winter. However, what really grabbed Murray's attention was a lone Volkswagen Passat wagon parked in the middle of the courtyard.

"The courtyard had no ingress or egress except for the normal 'people' door with no obvious ways for the car to get in our out," explains Murray who was so perplexed about the purpose of the car, he asked the first staff member he could find.

And the answer? "It turns out the car, donated by the Australian Volkswagen Group and the Canberra Hospital Foundation, is used to help retrain rehab patients how to get into and out of a car safely and also with carers to practise getting equipment into and out of a car," explains Murray. Unfortunately, the staff member couldn't provide Murray with any intel as to how the car got there in the first place. Was it craned in? Driven in via a secret tunnel?

Neither, according to Todd Kaye, director of allied health with Canberra Health Services. "The car was pushed into place near the end of construction of the hospital in 2018," he reveals. "The contractors pushed it through the main doors of the hospital then carefully manoeuvred it through the double doors into the courtyard."

However, the installation didn't all go to plan. "They initially put the car in the wrong around," he laughs. "We needed enough space for carers to access the boot to practise putting wheelchairs in and out, so they had to spin the car around on one of those dollies with multidirectional wheels.

"I'm sure one day it will be removed or replaced, but for now it will stay on as an invaluable piece of equipment in the rehab process," explains Todd.

Another mystery solved.

Clue: Henry was here.

Degree of difficulty: Medium

Last week: Congratulations to Helen Agostino of O'Connor who was first to correctly identify last week's photo as taken from Long Point Lookout near Tallong (whose railway station is home to a wayward Clem Cummings-designed Canberra bus shelter).

"We only chanced upon this breathtakingly beautiful lookout a few months ago and have already been back twice since," says our ecstatic first-time winner. "From the lookout, you can see how the Shoalhaven River almost completely double-backs on itself," she explains. "The first time we visited was after heavy rains and the roar of the rapids was incredible." Helen just beat a number of other readers to the prize, including Roy Priest of Pialligo, Alan Sinclair of Canberra City, Meg McKone of Holt and Glenn Schwinghamer of Kambah.

How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and suburb to tym@iinet.net.au The first email sent after 10am, Saturday August 14, 2021, wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.

Earlier this week Sue-Ellen Hodge of Calwell noticed this double bower in her backyard. Like me, Sue-Ellen would like to know if she has captured evidence of a two-timing male satin bowerbird, or are double bowers a common site in our suburbs?

Forget the yeti, check out the latest evidence of Australia's very own snow monster recently spotted by Acacia Rose and the team from K7 Adventures in The Snowy Mountains. In a bid to protect this rare species from an avalanche of sightseers, Acacia is keeping the exact location of the sighting a mystery.

CONTACT TIM: Email: tym@iinet.net.au or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, 9 Pirie St, Fyshwick