Strong spirit: The life of Phillip Herron

Sunday, 4 January 2026

Mike White is a senior writer and columnist.

OPINION: On the shores of Lake Wānaka, just off the main path, is a curving stone seat looking out to the water and mountains.

A small plaque is attached between smooth rocks.

“In memory of Phillip James Herron.”

It records that Herron died on January 9 1976, aged 19, while attempting Patagonian mountain Torre Egger.

“May the spirit that stirs those who climb mountain peaks remain forever determined and strong.”

By the time he died, Herron had carved a place for himself in New Zealand’s alpine annals, a seemingly fearless Dunedin teen who climbed some of the hardest routes our mountains offered.

Herron was frequently accompanied by Bill Denz, a stoutish smoker whose unconventional approach and unbridled determination resulted in legendary status.

Forgetting his water bottle on one groundbreaking solo of Mt Cook, Denz instead used an empty coffee jar, leaving it near the summit as an insouciant middle-finger to those who dared follow.

In a letter, Denz described a stormy Mt Cook descent in 1974 with Herron: “We brave the sand-blasting wind to peer down the South Face, our next objective. Phil is thrilled by its steepness and oppressive air. Our abseil down from the saddle, in darkness and blinding wind, is an eventful one, but soon we are at Empress Hut – that damp, cramped little shack, our haven away from it all, where we lie under a pile of heavy blankets and sip our fifth cup of tea.”

That sentence - “Phil is thrilled by its steepness and oppressive air” - gives lie to how different Herron was from most of us.

Herron had been introduced to climbing during an Otago Tramping Club trip to Mt Cook when 14, and he was soon dubbed The Kamikaze Kid for his athleticism and aggression.

Denz considered him something like a kid brother, somewhere between prodigy and protégé.

And Denz was on the Patagonian expedition to the spires of Cerro Torre when Herron died.

Heading to base camp in a whiteout, Herron fell into a crevasse, becoming wedged deep in the cleft.

Unable to free him, his colleague reached base camp the next day to raise the alarm.

By the time team members returned, Herron was dead, and his body was left encased in the ice.

The tragedy shattered Denz and temporarily made him retreat from climbing.

As one climber commented about Denz receiving news of Herron’s death: “I think he would have preferred a bullet to it.”

But Denz did return to the mountains, pitting himself against some of the world’s most improbable peaks.

He fully understood the dangers, and once remarked he had a 50:50 chance of reaching old age.

But at other times, he spoke of not possessing a death wish, and welcoming retirement.

He didn’t make it.

On a 1983 Himalayan expedition, Denz was swept away by an avalanche, and killed. He was 32.

When Herron died, his obituary in the New Zealand Alpine Journal was written by friend and fellow climber Neal Whiston.

His lines bear the air of the times, the dissolving days of the hippies, the fading fragrance of peace and love and patchouli.

Whiston opened with a quote from Bob Dylan, and ended with a “cosmic poem” by A.R.D. Fairburn.

In between, there were passages from Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums, “which says a lot about what I think Phil was into,” wrote Whiston, “but it’s hard to know. He’s not really here anymore, you see.”

“I’ll always remember the good times I had with that little guy, flying through the summer sun of the Darrans, or getting high on Jefferson Starship and dope in Dunedin.

“Twenty years of life in vain? No way. And the best part of it is I know I’ll see him again, and that’s for sure.”

Whiston was maybe right.

Eight years later, aged 28, he was killed climbing the Copland Pass near Mt Cook, while rescuing a friend.

His headstone in Dunedin’s Broad Bay cemetery contains none of Kerouac’s enlightenment or embellishment.

“Died on the mountain, 18th February 1984.”

Fifty years on, Herron is remembered in many ways, ways 19-year-olds rarely are.

A difficult 2750m peak adjacent to Torre Egger was named Punta Herron.

There is a rock face at Baring Head near Wellington named for him: Only the Good Die Young, after a 1977 Billy Joel song.

The New Zealand Alpine Club website notes: “Climbing this wall is the mark of the true Baring Head climber.”

There is a rock shelter in Fiordland’s Darran mountains where Herron loved to climb, with views across Lake Adelaide, called Phil’s Bivvy.

Also, the Phillip Herron Memorial Prize for Leadership and Service, at his former college, Bayfield High School.

And a small plaque on a lakeside seat, with the most wonderful view to the mountains, where the spirit of those climbing them remains strong.

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