The challenge of A LIFETIME
Don French could never resist the call of the mountains. As a kid growing up in rural Masterton, hours were whiled away staring out the window and memorising the rolling summits of the Tararua Range – his schoolwork forgotten.
“I was never going to be in the first 15, I had no academic prowess, and no skills in the arts,” he remembers.
“But when I went tramping, I found I could walk up hills just as well as any other kid, and that fed me to a certain degree.”
French followed his daydreams to his first summit in the seventh form – “playing hooky” to climb Mt Taranaki. He discovered he was “quite good” at it – a reinforcing moment for a teenager who didn’t quite fit anywhere else.
