New book by Kim Logan
Kim Rangiaonui Logan’s name is synonymous with climbing, extreme mountaineering and search and rescue work but the Central Otago legend’s recently released memoir A Journey Between Worlds is so much more than an adventure story.
Interspersed with tales of mountaineering on big named mountains like Everest and K2 and his beloved Aoraki Mount Cook he tells the story of a challenging and confronting childhood, born as a Māori but raised as a Pākehā.
His father, the only Māori ever to attend Sandhurst in London became a commander in the 28th Māori Battalion, but returned from war a damaged man unable to cope with his children.
He believed Kim and his brother Wilfred had to ignore their Māori heritage and fit into the Pakeha mould if they were to succeed in life.
After being left as a child with an unsympathetic caregiver Kim was sent to Kings prep school where he professes to find a family he never had.
As a small boy he saw his parents maybe once a year. It was a difficult relationship – “but you accept your life. If it’s brutal you just put your head down and try not to be noticed.”
He was introduced to climbing while living in Nelson which literally allowed him to “climb away from my past”. It grew into a passion which subsequently took him all over the world including the notorious K2 where he was part of the ill-fated expedition in 1995 which claimed the life of his close Queenstown friend Bruce Grant.
In his memoir he claims “climbing is easier to talk about than my childhood. I’d happily bury it all. But I’m only here for a short time, so I will tell that story rather than let it die with me.”
During his book launch at the Queenstown Writers Festival he told interviewer Mike McRoberts the mountains gave him total freedom. “You’re not judged in the mountains. They are trustworthy where people often are not.”
Reaching mountain summits was not just a feat but an emotional passage for Kim and his message is that everyone has their own version of Everest to climb and no matter how tough the journey they will get through it.
