Matakitaki plaque: Max Smart, Hairy as a Prophet..

Several years ago I came across the plaque up the Matakitaki valley (between Nelson Lakes and Lewis Pass) that read: Max Smart Hairy as a prophet Strong as a horse. Apart from recognising the name from the program 'get smart' (a false lead, I assume) I thought nothing more of it other than to wonder who Max Smart was to deserve such an epitaph. In a bored moment today I googled the phrase "Hairy as a prophet" and came up with a match - from a book by H W Tilman entitled 'Eight Sailing / Mountain Exploration Books'. Google shows me the paragraph in which the quote appears, in the following text, but no more doe to copyright: "Hairy as a prophet and strong as a horse, he lent an energetic hand clearing some of our local jungle. On the Sea Breeze there are no winches ... nor are they needed providing one has a Max Smart or someone as strong on board" Now, I only searched for "Hairy as a prophet" so finding not only the second sentence, but also the same name as appeared on the plaque was, to say the least, intriguing. So: does anyone know who Max Smart is/was (assuming he's a real person), and whether real or fictional, why he has a plaque half-way up the Matakitaki. Or alternatively does anyone have the above book and can shed some light on who it refers to?