A climber in New Zealand

by Malcolm Ross

CHAPTER IX

DOWN IN THE VALLEYS

“I know a vale where I would go one day,

Where snows gleam bright above the vast moraine,

A mighty cleft in the great bosoming hills,

A great grey gateway to the mountains’ heart.”

After Bliss Carman.

A book on climbing may be supposed to deal mainly with peaks, passes, and glaciers; and perhaps, in these days of the rock experts, one should add, precipices. It is supposed to be, very largely, a matter of “victories of ascent, and looking down on all that has looked down on us.” And in that phase of it, no doubt, lies the great joy of climbing. Yet the days of defeat are not altogether to be despised. For one thing they have a chastening influence upon the soul of the perhaps, over-ambitious mountaineer. Beside his winter fire, too, when he sees the great valleys and the high peaks taking form, once more, in the smoke-wreaths of his evening pipe, the days spent in the valleys—days when he never climbed at all—will mean for him a flood of precious memories that he will have no desire to stay. This perhaps applies with greater force to the climber in a new country, for he cannot—like his brother in the older lands—take his ease along the level road, nor, in a moment of temporary mental aberration, be tempted by a mountain railway! For myself I have got great enjoyment in those days, when, “having loitered in the vale too long,” I have “gazed, a belated worshipper,” and even out of days when “the rain-clouds hung low on the mountains with their burden of unshed showers.” Such days give one time to indulge in a little quiet philosophy—to study his brother humans under the lens of adversity; to see his own mind through the rays of introspection; and, perchance, to concern himself with the minor matters of birds and beetles, butterflies and flowers. I may therefore be pardoned by the general reader—if not by the mountaineer—if, in writing this chapter, I climb no higher than a mountain hut or a low bivouac.

One sunny December day, when I was rather tired of work, and thinking of some sort of holiday, a letter arrived from my friend and former climbing companion Dr. Norman Cox. He asked me to join him in an expedition to the Mount Cook district. There were several obstacles in the way of my going. But the talk of mountaineering is as the whiff of battle in the nostrils of an old war-horse, and when once the conquering of virgin peaks and the making of new passes into unexplored country begins to loom on the climber’s horizon, not all the gold in Golconda will keep him back. Therefore the difficulties were brushed aside, and one fine day my friend, my wife, and I found ourselves with ice-axes, tent, sleeping bags, Alpine rope, and provisions, on board the Mount Cook coach, bound once more for that goal of New Zealand climbers, the Hermitage. We were to be joined there by Mr. T. C. Fyfe and, later on, by Mr. W. J. P. Hodgkins, who, like Fyfe, had climbed with us on other expeditions.

The weather had been bad at the Hermitage, but it now showed signs of clearing, and, after waiting two days, my wife and I decided on a trip up the Mueller Valley. We started one fine morning, she carrying the camera, and I three days’ provisions and the sleeping bags. For some miles from the Hermitage the ice of the Mueller Glacier is covered with great rocks and scree fallen from the mountains on both sides of the valley. Many of these rocks are in a position of unstable equilibrium, and, consequently, very difficult to walk over. As it was a hot day and we were not yet in form, we took matters somewhat easily, and, leaving our packs after half a day’s march, returned to the Hermitage.

Mount Sefton.

Next day we started off again, intending to make a bivouac half-way up the glacier. The weather was again fine, and a fierce sun beat down in the valley, making the rocks quite hot. We made many halts, and glacier pools, here few and far between, were in request. We lunched where the glacier curved round a bend in the valley, near two pretty waterfalls, a bluff of peculiar greenish-coloured rock, and some very fine ice cliffs. A glacier stream ran purling past, a strong jet of water, from which we filled our drinking-cups, pouring through an immense block of ice that was jammed in the bed of the stream. And every now and then an avalanche thundered down from the great ice cliffs that gleamed in the noonday sun high up on the shoulders of Sefton. One magnificent fall of ice arrested our attention and held us for a time spellbound. It broke from a gigantic cliff far up the mountain, and thousands of tons poured over the grim precipices with a roar as of loud thunder. The blocks were shattered into millions of pieces, and a great cloud of ice-dust rose into the air and slowly disappeared as the seething mass of ice reached the bottom of the valley and spread itself out like some great living, moving monster on the side of the glacier. The Mueller appeared to be much altered since our former visit some years ago, and in one place the debris of an enormous rock avalanche covered the ice, where before it was easy walking. Making our way up the ice cliffs to the right of the waterfalls, and then rounding a sharp bend in the glacier, we got amongst some very rough morainic boulders that had apparently tumbled from a rotten precipice on the left. Thence we climbed an old moraine and got a good view of our surroundings. Down below, on a narrow strip of level moraine, lay some huge rocks that promised us a good bivouac. Under one we found a little firewood, and beneath the lee of another a quantity of dried snow-grass, that afterwards served us for bedding. While I went to look for water, my wife walked to the farthest point of moraine we could see to look round the corner. Corners are always peculiarly tantalizing to her. We had no billy, nothing, in fact, except the little pannikin of our spirit-lamp, and before we separated we held a council as to the best method of carrying the water when found. The brilliant idea struck us of testing the much-vaunted waterproof capabilities of our rücksack, and off I started with it down to the glacier, where, after some time, I discovered a pool.

On returning I found my wife back, and huddled up in a blanket, for the sunshine had gone from the valley and it was intensely cold. Probably we felt it more so after the great heat of the day. Lighting my spirit-lamp, I started tea-making, but under difficulties. The tiniest little breeze wafted the almost invisible flame from one side to the other, and prevented the heat from reaching the pannikin. The snow-grass caught fire; I burnt my fingers; I almost lost my temper, and felt inclined to boot the whole inadequate contraption over the moraine. It seemed hours before we got that tea, and then it had a smoky flavour with which it would not have passed muster in the regions of civilization. Nevertheless, in this place, it was nectar to our parched throats, and we enjoyed it, sitting there under the shadow of that great rock, looking over towards the huge bulk of Sefton, cold against the amber sky.

It was really too cold to sit up late that night, so it was decided to gather our mattresses, and, knives in hand, we clambered up the hillside to cut snow-grass and the eidelweiss and small celmesia. Here we found some flowers of the ranunculus—the most perfect we had yet seen.

The rock under which we had to sleep only partially covered us, but the evening, so far, was beautifully fine. Everything promised well for the morrow, and, already, the first ascent of Mount Sealy seemed an accomplished fact. But, in the mountains, as elsewhere, hopes that are cherished as the evening fires die down, are apt to vanish before the morning fires are lit. So was it now. Our first blow, on turning out our packs, was the discovery that the Alpine rope had been left behind! Our hearts sank and our plans fell to the ground; but we were so eager over our proposed climb that we collected all our straps, fastened them together, and decided to climb with their aid rather than give it up altogether. Then we wormed ourselves into our bags, and endeavoured to sleep. But it was only a little after six o’clock, and since our infancy we had seldom gone to bed at such a preposterous time. As we lay watching the shoulder of Sefton, there came, creeping up behind it, a wreath of fleecy cloud, that gradually grew, and moved until it reached the summit. Puffs of warm wind stole across our faces. We feared a nor’-wester was coming up.

As I lay there an awful thought came into my mind. The rücksack was a fine pea-green colour, and we had noticed a peculiar taste about the water it had held. It was not merely a waterproof flavour. What if arsenic were employed in the preparation of the knapsack? Horrible thought! I instantly felt as ill as if I had been reading a medical encyclopædia, and was positive that, already, I exhibited all the symptoms of arsenical poisoning. Then my wife, who had dropped off into a doze, woke up in great excitement to tell me what she had just dreamt. She thought we were climbing up a steep snow slope by means of the aforesaid straps. Suddenly I disappeared down a crevasse, leaving her with all the straps dangling at her feet. She went as near to the great lip as she dared, but could only see down a short distance into its horrible blue depths. A good idea struck her. Hastily grasping the straps, she lowered the end into the crevasse. To her delight, she felt a pull on the improvised rope. She put forth all her strength and stood firm. Judge of her horror when the head of another man appeared, quite old, and bearded like Rip Van Winkle. “I’ve been down there for years! You certainly haven’t hurried yourself!” he remarked, as his head rose above the edge of the crevasse.

With the shock of this strange apparition my wife awoke, and as she retailed her droll dream to me we both laughed so loudly that sleep flew out of our cavern door, and seemed in no hurry to come back again.

For a mountain bivouac, however, our bed was not at all an uncomfortable one, and we did manage to sleep, though we were not at all reassured in our minds about the weather. One long, narrow streak of cloud, lit by the moon, trailed right across the heavens from the north-west, and boded ill. The barometer, too, began to fall, and it was evident that we were to have a change of weather. At 2.30 a.m. we were awakened by the first gusts of the approaching storm, and by the pattering of the rain on such portion of our sleeping bags as did not come within the shelter of the rock. This was the final blow to our plans. We had intended to rise early and start on our climb by candle-light; but now all we could do was to huddle as far under the rock as possible, in order to keep ourselves dry, and wait for daylight to enable us to beat a retreat to the more friendly shelter of the Hermitage. At 5 a.m. we wriggled out of our sleeping bags, and, in the pouring rain, walked down the glacier. Dripping wet from head to foot, we sneaked quietly into the house, and, after a wash—which we scarcely needed—and a change of clothes, we appeared at the breakfast-table, much to the surprise of the other inhabitants, who had been wasting their sympathy on the two mad mountaineers whom they thought to be storm-bound on the Mueller Glacier.

On the following day the weather was again fine, so I started for the hut on the Tasman Glacier, distant some fourteen miles from the Hermitage. Next day Dr. Cox and I carried swags of provisions and Alpine appliances some eight miles farther up the glacier to our old bivouac at the foot of Mount de la Bêche. Cox returned to the hut the same day, and I waited at the Bivouac, intending on the morrow to gather some Alpine scrub for firewood from the sunny slopes of the Malte Brun Range across the valley. In crossing the glacier next day I found the ice very much crevassed, and, not taking a good route, had to resort to step-cutting in more than one place before gaining the other side. Firewood was very scarce, but I got a small bundle—enough to boil the billy two or three times—and returned to the Bivouac, thence making my way down the glacier to the Ball Hut. Here I found Dr. Cox enjoying a well-deserved rest after the unwonted exercise of swagging.

An abrupt change from the surgery or the office stool to the swag enables the victim to make quite a number of new discoveries in the science of anatomy. The amateur porter may begin gaily in the morning with a full stomach and a light heart. In the cool, bracing air that succeeds the chilly dawn his fifty or sixty-pounds burden may seem almost as light as his own heart. But a couple of hours’ experience of a New Zealand moraine, with a mile or so of hummocky ice thrown in, will convince him that neither his pack, nor the important part of his anatomy already mentioned, is quite the feather-weight of his early morning imagination. And, while he has become aware that he is the possessor of an organ that can pump at quite an alarming rate, he is prepared to take oath that his pack is rapidly increasing in weight at the rate of from three to five pounds per mile according to the instability or the steepness of the moraine over which it is his ill-fortune to be scrambling. But of these two steepness is the more wearing, because instability gives only a momentary shock, and there is (generally) recompense in the exhilaration of a quick, though not always graceful, recovery; whereas steepness—or, worse still, the combination of steepness and instability—looms before you like a long nightmare, and depresses, even after it is conquered. By noon the straps are cutting into one’s aching shoulders, and it seems only a matter of time until the friction caused by the juxtaposition of swag and vertebræ has done irreparable damage to certain garments that need not be mentioned, and all this time the amateur porter has been performing acrobatic feats on slippery ice, and the measure that he has been treading over the unstable, live moraine has been remarkable, not so much for the dignity of its movement as for the language that has accompanied it. Finally, when hungry, athirst, and a-weary, he crawls up to his cold and lonely bivouac at the close of a grilling, sweltering day, he will tell you, with much forcible detail, that his pack weighs over a hundred pounds, and that swagging is the most matured and well considered invention of the Devil and all his angels.

Next morning as he rises, cold and stiff in every joint and limb, from the road-metal mattress upon which he has been trying to keep warm and snatch some well-earned repose, his outlook may be philosophic, though it will certainly not be optimistic. But breakfast, and the bracing mountain air, which is like a vintage wine, and a glorious summer sun, and further exercise will gradually dispel the miasma of initial trouble, while a week of this kind of work, with a minor peak or pass thrown in, will send him forth as a giant refreshed, ready to oppose all the ills that flesh is heir to, and eager to conquer the long icy slopes and grim precipices that guard the way to the virgin summits of his native land. Before long even his unquenchable thirst will have vanished, and, with forty or fifty pounds’ weight on his back, he will be able to hop from a moving rock on the live moraine to more solid footing without barking his shins in the endeavour, or to bound like a kangaroo across the rounded hummocks of the great glacier. “Ach!” said a distressed German scientist to me, on one occasion when I was setting the pace down the Great Tasman Glacier in a bitter rain-storm, “you are like a glacier flea—you take such joomps!” He had, himself, fallen twice on the hard, slippery ice hummocks, and his hand was freely bleeding from a cut, but he spoke more in sorrow than in anger, and at the end of the march he produced a couple of bottles of ale—one for himself and one for me—and then the two rival nations fraternized beneath the Southern Cross; and, under the soothing influence of the beverage, discussed the question of compulsory arbitration in labour disputes, and other abstruse economic problems so dear to the German mind.

On arrival at the hut I found that Fyfe and Mrs. Ross had walked the fourteen miles from the Hermitage, and, in the evening, Hodgkins surprised us by strolling into the hut after dark, he having left the coach near the Hooker Cage and tramped up the track the same evening. We were now ready to try the ascent of one of the higher peaks, but the barometer had fallen, and there were indications of a storm, which duly came to hand, so we stayed in the hut, amusing ourselves with a variety of games, cooking on the fire-can outside, and studying the habits of Mr. Nestor Notabilis, famed throughout New Zealand, and the world, as the most cruel of all sheep-killers.

This bird—a mountain parrot of beautiful plumage, and quaint and curious ways—is probably the most interesting of all the feathered reivers left on the ramparts of civilization. His home is amongst the hills and valleys of the Southern Alps. In most districts he is an outlaw, with a price on his head. At Mount Cook he is protected, because here there are few sheep to kill, and a few tourists to be pleased. Originally he must have waxed fat—or grown lean—on a diet largely vegetarian—with perhaps an odd worm or a grub or two thrown in, by way of variety—and the question of how he came to acquire carnivorous habits has been much discussed. Before the advent of the white man there were no four-footed animals in New Zealand, except, perhaps, a native rat, and it is doubtful if the kea touched him. My own idea is that it was his inordinate inquisitiveness that led to the change, and that the change was brought about in quite an accidental manner, just as that glorious and more famous discovery of roast sucking-pig was made! Thus when the early settlers, in the mountains, killed a sheep, they spread the skin, woolly side down, on the stock-yard fence. The kea, ever curious, swooped down upon it, and began to tear it to pieces with his strong, sharp beak. “Hallo!” he said to himself, “this is a great sport,” and then, after a few pecks, he stopped and began to think, for there was a new taste in his mouth—and the taste was good! It was the taste of mutton fat. And, from that day to this, the kea has never forgotten it. Then, one cold, hard winter, when all the berries were done, and he was idly pecking at another skin upon the stock-yard fence, there was set up in his brain a train of reasoning, till it suddenly dawned upon him that the sheepskin must have something to do with the sheep. And, next day, being hard put to it for a dinner, he flew down into the valley, and, there being no sheepskins about, he went back to the mountain-side and settled upon a live sheep. There he got his dinner! And, that same evening, the other keas, seeing him satisfied and replete, while they were cold and hungry, asked him where he had got such a good dinner, and he being in a good mood after such a dinner—for keas are very much like men in this matter—told them, and next day, and for many days afterwards, they all dined well. But the poor sheep could not understand why these hitherto innocent and friendly birds had suddenly become possessed of devils, and the owner of the sheep could not understand why so many of his sheep were dead on the hillside. But one day the owner of the sheep, through his spy-glass, saw a kea alight on the back of a sheep, and begin to dig, with his cruel beak, into the loin, so that he might get some nice warm kidney-fat for his dinner. And the silly sheep, not knowing how to ward off the attack, simply ran and ran till it fell down exhausted, and then, while the kea finished his dinner, the poor sheep died in great agony. But the next day the owner of the sheep got his gun, and all the shepherds got their guns, and there was woe and lamentation in many a kea family before the shadows of evening came down. From that day onward a price was upon the head of the kea, till now more keas are killed by man than there are sheep killed by keas; for the kea cannot get the taste of mutton fat out of his mouth, any more than an aboriginal—or for the matter of that his civilized brother—can forget the taste of roast sucking-pig.

Yet in spite of all this—which is quite a true story—my sympathies are with the kea; for, after all, this was the kea’s country, and the man should not have brought his silly sheep into it. And, when I see the flashing scarlet of his under wings against the blue of an Alpine sky, or note the metallic green and blue of his overdress contrasted against some snowy slope or dome, a feeling of deep regret about his ultimate destruction comes over me.

My wife, who, during my absences from camp and bivouac on the higher climbs, has had frequent opportunities of studying his character, does him more justice than any other writer I know of. He reminds her of “one of those Highland chieftains whose greatest glory was their being ‘put to the horn.’ With what impudence the kea struts, dances, or flutters past your very feet! How he poses himself on a near rock, and lets you come up boldly and miss him, and how condescendingly he waits for another shot, encouraging you with a cheeky ‘Kea!’ ‘Kea!’ I have seen a man unversed in the ways of the kea, steal along, holding his missile carefully behind him; but there is no need for concealment. You can go boldly up and have your shot—nothing to pay either, and probably no result, for even if you stun him he recovers quickly, and is off to his heights unless you are very smart indeed.

“I have had a dozen round me while I have been baking, interchanging confidential and probably contemptuous remarks on my method and results. They hardly troubled to get out of my way as I passed from hut to fire. I am not a good shot, and I feel sure they knew it. Any tins or rags thrown out are carefully inspected by them, generally in committee, and I have even seen them burn themselves picking coals out of the fire.

Cooking Scones.

T. C. Fyfe.

“Once, in the days before the luxury attendant upon huts and chimneys had crept into the Tasman Valley, I was cooking scones on an improvised oven made out of an old nail-can, when a number of keas flew down from the great shoulder of Mount Cook above the Ball Glacier. They watched the culinary operations for a time at a respectful distance, and it was quite evident that some of them had never before seen a fire. One, more daring or more inquisitive than the rest, came closer and closer to it, and I watched him from an adjacent rocky seat cocking his head first on one side and then on the other as he eyed the glowing embers. Finally, he walked right up to the fire and picked out a live coal with his beak. The result was startling. He dropped it with a loud scream, and, after a few seconds of vituperation, flew away to the moraine. There he was joined by all the other keas, and, judging from their chatter, they held a committee meeting, and carried a condemnatory resolution about the cook who exhibited to the eye of unoffending keas a beautiful red thing that made the beak so sore, and that filled the mouth with anger.

“But it is at the first streak of dawn they are liveliest. We came to the conclusion that the offenders were young birds out all night on the spree and coming home with the milk. On occasions, at the Ball Glacier Hut, their antics were the cause of much bad language in various tongues, for it was impossible to sleep during the entertainment. They held a sort of circus or gymnastic performance, but it lacked variety. About a dozen sat in a row on the ridge of the corrugated iron roof of our hut. One of them said ‘Off!’ and they glissaded down, scratching and clawing with their feet all the way, amid the great applause of the audience outside, and the curses loud and deep of the victims inside.

“The intervals were filled up by the whole troupe prowling round the hut yelping like puppies, with now and then a cry like that of a very fractious baby. And so it went on, for hours, unless someone was willing to get up and out and chase them off the premises. And then there would be heard more strong language, as the shivering pyjamaed individual, groping about in the dusk for some suitable missile, would tread on a meat-tin, or knock his big toe against one of the many rocks that surrounded the hut.”

One day, during our enforced idleness in the hut, a surfaceman engaged on the track came up to consult our doctor. He had been suffering dreadfully from toothache. After a careful diagnosis, it was resolved that the tooth must come out. But how? That was a question to puzzle a layman, for there were no dentist’s instruments within ninety miles of the Tasman Glacier. Nevertheless, it was decided to operate, and the doctor and I and the patient filed out of the hut to do the dreadful deed. We sat the victim down on a boulder, and while I held his head the doctor, with the blade of his penknife, skilfully dug out a much decayed molar! After it was all over the victim gave a sigh of relief, but did not seem quite satisfied. He felt around amongst the remaining caverns with the tip of his tongue, and at last found speech. “Thank ’oo very much, Dachter Cax—but—but—are ’oo shure you’ve gat the roight wan?” I confess I had my doubts on the point, but the doctor assured him it was all right, and he went away satisfied. Verily faith is a great thing! However, the little bloodletting had a soothing influence for the time being, and the real cause of the trouble was afterwards extracted at the Hermitage, with a more suitable instrument than a penknife.

The weather continuing bad, Dr. Cox decided to walk down to the Hermitage. After two or three days the weather cleared, and Hodgkins and I did a little rock-climbing on one of the spurs of Mount Cook, and some step-cutting on the ice cliffs of the Ball Glacier. On Saturday the 28th the weather had cleared. We devoted the morning to photography, and at 2 p.m., as there was still no sign of Dr. Cox or Fyfe from the Hermitage, we left with swags for the De la Bêche Bivouac, some eight miles farther up the glacier. The journey up over rough moraine and hummocky ice took us four hours and twenty minutes. My shoulders ached with the swag straps, and we all felt a little tired with the unwonted exercise of swagging over the loose rocks of the moraines, and with the jumping à la kangaroo from hummock to hummock of the white ice. At 8.30 p.m. the three of us turned into our sleeping bags under the rock. It was a glorious evening, and, through the entrance of our cave-bedroom, we looked far down the valley to the cold grey snows on the summit of Aorangi, which, an hour or so before, had been bathed in the golden splendour of evening. The morrow promised to be fine, and, thinking it a pity to waste a day, we decided to make the ascent of the Hochstetter Dome, hoping that Cox and Fyfe would have arrived by the time we got back. Alas! Cox climbed no more with us that year. On an ordinary level path near the Hermitage he sprained his ankle badly, and it was not healed for months.

CHAPTER X

AN ASCENT OF HAIDINGER

“Swinging there over the world, and not high enough to get a hold on heaven, it makes you feel as if things was droppin’ away from you like.”—Gilbert Parker.

Fyfe arrived at the Bivouac Rock in due course, and we began to think of other plans. It was decided to attempt the ascent of Haidinger by the eastern face. We were not yet in sufficiently good training to do ourselves justice on difficult climbs, and were moreover somewhat tired with the previous day’s exertions. Once more the good resolutions formed at nightfall were dispersed with the dawn, and instead of starting at 3.30 a.m. it was a quarter-past five before we got under way. Crossing the lateral moraines of the Rudolf Glacier, we hurried over the clear ice to the foot of our mountain at a speed that was too fast to be pleasant. I began to wish myself back in my comfortable sleeping bag under the Bivouac Rock. Fyfe was cutting out the pace at an unusual rate, but I set my teeth, followed doggedly in his footsteps, and answered his remarks with the briefest of monosyllables. This, ultimately, had the effect of stifling conversation altogether. In any case, it was too early for talk. But in an hour’s time we had made such excellent progress that we were on the ridge and scrambling up the first rocks, which offered no serious bar to our progress. The sunrise was splendid. Rocks soon gave place to snow, which rose in a gentle curve to a continuation of the rocky arête two or three hundred yards above. Climbing along this ridge, we at length found ourselves face to face with two enormous slabs of rocks, rearing themselves on end above the softer strata, and recognized in them the well-known Penguin Rocks, so plainly visible from the hut at the Ball Glacier, the summit of De la Bêche, and many other points miles away. The close view that we now obtained of them was decidedly interesting. They completely blocked our passage along the crest of the ridge, but we found a way round, and, gaining a safe spot on the other side, where there was room to sit down, we basked awhile in the warm morning sun and enjoyed our second breakfast.

On the right the ridge fell away in a great precipice to the Forrest Ross Glacier, here very steep, and raked by falling rocks and blocks of ice. Waterfalls shot from the edge of the clear ice above, and tumbled, with continuous roar, over the black buttresses of wet rock. The thunder of avalanches also rose on the clear morning air from the depths below. Immediately on our left another glacier flowed down the steep slope, and poured its tribute into the Great Tasman. From the highest rocks on this ridge a hummock of ice rose and curved over our heads, and through a great crack close beside us we peered down into the awesome depths of a bergschrund in the glacier on our left. At the end of this there was a beautiful grotto where the white of the snow and the tender blues and greens of the ice melted away into the gloom that shrouded the depths of the crevasse, and seemed as if it had been transported unsullied through the pure air from Fairyland. All the same it was awesome. I drew Fyfe’s attention to it, and, after we had duly admired its wondrous beauty, he remarked that it would be awkward if we dropped through! Whereat, we took another look, and, sitting, each, on a flat slab of slate placed on top of the snow, began once more to munch our “second breakfast.” Water was trickling from the ice-block above. We caught it in the crowns of our hats, and, squeezing the juice of a lemon into it, enjoyed a delightfully cool and refreshing drink. Then the fragrant incense of tobacco was wafted abroad—wafted abroad on this fantastic ridge for the first time since the world began. And we two sat there in the sunshine, watching the smoke wreaths caught up in the gentle morning airs and carried over the white snow to the base of those two palæozoic giants that frowned disdainfully upon us. Hitherto no one had dared to pass over the ramparts of rock and beyond the portals of ice that guarded their domain.

On top of one of the pinnacles was a weather-worn and lichen-covered boulder that forcibly brought home to our minds the wear and tear of the ages. Clearly, at one time, the ridge had been as high as the top of these rocks, but had, bit by bit, crumbled away, leaving the harder pinnacles, with their solitary coping-stone poised aloft, to tell to the first explorers the tale of the ceaseless warring elements. And perhaps the time may arrive when mountaineering shall have become a lost art, and some highly developed mortal, in the due process of evolution, sailing by in his airship, will halt awhile on this same ridge to find these adamantean giants gone—nay, even a time when these great glaciers shall be no more, and the very ridge itself shall have crumbled into dust. Such has happened before in the world’s history; such will happen again. I am writing this chapter, on a blazing hot day, on board a P. & O. liner in the Arabian Sea, and Priestley, returning from Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition, has just been telling me that they found the fossil wood of fir trees in that land where to-day there is no tree, nor flower, nor herb. And I doubt not that in this same Arabian Sea, where, now, ice is in much request, there were, at one time, great glaciers flowing down from the mainland, and huge bergs drifting aimlessly out to sea. So it may be again, through some change in solar heat, or in the earth’s axis.

But these problems did not greatly concern us on the ridge of Haidinger that morning. We had got our second wind now, and the sunrise, and the beautiful surroundings, found us once more in high spirits, and ready, nay eager, to pit ourselves against the opposing forces of nature. Is it not Quiller-Couch who says, if he were to draw up a hierarchy of sports, he would rank them as they oblige a man to pit himself and take his chances against opposing forces? Such sports have helped to make Britons brave, and if our New Zealand youth engage in them—as a pastime, but not as a business—it will be well, and “danger, when it comes, will not grin suddenly upon them with an unfamiliar face.”

We looked anxiously ahead at the two turreted ridges that came down from the summit of our mountain. The one on the right seemed as if it might give an easy route, but the tracks of falling stones on the glacier below were indicative of danger, and, even as we looked, a great mass of rock broke away with a loud report from the higher crags, and came thundering down to the glacier. The whole face of the rocky buttress was raked with a fire of falling stones, more deadly than the most destructive artillery. The chances were a thousand to one that, had we chosen that route, we should have met with swift and certain death. Without giving this route another thought we bore away to the left over the ice on the plateau, and made for the ridge on the left. We decided to keep to the crest so that we should be safe from falling stones and blocks of ice; but we were still in doubt as to whether we could cross the plateau and gain the rocks on the foot of the ridge. A snow-covered bergschrund met us at the outset, and we crawled cautiously across it, distributing our weight over as great an area as possible. Below us the ice was broken into enormous séracs, and one peak-like pinnacle towered aloft above the surrounding masses. Some of the schrunds were exceptionally large, and the colouring in their depths was marvellously beautiful. It was as if they had been made in some fairyland factory in which the manufacturer had mastered all the arts of delicate colouring and blending of tints.

Having arrived at a comparatively level bit of the plateau, where there were some tremendous cliffs of ice poised above, we ran as fast as possible on to safer ground. Two great schrunds gaped before us at the farther edge of the plateau, but we dodged one and crossed the other gingerly on a frail snow-bridge, one man anchoring till the other was safely over. Then we saw that we should have difficulty in getting on to the main ridge; but a secondary ridge farther down promised success. We turned towards it, and clambering up a soft snow slope, found ourselves once more on solid rocks.

These rocks gave us some interesting climbing, and the main ridge ahead looked practicable. We began to see the West Coast peaks away beyond the Lendenfeld Saddle and the Hochstetter Dome at the head of the Tasman Glacier. The view up and down the Tasman with the startling peaks and precipices of the Malte Brun Range right opposite across the glacier was one that we could not help every now and then halting to admire.

Having climbed over this first ridge, we found ourselves on a very narrow snow arête. There was just room for a man to walk on it. It sloped down steeply on either side, and we agreed that in the event of either slipping, the other would immediately throw himself bodily over on the opposite side, in which case we should find ourselves dangling one at each end of the rope in perhaps a not very elegant pose, but, at all events, in safety. However, there was no need for any such gymnastic performance, and we walked along the snowy ridge without a slip and gained a rock arête. This ridge was still narrower—Fyfe declared it was sharp enough to cut bread with. The rocks were, moreover, very rotten, and the crumbling masses that we sometimes dislodged went clattering down on to the glaciers on either side.

We were now quite on the main ridge, but it was evident our peak was going to die hard. It was even doubtful if we should succeed. A short ice-slope intervened, and the axes were brought into play. The splintered ice went down the slope with a swish! swish! at every blow of the axe as we hacked the steps, till at length the slope was vanquished. Then a series of rocky teeth blocked the way, but we climbed over them, one after the other, and commenced to storm a dark precipice that was, beyond a doubt, in places, absolutely perpendicular. This precipice is plainly seen from the hut far down the Tasman Glacier, and it was a moot point whether it could be scaled. However, at it we went with a defiant jodel, and inch by inch, foot by foot, we pulled ourselves up. It was certainly a glorious climb, and whether we succeeded in reaching the summit ridge or not, we felt that this bit of rock-work was worth coming up for. But the rocks were very rotten, and we had to exercise the greatest caution. In some places one man had to assist the other, and the ice-axes were handed up after the leader had gained a secure stand. Only one man moved at a time, and there was a constant cry of “Have you a good hold?” before the climbing of any difficult bit was undertaken by either of us.

My axe weighed heavily on my mind. When passing through Christchurch I had asked Mr. Kinsey to lend me an ice-axe, and he generously gave me Zurbriggen’s. When a mountaineer gives away the trusty axe that has stood him in good stead on many an arduous expedition, it is like a soldier giving away his sword. Zurbriggen had presented his axe to Mr. Kinsey. It was an axe with a history, and prized accordingly. It had accompanied the famous guide to the top of some twenty peaks in the European Alps—the Gabelhorn, Dent Blanche, Monte Rosa, Matterhorn, Weisshorn, Roth-horn, Jungfrau, Silberhorn, Schreckhorn, Dôme, Nadelhorn, Mont Blanc, Finsteraarhorn, Aiguille de Charmoz (five peaks), Kühalphorn, Aiguille de Dru, and Aiguille de Géant—truly a goodly array. On top of the Nadelhorn, which is higher than Mount Cook, the axe and Zurbriggen spent the night. It was also with him on the summit of Mont Blanc for eight days and nights! Subsequently, in New Zealand he carried this same ice-axe on Mount Cook, and to the summits of Tasman, Sefton, Haidinger, and Sealy, also over Fitzgerald’s Pass to the West Coast and back over Graham’s Saddle.

Later on it did good work with me on the ascent of Haidinger, De la Bêche, the two Minarets, the descent of the pass from the head of the Great Tasman Glacier to the Wataroa, and the first crossing of Fitzgerald’s Pass from the West Coast. An axe with such a record had never before been seen in New Zealand, and it was naturally greatly prized by its new owner. Therefore it was that, though light enough in my hand as ice-axes go, it weighed heavily on my mind, and I was as careful for its safety as for my own. But there was always a haunting dread lest I should let it slip and never see it again. I was then half sorry I had brought it, but when we came to a slope up which steps had to be cut in the hard ice, we prized it highly, for it was cunningly made and of excellent design for that kind of work.

The storming of the great buttress put us thoroughly on our mettle, and so long as there was a knob to grip or a chink into which we could get our fingers we advanced slowly. In places the rocks were very rotten, and in places they were glazed, so that our progress was painfully slow. The mountain was certainly not in good condition, and this glazing of the rocks, which is a thing all mountaineers abhor, gave us much trouble. The rocks were so steep that often the leader’s feet were just above the other man’s head. At last, however, we got over the worst of it, and paused awhile to see what was ahead. Things looked more promising, and it seemed as if we should top the peak after all. The slope eased off considerably; but then there came another long stretch of bad rock-climbing with bits of ice-work, and our spirits sank. Verily this was a regular Teufelsgrat, and the devil and all his angels must have been present at the making of it. On two or three occasions we asked each other if it was worth going on, and I am free to confess that a very little excuse would have tempted me to turn at this point, but neither would give the word to retreat. I am inclined to think now that the modern rock-climbers might not think it at all difficult; but as the route has not again been attempted one cannot speak for certain. A snow slope intervened, and we went bravely at it, kicking steps in the half-frozen snow; but soon we found that the snow thinned out, and that there was glazed ice underneath. One felt in no mood for step-cutting at this stage of the climb, but, nevertheless, began to chip away at the hard ice. Then Fyfe took a hand. It was hard work, and slow. The snow had to be scraped off the slope and each step carefully cut with the pick end of the axe. Chips of ice came rattling down, hitting me on the head and hands, and filling up the steps that had been cut. I employed my time in clearing out the ice from the steps with one hand and throwing it athwart the slope, so that it would not fall in the line of steps below me. When one hand got half-frozen I gave the other one a share of the work. But my labour was mostly in vain, for such showers of ice and snow came down that most of the steps were completely filled up again as soon as they were cleaned out. I was not sorry when we gained the rocks above, though they were in places rather difficult. We made fair progress for awhile, but at length were brought to a complete standstill by a smooth sloping slab of rock that offered neither hand nor foot-hold. We could have cut up on the shady side of the ridge and avoided this obstacle, but there was now no time for difficult step-cutting. It was the rocks or nothing. We had brought with us a pair of rubber shoes for such an emergency as this, having on former expeditions proved their efficacy in swarming up smooth rocks. Fyfe having taken off his boots and put on the rubber-soled shoes, I got on firm standing-ground and gave him a leg up. The rope went out slowly and then stopped. It was now that my turn came. “Have you a good stand, Fyfe?” I asked. “No, not at all good,” came the reply; and, not daring to put any great strain on the rope under such circumstances, I scrambled up as best I could with only its “moral” support. It now seemed a short distance of the top, and we determined to push ahead as quickly as possible, for the afternoon was wearing on, and the descent began to weigh a little heavily on our minds. There appeared to be some likelihood of our spending the night out on the mountain, especially as there were still one or two bits of bad rock-work ahead of us. At one place Fyfe left his axe behind, in order the better to grapple with the difficult rock-work.

At last we gained the highest rocks and what seemed, from the De la Bêche Bivouac, to be the highest point of the ridge. We found, however, that there was a snow slope beyond this leading to the end of the summit ridge, and up this I cut till we gained the crest. Fitzgerald’s rocks were a long way off at the other end of the ridge, and much as we should have liked to have visited his cairn, there was no time to do so, even if we could have surmounted the cornice that seemed to bar the way. We were some 27 feet, according to the map, below the highest point of the mountain, so we did not claim its complete ascent.

From the summit ridge of Haidinger, over ten thousand feet above the sea, we had an Alpine view at once extensive and imposing. We were on the main divide, and we looked northward along its snowy crests and jagged pinnacles of rock to where a long snow arête led up to the dazzling summit of Glacier Peak. Beyond that again, stretching away towards the north-east, was a grand array of peaks and glaciers, several of the mountains rising to altitudes of over 10,000 feet. The magnificent sweep of the mighty Tasman lay below—thousands of feet down—and, on its eastern boundary, rose the gaunt precipices of the Malte Brun Range, culminating in a splendid peak 10,421 feet high. We looked eastward across the island to the dim sea-haze beyond Timaru; westward the lazy swell of ocean broke in a white line along the indented coast. Near at hand, on our left, the giant mountains of Cook and Tasman reared their hoary summits, and the children of these mighty monarchs stood around at respectful distance. But grand as all these were in their serene and stately loveliness, it was ever the west that held our gaze. Westward ho! What magic is there in these words! We felt their influence upon us once more as we gazed down at the broad expanse of spotless snow that fed the Fox and Victoria Glaciers; at the dark lakes embosomed in the darker forests that climbed upwards from the sea; and at the white line of the Pacific breakers, that, up where we were perched, seemed to fall with noiseless beat along the western shore.

In the glorious sunshiny weather, with such marvellous views all around, our stay was all too short. But we had to think of the descent, which promised to engage all our attention and require alike nerve and skill. So, reluctantly, we turned our faces eastward and went down the snowy crest to the highest rocks at this end of the ridge, where, under a flat stone, I left a card. There were not enough loose rocks to build a cairn. Returning to the ridge, we made our way down in the ice-steps, exercising the greatest caution, as we had now only one axe. The steps were for the most part filled up, and Fyfe had to feel for them with his feet after cleaning out those on a level with his face so that he could get a grip in them with his hands. The rope was kept taut, and I took good hold above, going down with my face to the slope, and using my axe as an anchor, digging the handle in where there was snow and the pick end where there was hard ice. With my face turned to the wall I could look between my legs and see Fyfe immediately below me, cautiously feeling his way down. When we got to his axe we were able to progress more rapidly. We wasted no time, but climbed steadily without a halt, for that grim precipice still lay below. Just above it the rocks were terribly rotten. It was almost impossible to avoid dislodging them, and I, who was now leading, was, for a time, subjected to a regular bombardment. First of all I was nearly knocked out of my steps by a blow on the leg. Then I was struck on the shoulder. A few minutes later, a flat chunk of rock that lay half buried in a bit of soft snow was dislodged by Fyfe and hit me fair on top of the head. This half-stunned me for the moment, and Fyfe was warned to keep a good hold while I leaned against the rock to recover. Luckily I have a good thick skull, and the rock struck me with the flat, and not endways on, so there was little damage done.

At length we reached the precipice. The descent was quite a work of acrobatic art, and the attitudes we sometimes got into would have been the envy of a contortionist, could he have seen them. “Swinging there over the world,” writes Gilbert Parker, in one of his graphic bits of description, “and not high enough to get a hold on heaven, it makes you feel as if things was droppin’ away from you like”; and that was somewhat like the feeling we had in descending this cliff. After a good deal of slow and careful climbing, we reached the plateau, and knew that our difficulties were over. We went down the final slope at a good pace, getting some fine glissading on two or three snow slopes. Below these, we took off the rope and hurried down over the final rocks. Some of the slates were very sharp and cut like a knife. One long cut on my hand bled profusely, and the handle of Zurbriggen’s axe was dyed a brilliant crimson. Fyfe was still more unlucky, for he knocked his leg on a projecting slate which cut a hole in his stocking and took a bit out of the leg just over the shin bone. Spartan like, however, he said no word about it until we reached the Bivouac.

In the gathering dusk of evening two tired mountaineers, battered and bleeding, but victorious and triumphant, sought the shelter of the Bivouac rock, where Hodgkins and my wife were kept busy for the next half-hour in the preparation of supper. We began with a steaming billy of porridge, then we had stewed tinned peaches, followed by mulligatawny soup, and tea made in the same billy as the porridge! The tea was not quite a success; but in those days we did not stick at trifles, and the mixture quickly vanished.