CHAPTER XII
DE LA BÊCHE AND THE MINARETS
“The mountains in their overwhelming might
Moved me to sadness when I saw them first,
And afterwards they moved me to delight.”
Christina Rossetti.
In the days when we first visited the Mount Cook region we thought De la Bêche would be an easy mountain to climb. But our youthful eagerness and inexperience led us into some difficult situations, and then we began to think it was a difficult mountain to climb. In after years one was apt to smile at the recollection of those early attempts, which, try we ever so bravely, always ended in failure, and moved us to sadness. Yet, if they had to be made over again, one would not have it otherwise; for, notwithstanding our disappointments, we had great fun, and we really could climb. It was our knowledge of route-finding that was at fault. That knowledge has to be learnt slowly in the hard school of experience. Fyfe was the first to acquire it, and after that the rest was comparatively easy. The great peaks went down one by one—Cook, De la Bêche, the Minarets, Malte Brun, Darwin, and the Footstool. Fitzgerald bagged three of the finest—Tasman, Sefton, and Haidinger; and, later on, the small band of West Coast climbers—Newton, Teichelman, and Low—conquered others.
It was in 1893 that we first turned our steps towards De la Bêche and the Minarets. De la Bêche had attracted the attention of the Rev. Mr. Green, and as far back as 1889 Mannering, Dixon, and Johnston had had a shot at it. In all, some four attempts to scale it had been made before our arrival on the scene. Early in January of the year named, Fyfe and I swagged bedding and provisions up to the Bivouac Rock. This rock is a historic spot in connexion with New Zealand mountaineering. Many of the early climbers have starved and shivered there, but seldom have they waxed fat on a plethora of provisions. I recall especially one jolly expedition when my wife and I and four others used it as an habitation for some days, and I can still see Wilson of Glasgow and my wife vainly endeavouring to cook something hot for supper with what remained of our methylated spirit and the oil from a tin of sardines! That supper was not quite a success. But, later on, one warm summer’s night, after a jolly meal, we sat up singing songs and telling stories till midnight, when we saw the New Year in, and then crept reluctantly into our sleeping bags for the rest of the night.
De la Bêche Bivouac.
Here, too, it was that Mr. R. S. Low was found in 1908, almost unconscious, after his accident on the descent from Graham’s Saddle, and after one of the most marvellous feats of physical endurance in the history of Alpine climbing. While descending the couloir near the Kron Prinz Rudolf Ice Fall he slipped and fell. He succeeded in driving his ice-axe into the slope, and it held; but a heavy knapsack that he was carrying threw him off his balance at the critical moment, with the result that he shot down the couloir for some 20 or 30 feet on to some jagged rocks. The shock was so severe that he rebounded on to the most dangerous part of the couloir, with a clear slide of 200 feet leading down to a bergschrund about 20 feet wide and of unknown depth. His knapsack apparently gripped against the slope, and he was able to get a hand-hold on an isolated strip of rock jutting out from the snow. He dragged himself on to these rocks with a badly dislocated ankle, a lacerated knee, and minor wounds, and lay there for hours in a semi-conscious state. Late in the afternoon, when the snow slopes were soft, with the boot removed from his injured and now swollen foot, Mr. Low started on what was the most perilous part of the whole descent. Unable to ascend to get his ice-axe, he used his left knee on the slope, and kicked steps in the snow with his right foot. In this way he made two traverses down the slope and crossed two snow bridges and the bergschrund at the foot of the couloir. He then crawled to a piece of light moraine on the lower portion of the glacier. Here he passed the first night, endeavouring to stanch the bleeding and to cover his wounds with adhesive plaster. On the following day (Thursday) he decided to make for the Bivouac Rock. He expected to reach it before nightfall. Tying a 30-foot piece of rope to his knapsack, he lay on his back on the snow and used his hands and his sound foot to propel himself to the rope limit. Having gone so far, he would drag the knapsack up to him and then proceed as before. This mode of progression was fairly satisfactory so long as the smooth going lasted, but on reaching the hummocky ice and the rough moraine lower down the glacier he was again forced to crawl on his hands and knees. Towards evening he crawled to the lee side of the biggest rock he could find. Next day (Friday) it rained and hailed, and finally snowed to a depth of two feet, making it impossible for him to move. On the Saturday, however, he started off again and accomplished the most marvellous performance of crawling on his hands and knees through newly fallen snow over the rough and broken surface of the moraine-covered glacier, between crevasses and over ice bridges, thence for 300 feet up the steep face of the lateral moraine, and finally down a ridge of broken loose rocks to the Bivouac. Here he remained for six days. His dislocated ankle was much swollen and very painful, and the skin and flesh were considerably worn from his knees. Each day he became weaker for want of food, as the one day’s food that he carried had to last him ten days. At last he had reduced himself to two pinches of cocoa a day. Fortunately there were a few pieces of short board at the Bivouac, and out of these he improvised a crutch, so that he was able to get about sufficiently to obtain water by melting snow on the rocks.
It was not till the Friday that the people at the Hermitage knew that Mr. Low was missing. On the West Coast a search party was immediately organized, and the two young New Zealand Alpine guides, Jack Clark and Peter Graham, at once set out from the Hermitage, and arrived at the De la Bêche Bivouac at 4 a.m. on Saturday, March 3. There they found Mr. Low alive, but in a very weak condition. They at once released a carrier pigeon they had brought with them, with a brief message to the manager at the Hermitage for medical aid. In case of any misadventure to the pigeon, Guide Clark dispatched a man to the Hermitage with the news. On the Monday Mr. Low was carried down to the Ball Glacier Hut. This was a terribly arduous undertaking, as the Tasman Glacier at this point is very much crevassed and broken up into large hummocks, while, lower down, the Hochstetter and Ball Glaciers and some enormous moraines had to be crossed. Next day (Tuesday) the guides improvised a comfortable couch with a sheet of galvanized iron, a mattress, and some pillows, and, this being placed on a stout pack-horse, Mr. Low was taken across the Hooker River for twelve miles to the coach road. Thence he was conveyed by road and rail to Timaru, and, subsequently, to Christchurch, where, after an operation and skilful treatment, he began gradually to recover. I had the pleasure of sitting beside him at the Alpine Club dinner in London the other evening, and he told me he had been rock-climbing in Wales! And yet there are some pessimists who will tell you to-day that the young Briton is becoming decadent! I did not mean to write anything about all this—and I am afraid Mr. Low will not forgive me for having done so—but the incident is of historic interest, and no chronicle of De la Bêche and its Bivouac Rock would be complete without some reference to it.
It was on January 3, 1893, that Fyfe and I reached the rock. It was a glorious evening, with not a breath of air stirring, and the warm sun streaming down into the valley loosened the séracs of a fine glacier opposite, sending avalanche after avalanche thundering down over the precipices on to the Kron Prinz Rudolf Glacier below. We raked up the gravel under the rock, and having levelled it somewhat and scooped out small holes for our hips in order that we might be more comfortable, we spread the tent and one blanket for a mattress, leaving another double blanket for a covering. Just in front of us, above our Bivouac Rock, was the main spur of De la Bêche, and at the foot of it the lateral moraine of the Kron Prinz Rudolf, with six or seven older and higher moraines, some four or five of which had plants growing on them. The Kron Prinz itself, near where it joins the Tasman, was very much broken, and its ice was black with morainic débris. Across this glacier we looked on to the lower cliffs of the main range, over which rock avalanches frequently fell. Above were visible some fine peaks, and the upper portions of two or three unnamed glaciers. More to the left, in the direction of Mount Cook, could be seen glacier after glacier,—the Forrest Ross, the Kaufmann, the Haast, the Freshfield, the Hochstetter, and Ball all being visible,—while down the centre of the valley we looked for miles over the white billowy ice of the Tasman to the opposite range far beyond its terminal face. One great rock on the lateral moraine of the Tasman just above us seemed to menace our safety, but a closer examination showed that it was firmly poised and likely to retain its position for a year or two at all events.
The evening continued fine, and we sat at the mouth of our cave watching the sun illumining the higher snows as it sank slowly behind the bold outline of Mount Haidinger, and listening to the avalanches thundering down from the glacier. Far away down the valley a bank of sun-lit mist continued for a while above the Hochstetter Ice Fall, and while we sat and watched the lighter wreaths mysteriously appearing and vanishing on the highest peak of Aorangi, the last gleam of sunlight slowly stole away.
We intended to make an early start next morning, but, just before the gloaming, our hopes fell as we saw the relentless mists once more gradually creeping down the mountain-side, and observed that a light wind had begun to blow in at the mouth of our cave. Slowly the mist descended, and glacier after glacier faded from our view, till at last a dense fog filled the whole valley. It grew cold, and we found it difficult to get to sleep. The more one tries to sleep in such situations, and especially on the eve of some important expedition, the more one cannot do it. The mind becomes abnormally active, and is occupied by one train of thought after another in quick succession, most of the subjects being quite incongruous, and entirely out of keeping with the situation. I’m sure if any eminent mental scientist ever has the good fortune to spend a night under the Bivouac Rock at De la Bêche, he will find food for reflection, and perhaps be able to write an interesting chapter on “Bivouacs and Mental Effect.” At first our pebbly bed feels fairly comfortable: after a while we begin to think it hard. About an hour or so convinces us that it is hard. Then we imagine that our hip bone is slowly working its way through the blankets, and we turn over to give the other one a fair share of the discomfort. But it also soon seems to be working its way through, and as a sort of compromise we lie on our back for a few minutes preparatory to going through the whole performance over again. Then the unwonted sounds add to our wakefulness—the roar of an avalanche above the mists; the noise of loose stones rattling eerily down the moraine near our bivouac; or the cry of a belated mountain parrot seeking his aerie.
Next morning a drizzling mist was driving in at the mouth of our little cave, and the rock had sprung a leak. There was nothing of the view left but the huge boulders of the moraine looming up ghost-like through the fog, while the only sign of life was a funny little wren that every now and then fluttered inquisitively up to the mouth of the cave. He had only the semblance of a tail. No doubt he philosophized in his own little way as to what manner of beings they could be who had made themselves a bed in such a strange situation and in such weather. Fyfe brewed some hot tea over the spirit lamp, and after we had partaken of breakfast we turned into bed again. By this time we were getting used to disappointments, so now we resolved to take matters philosophically, and wait for a chance at our mountain as long as the provisions held out. We had little in the way of amusement, and our only literature consisted of a copy of the Sydney Bulletin that Fyfe had put into his swag when leaving the Hermitage. We read the stories in this, then the advertisements, and then read some of the stories over again. We were, however, better off than on the occasion of our last expedition to these regions, when our only literature was the labels on the meat tins and what we composed ourselves. Later on we occupied ourselves by keeping count of the number of avalanches that fell from the glacier opposite. We found the average to be about ten an hour, or at the rate of 240 a day.
Eventually, we got our climb, but I shall not weary the reader—gentle or otherwise—with the details of it. We got caught in the mists, and had to descend. We enjoyed some fine glissading and one or two adventures, such as a tumble or two into narrow crevasses. We returned to the Bivouac defeated, and the weather grew worse. The old sea-captain who said, “Give me weather as is weather: none of your damned blue skies for me!” would have revelled in it. Food got scarce, and we had to tramp down the glacier for further supplies. It was true that there were some provisions under the rock left by Harper and Hamilton, to which we might have helped ourselves; but we resolved that if we were to climb the mountain we should do so entirely by our own exertions. We were painfully conscientious in those days.
In company with some visitors whom we met on the glacier, we had another shot at the mountain later on. We got on to the main ridge just below the final peak, and, finding ourselves on a bad route, again retired defeated. We were, however, rewarded by the most glorious views on every side. It will perhaps also be as well to draw a veil over this descent. We got into some awkward situations, and I have a vivid recollection of cutting steps down an almost perpendicular slope; of making some very awkward traverses across others; and of dangling at the end of the rope on a smooth rock in order to make a step in the ice at its edge. And all the time the sun beat down furiously, and there was so much refraction that our hands and faces were not only browned to a dark chocolate colour, but painfully swollen into the bargain. The rocks in places were so hot as to be quite unpleasant to the touch, while the leather of my camera case began to smell as if it were singed. In one steep place, during a rather ticklish piece of step-cutting, I removed my goggles for a few minutes in order the better to see what I was doing, but paid the penalty for it afterwards by suffering considerably from snow-blindness. It was two or three days before my eyes were quite right again.
Years later, one fine day, soon after our ascent of Haidinger, Fyfe and I strolled from the hut up to the De la Bêche Bivouac, carrying fairly light packs, consisting of sleeping bags and provisions for three days. We were in fine form, and made light of the journey. We reached our destination at three o’clock in the afternoon, lunched sumptuously at four, lit our pipes, and basked, smoking, in the warm sunshine. It was a gloriously bright day, and the higher mountains lifted their ridges above the tumbled moraine, clear cut against an azure sky, while glaciers and white slopes of snow billowing to still higher and purer fields completed the picture. And there were those other and sterner rock peaks that “took in their teeth the sun, the storm, and the whirlwind, never changing countenance from day to year, and from year to age.” We smoked, and talked, and watched the shadows stealing across the ice-floored valley, till finally the sun dipped behind the narrow ridge of Haidinger, and only the snow cap of Aorangi was illumined. The gleaming silver brow of the monarch of the Southern Alps was then transmuted into glowing gold, and, in turn, changed into frosted silver, all in the space of the fleeting sunset half-hour. The temperature fell quickly: we crawled under the rock and sought the warmth of our sleeping bags. Through the mouth of our cave we watched the stars being set like jewels in the darkness of the sky.
We were astir at half-past two of the clock, and breakfasted by lantern light on tinned food and cold tea. By 3 a.m. we were marching, with the lantern, across the old lateral moraines and up the Kron Prinz Rudolf Glacier towards the Ice Fall, which we reached as dawn was breaking. One does not make quick progress across these dreadful New Zealand moraines by the uncertain light of a flickering candle. You step on what appears to be solid ground, and a boulder, resting on ice, slides from under your foot. You recover your balance with an effort, but hit your ankle in the process against a sharp-edged slate that is as unyielding as the other stone was unstable. Dark shadows that you treat with confidence are discovered to be pools of water with a thin covering of ice that lets you through, and the warmth of your language is not sufficient to counteract the chilling shock that you have received. It is to be hoped that the recording angel turns a deaf ear to the language of the early-morning mountaineer. It is under such circumstances that the climber notes, with a feeling of devout thankfulness, the faint glow that heralds the dawn, and eagerly watches the conquering march of the sun along the peaks of the giant range.
With the breaking of day our spirits rose, and, being in splendid form, we simply romped over the first cliffs and snow slopes. Having gained the crest of a narrow rocky ridge, we descended by a slanting crack on to the plateau at the foot of the peak. We walked and ran across this plateau, and then started up a snow slope that took us on to the rocks of the final peak. There was one short bit of rock-work that proved interesting, but we made light of it, and at 7.55 a.m. we were having second breakfast on the top of the mountain! It was a record performance, and one could not help casting a retrospective glance at the unsuccessful struggles of the early mountaineers—ourselves included—upon these slopes. As we gazed across the island and along the great Alpine chain, the virgin snowy peaks of the Minarets, quite close at hand, attracted our attention. They were first-class peaks, over ten thousand feet high. Why not attempt their ascent now that we were so high up and had time to spare? While we were eating our breakfast and considering this problem, clouds formed in a stratum of cool air below us, and a marvellous transformation scene was unfolded before our wondering gaze. Northwards the mountains became islands in a sea of fleecy cloud. South and east there was a wilderness of majestic peaks, and westward that glorious view upon which we ever cast longing eyes—the dark lakes and forests, the silver streaks of river, and the great ocean, far, far down below us. That islanded sea of cloud with the sun shining on it was such a scene as Nansen saw when he sailed in the Fram along the fair coast-line of his beloved Nordland, past Alden and Kinn, when he beheld “wreaths of mist glittering like silver over the mountains, their tops soaring above the mist like islands out of the sea”; only, instead of looking up at this, as he did, we looked down on it, and saw the sun shining on the top of the clouds—a still more glorious sight.
In order to get at the Minarets, we had to descend on the western precipices of De la Bêche to a somewhat extensive plateau of snow. The rocks were rather difficult where we attacked them, and when we got down and on to the snow we came on a kind of bergschrund with an almost perpendicular wall of ice, down which steps had to be cut. I dug the handle of my ice-axe deep into the snow and took a hitch of the rope round it. I held on to the cliff with one hand and paid out the rope with the other as Fyfe cut down this wall of ice. It was not of any great height, but it was a ticklish bit of work, and it took three-quarters of an hour to cut twenty-three steps, so hard was the ice, so difficult the slope, and so carefully had the steps to be fashioned for the descent of such a place. After this there was no difficulty, and we simply romped up those two icy peaks. The higher one was a perfect cone of ice with scarcely room for one to take a photograph of the other on it. We left a record of our ascent in the rocks on the western side just below the ice-cap, and then climbed the other peak, leaving on the highest rocks another account of this the first ascent. For some time now we were enveloped in the clouds, and had difficulty in finding our way back to De la Bêche, which we had to climb once more on our way back. The ice-staircase which we had cut on the descent gave us no trouble in ascending, and we gained our peak in quick time, and waited for an hour on its summit enjoying the panorama and a smoke. We felt quite pleased with our performance.
The descent was made in splendid style. We glissaded and scrambled down the final slope in a manner that would have made a model mountaineer’s hair stand on end, but we had absolute confidence in each other’s powers. The bergschrund at the foot of the ice fall was a little awkward to cross, but we gained the glacier while it was still early in the afternoon. We ran down its ice for a mile or so, and after scrambling over the final moraines, found ourselves back in camp at 4 p.m.,—a ridiculously early hour—so, after tea, we must needs start off again down the Tasman Glacier to the Ball Hut, which we reached in the dusk of evening. Here we had another tea and turned in for the night to enjoy a well-earned rest. Oh for those glorious days again! Why does one grow old?