With Axe and Rope in the New Zealand Alps

by George Edward Mannering

Arriving at the terminal face of the glacier we strike up a small valley between the western lateral slopes of the moraine of the glacier and the Mount Cook Range on our left, and for a distance of about seven or eight miles force our way through dense scrub and loose boulders from the moraine and mountain slopes, to the junction of the Ball Glacier with the Tasman. This Ball Glacier comes from the Great Southern _arête_ of Aorangi, and is fed almost entirely by avalanches, there being no snow-fields—or névés as they are called in Alpine parlance—of any great extent at its head.

From this point upwards we strike out on to the ice on our right, and another seven miles or so brings us to a further division of the valley, Mount de la Bêche being the dividing peak. The glacier of the left-hand or northern branch is known as the Rudolf Glacier, whilst the main body of the Tasman stretches some six miles further north-eastwards to the Hochstetter Dome, where it again divides. The saddle at the head of the left-hand branch, again, has been reached by Dr. von Lendenfeld and by myself in our respective ascents of the Hochstetter Dome, and commands a superb view of the Whymper Glacier and valley, and of the Wataroa River on the west coast. The head of the branch to the right of the Hochstetter Dome has not yet been reached by man.

Taking a retrospective glance again at the peaks on either hand, and commencing at the lower end of the glacier, we have first on our right the Liebig Range till opposite the Ball Glacier, when the embouchure of the Murchison Valley occurs, followed by the Malte Brun Range, with the main peak—the Matterhorn of New Zealand—opposite to Mount de la Bêche, then the Darwin Glacier followed by the mountain of the same name, and then the saddle between Mount Darwin and the Hochstetter Dome.

Now, again, on the left or western side of the great glacier we have the Mount Cook Range for ten miles, the Ball Glacier, Aorangi, the Hochstetter Glacier, Mounts Tasman, Haast, Haidinger, Glacier Peak, Mounts Spencer, Kant, Rudolf (at the head of the Rudolf Glacier), De la Bêche, Green, and Elie de Beaumont, the last followed by the Lendenfeld Saddle, to which I have already referred.

From Mount Tasman northwards to this saddle all these mountains are situated in the main chain. Aorangi itself, though popularly believed to belong to the main divide, is in reality separated from it by a rocky ridge and a saddle of about 10,500 feet, which leads to the Hooker Glacier on the one hand and the Linda on the other, both being east of the main divide. Aorangi itself, therefore, consists of a divergent ridge, the whole of whose drainage goes eastward.

Though for some years I have believed this to be the case, it is only quite recently that I have been able to substantiate the belief by ocular demonstration, when the ascent of the mountain was accomplished by Mr. Dixon and myself. To this expedition I shall refer later on.

The reader must picture to himself the great Tasman Glacier, nearly two miles in width and eighteen to twenty in length, occupying the whole of the bed of the valley, and fed on both sides by numerous tributary ice streams from the mountains.

Of the Murchison Valley it is not necessary for me to speak just now, as the topographical features will be described when I come to tell the story of its exploration. Neither is it needful to refer in further detail to the Tasman for the same reason.