With Axe and Rope in the New Zealand Alps

by George Edward Mannering

Turning in a north-easterly direction round the end of the range we shaped our course up the Tasman Valley, and in two hours’ time from the Hermitage arrived at the terminal face of the great glacier, which fills the whole of the valley from side to side, a width of about two miles. Here, then, the hard work was about to begin, for the horses could not proceed further, and it was necessary to carry everything from this point on our own backs.

Ah! good reader, have you ever carried a swag, a real swag—not a Swiss knapsack—but a real, torturing, colonial swag? When you take it up and sling it on your back in the orthodox fashion you remark: ‘Yes; I think it does weigh fifty pounds.’ In ten minutes your estimate of its weight has doubled. In an hour you begin to wonder why Nature has been so foolish as to make men who will carry swags; bad language seems to slip out ‘quite in a casual way,’ and you begin to bend forward and do the ‘lift.’ But the ‘lift’ does not seem to fulfil quite all that is said in its praise, for soon the torturing burden settles down again and drags on to your shoulders more heavily than ever. After a bit of nice balancing over loose moraine the swag triumphs. Down you go, and the wretched thing worries you, whilst you bark your fingers and swear horribly, bruising your knees and shins, and cursing the day on which you saw the light of a hard and feelingless world. You recover and repeat the performance as before, and by the time your day’s work is done you find out to your own demonstrated satisfaction that the burden weighs at least five hundred-weight. You sling it off and give it a malicious kick, with the result that you break a thermometer or some such delicate instrument. Then you try to walk, but stagger about like a drunken man; there is no small to your back, your back tendons are puffy and tired like those of an old horse, your head swims, and your eye is dim. Patience and rest, however, gradually bring you round, and soon you regain strength and spirits in feeling that at least you have conquered a day’s difficulties and have brought your board and lodging so far with you.

Ah! think of it, you knapsack mountaineers, you feather-bed Swiss mountaineers, with your tracks, your hotels, your guides, your porters, and your huts. No; this New Zealand work is not like yours.

But then, you see, we are enjoying what you cannot get. Exploring and opening out virgin fields, learning to be our own guides—and porters—from that best of masters—hard experience.

We struck up the little valley which here exists between the lateral moraine on our right and the hill on our left, and toiled on amidst dense scrub so gnarled and matted that we could at times walk on it as on a spring bed, though now and then going through, of course. The scrub alternated with slopes of loose strips of moraine. By evening we reached a little blue lake which feeds the creek issuing from the valley’s mouth, and here we pitched our tent for the night.

The sub-Alpine vegetation here is interesting and varied. Wild Irishman (te matakuru of the natives or matagowrie of the shepherds), Spaniards, with leaves like carving-knives and points like needles, having stalks sometimes eight or ten feet high; stunted totara, many varieties of veronica, celmisias with large marguerite daisy-like flowers, the beautiful white ranunculus, and a hundred bushes and creepers all mixed up in the most glorious confusion amid rocks sometimes covered with slippery moss, over and amongst which it is anything but pleasant to force one’s way. The mountain sides are clothed almost up to the snow-line with beech, totara, ribbon-wood, veronica, and other trees, the rich foliage being beautifully varied; but not having sufficient time to cut bedding, we spent an uncomfortable night. The first evening is always the worst in camp. In the morning we continued our rough journey up the valley and our struggle with the ‘worrying’ swag.

Soon we discovered traces of fires and old camps, and we knew we were on the tracks of Green’s and Von Lendenfeld’s parties. An hour for dinner under a splendid waterfall, and more toiling onwards, till at last we were over the last boulder-face from the mountain on our left, with the Ball Glacier in full view. Fox, bending down, picked up a portion of an old veil, shortly after I found a goggle box, then came a tomahawk lying on a rock, then the historical tent poles of Mr. Green, and we knew we had reached ‘Green’s fifth camp.’

Off came the swags, and right glad we were to be done with them. If a man were only built on the same lines as a Mount Cook grasshopper he might ‘stand some show’ in those parts, for these insects are the most accomplished rock acrobats, jumping twenty or thirty times their own length at a spring, landing on their heads or anyhow with a bang, and squaring up for the next jump as coolly as cucumbers.

We found many relics of Green’s and of Von Lendenfeld’s parties, amongst them a surveyor’s chain, which, with Green’s tent poles, we have for the last five seasons used to pitch our tents.

Scarcely were we made snug for the night when down came a terrific nor’-wester, blowing with fearful violence, making the tent boom and shake till we expected it to blow to ribbons. Rain poured down, thunder, lightning, and avalanches all lent their aid, and the elements seemed to be having a generally rowdy time of it. All this, of course, meant snow on the higher peaks; our spirits fell to zero very quickly, and we gave up all hope of tackling Aorangi for at least a day or two.