To stand before this wonderful piece of Nature’s work and gaze on the weird and fascinating forms of the attendant peaks is an experience not to be forgotten.
The awful and solemn silence of the mountains, broken only now and again by the crash and thunder of an ice avalanche or the screech of a solitary kea, the complete desolation, the loneliness and remoteness from the haunts of men, all tend to inspire one with deep thoughts and feelings. One line in Walter C. Smith’s ‘Hilda’ expresses more than pages of mine would do—
The silence of the mountains spoke unutterable things.
In two hours’ time we were across the glacier and on the point of the ridge descending from Mount Haast, which bounds the northern side of the ice-fall. We began the ascent of the ridge amongst snow-grass and lilies, but soon the vegetation gave way to rockwork, and when a height of about 5,000 feet was attained we made sure that this was our correct route, and, mist coming on, we descended again, and reached our Ball Glacier camp in the evening.
We resolved to make our attempt on the peak early the following morning, and accordingly, at 5 a.m. packed our swags, containing ‘tucker’ for three days, spirit lamp, blanket, opossum rug, mackintoshes, instruments, a change of warm clothing, &c., intending that night to find a bivouac at 8,000 feet if possible.
Starting at 5.20 a.m. we crossed the Ball Glacier in the very dim light of a waning moon, and were on the Hochstetter ice at peep of day, and making good time across, reached the point of the Haast spur in an hour and three-quarters. A thick mist hung over us, and we waited for an hour for it to lift, amusing ourselves by smoking and botanising, and watching the antics of some queer little wrens. These birds are absurd-looking little creatures with long legs and longer toes, plump buff-coloured breasts, no tails, staring little eyes, and look for all the world like boiled potatoes with their jackets on, set up on hairpins and let loose on the rocks.
As the mist cleared we tackled the ascent, and found it pretty stiff work, although we had snow-grass to assist us for some way up; but the rocks above this began to show signs of rottenness, and much care was required to avoid dislodging them. We made good progress to about 5,000 feet, when we were quite baffled for a time, and were forced to leave the main arête and look for a more promising route on our right. Here we proceeded cautiously, crawling through a narrow niche in some overhanging rocks with a precipice of some hundreds of feet below. Then the climbing improved till our view upwards was bounded by an indefinite saddle in the rocks, which might have led to anywhere, but which did lead, as we subsequently found out, to the easy snow slopes above.
As the day advanced small falls of stone occurred, which caused some annoyance and danger, but we managed to avoid being struck by any. Then followed another stretch of rotten rock which Fox absolutely declined to tackle, and as it could not be turned by a détour we were brought up on this route.
Fox suggested descending again to cross a large glacier coming down from the ridge on our right, and trying the rocks on its opposite side. This plan we eventually carried out, but it was a fatal mistake as far as climbing Aorangi was concerned. Descending for about 1,000 feet we stepped on to the ice of what we then thought was the lower part of the Linda Glacier—owing to a strange error in Von Lendenfeld’s map—but which in reality was the Freshfield Glacier. We put on the rope and our goggles, both indispensable in crossing such a snow-covered ice stream.
On taking to the rocks on the other side we soon gained the lowest ice slopes, covered with six or eight inches of snow in splendid order, and adhering well to the ice; now and then we took to the rocks, but climbed mostly by the snow slopes till we reached the crest of the ridge and looked over a precipice to Mount Haidinger and the Haast Glacier below.