Friday morning, December 5, found us early astir, and making up swags of blanket-bags, tent, tinned meats, biscuits, chocolate, raisins, prunes, rice, oatmeal, Liebig’s Extract, and all such necessaries as might ensure sustenance and a certain degree of comfort at a high bivouac. Seeing that our boots were well nailed, our ice-axes and snow-goggles in good order, we struck out across the Ball and Hochstetter Glaciers and reached the foot of our climb—the southern termination of the ridge of Mount Haast. Here we deposited a small supply of provisions as a standby, in case we should be driven back by bad weather or by some unforeseen cause.
The day was very warm, and as we toiled slowly up under the weight of our heavy swags (we were carrying enough provisions to last us for some days) the perspiration streamed from every pore, and the sun’s rays seemed to penetrate with singular fierceness.
Soon we came to the lower termination of the new and unmelted winter snow in the couloirs or ditches between the rock ridges, and as the day advanced the hissing avalanches came down these slopes with increasing frequency, and falling stones and rocks now and again passed close by us. The snow being in such a loose and slushy condition it was imperative that we should avoid it as much as possible, but climb as we would we could not help occasionally crossing a snow-filled couloir, and this had to be accomplished with much celerity and caution.
Annan was particularly anxious concerning the ‘shocking state of repair’ of these lower slopes, and seemed to lose his nerve entirely, though he is accustomed to work on the higher beats in mustering, &c., and he declared his intention of going no farther than the bivouac at 7,400 feet, which we reached in the afternoon. We at once saw that it would be useless and dangerous to persuade him to join us in the final assault, for if his self-reliance failed on these lower slopes, what would the state of his nerve be on the upper ice work where so much step-cutting would be necessary? Dixon and I knew that we ought not to try to ascend the peak alone, that such work as we—two guideless amateurs—were about to attempt, would not be looked upon with favour by such a body as the English Alpine Club; but we were so tired of knuckling under to Aorangi that we were becoming desperate, and we decided to try conclusions without a third man.
Two hours of excavation work removed two feet of snow and eighteen inches of ice from our bivouac, revealing the faithful ‘Aurora’ stove and sundry potted meats left twelve months before by Harper and myself, and soon we had the tent pitched and were snug for the night.
At three o’clock on the Saturday morning Dixon and I crawled out of our sleeping-bags, and by 4 a.m. we were on the snow slopes, determined to make a vigorous attack upon the peak which had so long defied us.
Two hours on fairly good snow slopes and a scramble over a nasty slab-like face of rock, and once again the plateau, and that glorious scene of Aorangi and Tasman, were before us.
But the wind had risen quickly and was blowing a gale from the south-west—the cold quarter. To face such a wind for any length of time, or to attempt to climb Aorangi against it, would be simple madness, so we turned and ignominiously fled to the refuge of our bivouac, 1,200 feet below, which we reached at seven o’clock, having been but three hours absent.
We then sent Annan down, as we were keeping him from his work in the lower country, telling him to leave word with the survey party that if we did not arrive back at the Ball Glacier by Monday night something would probably have gone amiss with us.