With Axe and Rope in the New Zealand Alps

by George Edward Mannering

To Mrs. Leonard Harper, of Ilam, belongs the honour of being the first lady to cross to the Aorangi side of the Tasman River.

On this occasion (in March 1873) the party consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Harper, of Christchurch, Messrs. G. Dennistoun, G. Parker, Melville Gray, Wright, C. Smith, and Flint. They camped at Governor’s Bush, close to where the Hermitage now stands, and went on to the Mueller Glacier and to the terminal face of the Tasman. Mr. and Mrs. Harper returned across the Tasman River, leaving the rest of the party to attempt the passage to the west coast by the Hooker Saddle, at the head of the glacier of the same name. In this, as may be easily conceived—considering that the members of the party were inexperienced and not properly equipped for such an expedition—the party was unsuccessful, only reaching a point just above where the clear ice merges into the moraine, and where the crevasses began to appear formidable.

For many years after this the glaciers were not traversed to any extent save by camping-out parties, who contented themselves with short excursions about the terminal faces, until, in 1882, a fresh interest was awakened in their existence by the visit of the Rev. W. S. Green with Herr Emil Boss, of Grindelwald, and Ulrich Kaufmann as guide. His advent was indeed an awakening, and the apathy of the Colonials regarding the scenic marvels of their own country was somewhat aroused. The sensation caused by his memorable ascent of Aorangi, after repeated struggles with flooded rivers and all those hindrances which seem to fall inevitably to the lot of men who first open out a new district, has become quite an event of history in the annals of the colony.

Full particulars of Mr. Green’s doings will be found in his admirable book, ‘The High Alps of New Zealand,’ published by Macmillan & Co.

To Mr. Green undoubtedly belongs the honour of having first introduced into New Zealand the proper system of Alpine climbing, and he will ever be looked back to as the father of the noble sport in the colony.

Then, in 1883, followed the visit of Dr. R. von Lendenfeld, a mountaineer and scientific man of great attainments. He was accompanied by his plucky wife, and, aided by porters procured in the colony, during a stay of nineteen days on the Tasman Glacier completed a survey of the same, and finished up his work by ascending the Hochstetter Dome, whose higher and easternmost summit he attained in an expedition extending over a period of twenty-seven hours from his last camp under the Malte Brun range, accompanied by his wife and one porter.

Full particulars of his work were made public in Petermann’s ‘Mitteilungen,’[3] and a short English notice of the same may be found in the ‘Alpine Journal,’ vol. xii. page 163.

[3] Ergänzungsheft, No. 75. Dr. R. von Lendenfeld, Der Tasman-Gletscher und seine Umgebung.

Shortly after this the Hermitage Company, Limited, was formed, and the Hermitage Hotel erected near the terminal face of the Mueller Glacier. This first Alpine hotel of New Zealand was not built without many serious difficulties, and the ultimate success of the undertaking speaks volumes for the perseverance of the enthusiastic manager, Mr. F. F. C. Huddleston. This gentleman has made various excursions on the Mueller and Hooker Glaciers since the building of the Hermitage, and possesses an intimate knowledge of the Alpine district around the hotel. He has, with a party of two others, penetrated, I understand, as far as the junction of the Empress Glacier on the Hooker, and has since effected the passage of the Ball Pass from the Tasman to the Hooker Glaciers.

In 1886 the author began his visits to the districts with properly equipped Alpine parties, the results of which expeditions have been given in the foregoing pages.