With Axe and Rope in the New Zealand Alps

by George Edward Mannering

The river in full flood is a sight to see; the water in places runs fifteen knots an hour, or even more. In the rapids it is piled up in the middle from sudden contraction of the banks, and forms crested billows four or five feet in height, whilst now and then a block of ice from the glacier may be seen bowling along.

The ancient glacier-formed terraces of the Tasman Valley are instructive and interesting. The highest of them are distinctly marked all down the valley for a distance of forty miles from Sebastopol—a large face of ice-worn rock near the Hermitage—on the eastern slopes of the Ben Ohau Range. The story of the ancient glacier can be read as the eye follows these strange terraces from their starting point 2,000 feet above the valley bed, down a gentle declination to the terminus of the Ben Ohau Range.

Before going into the narrative of my five seasons’ climbing amongst the peaks and glaciers around Aorangi, it would be as well for me to describe, as concisely as possible, the general topography of the Mueller, Hooker, and Tasman Glaciers.

We will suppose ourselves in the main Tasman Valley, into which all these glaciers drain, close to the point where the valley first branches. As we look northward, Aorangi and the range running southward for twelve miles from the main body of the mountain bound the view, and divide the valley into two branches. Let us take the one to the north-west first. Proceeding up this valley of the Hooker for a few miles, we arrive at a branch valley from the left or west—the Mueller Valley—completely occupied by the glacier of the same name. Close to the Mueller Glacier is situated the Hermitage, presided over by Mr. F. F. C. Huddleston, a true haven of refuge and comfort for the wearied tourist or mountaineer.

HOOKER VALLEY AND MOUNT SEFTON FROM GOVERNOR’S CAMP

[Wheeler & Son, Photo.

We step on to the Mueller Glacier, here completely covered by moraine, and, turning westwards, strike up its course. On our right, 8,500 feet above us, clad in ice and snow and glittering in the sunlight, rises the glorious mass of Mount Sefton, showering down avalanches upon the glacier. On our left the shingle slips from the rotten and crumbling crags of the Sealy Range. It is possible for tourists who are good walkers to reach the head of this glacier, which is seven and a half miles long and about one mile broad, in one day. The moraine gives way to the clear ice some three miles or so from the terminal face. Now we return and make a fresh start up the Hooker Valley due northwards from the Hermitage.

Crossing the Mueller Glacier we walk through a perfect garden of lilies (_ranunculus Lyallii_), celmisias, ‘Spaniards,’ and an endless variety of sub-alpine plants, for a distance of about one mile from the northern side of the Mueller Glacier, when we come to the terminal moraine-covered face of the Hooker Glacier.