From this reverie was I awakened by an avalanche crashing down from Sefton’s steep slopes. We turned and glissaded over the snow, lost our way in the dark, lower down, and eventually arrived at the Hermitage an hour after nightfall. My companion was thankful for the darkness, for some of his garments had been sorely tried in the descent, and he badly needed a cloak.
One other scramble, an unimportant first ascent, and my holiday was at an end. Thus fell I in love with those beautiful mountains, on whose great glaciers, steep ice-slopes, and grim precipices I was, in after years, to spend many jocund days and some bitter nights. There have been glorious mornings when we shouldered our packs and strode boldly and joyously out into the unknown. There have been days when success met us on the mountain-side, and, grasping us warmly by the hand, led us to the almost inaccessible places, and persuaded the higher crags and snows to yield up their inmost secrets. And there have been other times when angry storms, resenting the intrusion, have chased us incontinently back to tent or bivouac. Days, too, when the higher snows, “softly rounded as the breasts of Aphrodite,” in return for all our wooing, have given us but a chill response. Yet the sweet has been very sweet, and the bitter never so sharp that it could not be endured with fortitude, if not altogether with indifference. And, throughout all our guideless wanderings—and I write it down here with some little pride—no accident has occurred to mar the happiness of a generation’s climbing.
CHAPTER IV
THE CONQUERING OF AORANGI
“If at first you don’t succeed,
Try, try again.”
Green’s memorable visit in 1882, in company with two Swiss climbers, Emil Boss and Ulrich Kaufmann, fired the enthusiasm of a number of young New Zealanders, who hoped to succeed, where he had just failed, in reaching the actual summit of Mount Cook, or, to give it its more romantic Maori name, Aorangi. But Aorangi, entrenched behind his ramparts of ice and frowning buttresses of rock, bade defiance to these inexperienced though daring Colonial pioneers in Southern mountaineering. However, though we had to contend against many difficulties, we were gradually learning the craft, and there were several determined, if possible, to win for New Zealand the honour of the first ascent of New Zealand’s highest mountain. Some there were who swore not to raise the siege so long as Aorangi remained unconquered, and stout hearts and sturdy thews remained to battle with the difficulties. Up to the time when the writer took a hand in the game some ten expeditions had been organized, and the peak still remained unclimbed. In 1894, after the failure of Mannering’s party in the previous season, a solemn compact was entered into by three members of the New Zealand Alpine Club to spend their summer holidays in making one more attempt to reach the summit of Aorangi; and, spurred into activity by the news that an English climber, with the famous Zurbriggen, was to leave England in October on an expedition to the Southern Alps, a party was hurriedly organized, and arrangements made by telegraph. Many members who were anxious to take part in the expedition could not, however, for one reason or another, get away, and Dixon had no fewer than seven refusals from climbers who had at one time or another expressed their willingness to join him. Finally a party consisting of Mr. M. J. Dixon, Mr. Kenneth Ross, and the writer decided to make the venture, and arranged to meet at Fairlie Creek, the terminus of the railway, on the evening of Monday, November 5th.
On arrival at Timaru we were surprised to find there, awaiting our arrival, Mr. T. C. Fyfe, who we thought was at that moment with Mr. A. P. Harper endeavouring to cross over from the West Coast by way of the Franz Josef and Kron Prinz Rudolph Glaciers into the Tasman. Mr. Adamson, the manager of the Hermitage, was also there. They greeted us with rather depressing news. Fyfe was doubtful if he could join our party, and Adamson assured us that we could look for neither provisions nor assistance at the Hermitage, which was practically closed “pending reconstruction of the company.” On every hand, too, we were met with discouraging cries of “Much too early in the season for climbing”; but, confident in our own judgment, we kept on our way undaunted, and at Fairlie Creek, found Dixon awaiting us with a wagonette and three horses, which he had chartered for £10 to take us to Mount Cook and back. We waited only for tea at Fairlie, and proceeded at once on the first stage of our journey—fourteen miles—to Burke’s Pass. Arriving there at 10.30 p.m., we compared notes as to provisions, equipment, etc., and sorting out what we did not require, each man packed his swag for the expedition. On Tuesday we were up at 4 a.m. and on the road three-quarters of an hour later. There had been a garish red sky just after the dawn, and now, as we began to ascend the slopes of the pass, a puff of warm wind met us and gave ominous warning that a nor’-wester was brewing. The nor’-wester, which is equivalent to the dreaded Föhn wind of the Swiss Alps, is the bane of New Zealand climbers, as it generally ends in rain, and often softens the snow and brings down innumerable avalanches from the higher slopes. We could only hope that this was a false alarm, or that, if a nor’-wester did come, it would be a baby one and blow over before we reached our objective. Scarcely could we realize that the child would grow into the giant he subsequently did.