Elie de Beaumont.
“It was too cold to sleep, but we rested till daybreak. A cold wind was blowing, and there were signs of more bad weather. Our provisions were at an end, and as it meant a long delay to get a further supply, and both Dixon and I had now to return, we decided to accept defeat for the present. We accordingly set to work to pack up the swags, while Fyfe, taking only his camera, started off ahead. By the time we had reached the top of the Dome with our swags the wind had increased to a gale, and it was with the greatest difficulty that we managed to get to the top of the Dome. It was only by making a rush every now and then between the stronger gusts of wind that we succeeded at all. A gust of wind would catch the swags, and we had continually to crouch low down in order to prevent ourselves from being blown away. It was very difficult work for me, who had now no ice-axe, and before long my knees as well as my knuckles were skinned through coming into frequent contact with the frozen névé. Arriving at the top of the Dome, we were just in time to see Fyfe disappearing down below in the direction of the Bivouac, en route to the hut. The start he had got enabled him, as he had nothing but the camera to carry, to get down to the sheltered side of the ridge before the full force of the gale could strike him. We climbed down from the Dome on rocks and snow. The snow slopes were frozen hard, and we had to cut steps and descend backwards on the rope because of the strong wind and the heavy swags we were carrying. The light driving snow and the force of the wind made it difficult for us to open our eyes. After about six hours’ continuous hard work we got under the shelter of a rock. We were shivering with the cold, and presented rather a strange appearance with the icicles hanging from our hair, our moustachios, and even our eyebrows. Fyfe and I had lost our hats—they had been blown away—and a handkerchief that I had tied round my head had also been blown away.
“We waited a while in hope of the wind’s moderating, and then, as it was getting late, we decided to push on. About two chains farther on was another rock, and here we stopped and had a further consultation. We were all pretty well exhausted by this time through our long battle with the wind, and I especially was very tired, as I had come down all the way without an ice-axe, so we decided to camp, and pitched the tent in the shelter of the rock. The storm that night was something awful. The snow and the wind—now a howling blizzard—continued, and the prospect was dolorous in the extreme. The tent was pitched on the snow after we had scraped a level place for it. We then divided what little food we had left—some oatmeal and sugar, which we mixed with a little snow and partook of—and retired for the night. Sleep was out of the question; we simply lay and shivered all night, though Graham on the inside was not so badly off. We afterwards learned from Fyfe that the gale was so severe in the Tasman Valley that the end wall of the hut sagged in several inches, and, being rather afraid of a collapse, he got up and shifted his quarters to the leeward compartment.
“We were astir at seven o’clock next morning, and having packed the swags we started off in what we thought to be the right direction; but what with the snow and the drift we could not see many yards ahead, and soon found ourselves on the verge of the precipices above the Hochstetter Ice Fall. We had to retrace our steps for some distance, and in order to shorten our journey we then took to a steep snow slope a little to the right of the track we had come down. Here we found the slope in such bad order—a layer of soft snow superimposing the clear ice—that we had again to cut steps almost right up to the rock we had camped under. We then found that we had been only about two chains from the top of the ridge leading to the Bivouac Rock! To get to the latter we had now to keep to the rocks, as the snow was dangerous. It was not till about midday that we reached the Bivouac. It was then beginning to clear and the wind was not strong, so we spent some time trying to melt snow on the rocks, but with very poor results. Here we got some tinned meat that had been previously opened; but Dixon’s hands were so cold that he let the tin slip, and it went sliding down the swag couloir beyond recall.
“After a halt of about an hour we started for the hut, and finding the snow in the long couloir better than any we had traversed that day, we took to it. We decided to throw the swags down once more, but first got into a position from which we could watch their entire descent. The two heaviest swags went right down the couloir, bringing up on the snow within a few feet of each other. The lightest swag, however, stopped some two chains higher up. No damage was done, and a few things that came out of the lightest swag we were able to pick up on the way down. We made rapid progress down the couloir, and were soon surprised to see Fyfe coming up in search of us. We shouted to let him know we were still alive, and he waited while we came down. We learnt that he had spent a very anxious night throughout the storm at the hut, and had upbraided himself a good deal for having left us. On the following morning he was undecided what to do. He thought of going down to the Hermitage for assistance, but finally concluded that if anything had happened to us we would not by that time be alive, so he decided to start off and see for himself before giving any alarm. His heart was in his mouth as he wended his way up the Tasman spur, and saw at the bottom of the couloir the swags, but no sign of the climbers. He was actually afraid, for a time, to go near them. He expected to get some clue by closer examination; but when he reached them, he could not tell from the shoulder-straps whether they had been sent down intentionally or not. He saw, however, that they had come down that morning, and, placing them together, he started up the slope, hoping for the best, and soon was overjoyed to hear our shouts above. Recognizing that we were all in the flesh, and concluding that it must take a good deal in the way of exposure to kill an average mountaineer, he retraced his steps, and, sitting down on the swags, patiently awaited our arrival.
“Here my narrative may as well end. I need say nothing about our journey back to civilization. Dixon and I had reluctantly to return. Fyfe and Graham remained to try again. Since then Dixon has gone back once more from Christchurch, and at the moment of writing, for all I know, he may be shivering in storm under the Bivouac Rock, or frizzling in the glare of a fierce noonday sun on the remorseless white slopes of the Upper Linda. Looking back on our battles with wind and weather, on a mountain in such vile condition, thinking of all our hardships and privations, and looking, too, at my slowly healing knuckles, which I nearly lost altogether in contact with ice-steps of the upper couloirs, my only regret is that I am not with them.”
CHAPTER VII
THE CONQUERING OF AORANGI—concluded