A climber in New Zealand

by Malcolm Ross

We slept fairly well till Turner roused us with an attempt to sing “Christians, awake!” and we realized that it was Christmas morn. Turner had the billy boiled—an hour too soon, but that was a detail—and, breakfast finished, we waited for the dawn. Then a start was made up the steep slopes of a spur on the Liebig Range. The waterfall on our right came down in magnificent leaps. At our feet the Murchison River, in numerous branches, wandered over its stony bed, and north and north-east hundreds and hundreds of rocky peaks and ice-clothed mountains cleft the sky. Directly opposite, across the valley, the splendid mass of Mount Cook filled the view above the boulder-strewn glacier. Presently the sun caught its upper snows and grim precipices, bathing them in a warm ethereal tint—the despair alike of the artist and of the writer. The rosy flush crept slowly down the slopes, and then faded as it came, giving place to a wonderfully delicate pearly grey with just the faintest trace of warmth in it. This in turn vanished, and then, as Phœbus came boldly up above the eastern mountain-tops, the snows of Aorangi were changed to gleaming silver. It was a sunrise to be remembered.

A detailed description of this climb would only bore the reader unacquainted with Alpine heights. Suffice it then to say that the ridge that from below looked a “cake-walk” became very much broken, and gave us some interesting rock-work. Fyfe, who was, of course, in his element, decided to keep to the arête, and gain the snow slopes higher up; but Turner urged a deviation, and, somewhat reluctantly, we descended a snow couloir, flanked on either side by magnificent precipices. This detour lost us five hundred feet of elevation, and the climb became, for an hour or more, a weary snow trudge. The main arête was regained only to find that we were completely cut off from the Nun’s Veil. We therefore had to be content with the first ascent of the nearest peak—Mount Beret, 8761 feet, which is the highest point of the rocky Priest’s Cap. The final climb was interesting, especially the crossing of one narrow snow ridge, on which there was just room to stand. On either hand the snow slope swept sharply down to great bergschrunds that yawned below. From the summit of our peak the view of Mount Cook was magnificent—probably the finest in all the Southern Alps—and, towards the north-east, there was a most glorious panorama of mountain peaks that seemed to stretch for over a hundred miles, till the more distant were lost in a haze of bluish-grey. The weather was still unsettled, and a cold wind had arisen; but we secured some very interesting photographs. On the descent we got two thousand feet of glissading, and reached camp early in the afternoon. We packed up, waded the Murchison River, crossed the Tasman Glacier, and were back in the Ball Hut just before nightfall, after fifteen hours’ fairly hard work—an easy day for an invalid!

We now began to cast longing eyes toward Mount Cook, the first “colling” of which—i.e. the climbing to the highest summit on one side, and the descending on the other side—we had resolved to attempt. This was no ordinary undertaking, and it was necessary that we should take no chances either in regard to weather or equipment. The weather, however, was not yet quite settled, and another difficulty in the way was Mr. Turner’s boot. While the chief guide at the Hermitage was hammering some nails into it, he gave the heel a tap with the hammer, and the heel came off! The boot was sent post-haste to the nearest shoemaker—ninety-six miles away. It was now due back at the Hermitage, and Fyfe went down for it—a 28-mile journey there and back. Meanwhile Turner did his walking and climbing in a pair of my Alpine boots, I, luckily, having taken the precaution to bring a second pair with me. Turner and I were left in the hut, and during these two days, in addition to doing the cooking and washing-up, I managed to find time to make a collection of beetles and butterflies for my friend, Mr. Percy Buller of Wellington.

On Wednesday, December 27, accompanied by Dr. Fitchett of Wellington, we proceeded up the Tasman Glacier to the Malte Brun Hut, where we found a party, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Longton of Christchurch, Miss von Dadelszen, Miss Hickson, and Mr. W. M‘Intosh of Wellington, under the leadership of Graham, one of the Hermitage guides. These huts have only two rooms, and the bunks—four in each room—are like steamers’ berths, one above the other. One room is supposed to be reserved for ladies; the men’s room does for bedroom, kitchen, dining-room, and drawing-room by turns. The problem of housing seven men and three women in these two four-berth cabins had to be solved by one of the men taking a bunk in the ladies’ room, and two of our party sleeping on the floor in the men’s room. This central portion of the Southern Alps was becoming such a popular tourist resort that problems of this nature not infrequently presented themselves, and further accommodation, both at the huts and at the Hermitage, was urgently required.

Fyfe having returned with the much-travelled boot, we were ready for more serious work, and on the 29th December were astir at 1.15 a.m., preparing breakfast. An hour later two climbing parties might have been seen marching by lantern-light in single file down the path that leads from the hut to the Upper Tasman Glacier, 500 feet below, one party consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Longton, Dr. Fitchett, Mr. M‘Intosh, and Graham, being bound for the Hochstetter Dome, 9179 feet high, while our party was bent upon making the first ascent of Elie de Beaumont, a fine snow-clad mountain of 10,200 feet. The day was not promising. While we were having breakfast, a fitful wind had soughed ominously about the hut, and by the time we had proceeded about two miles up the glacier, and before it was yet dawn, this wind had increased in strength, and was blowing steadily. The great mountains around us seemed dwarfed in the feeble light before the dawning, and the cold, grey snows of the Minarets, Mount Green, Mount Walter, and Elie de Beaumont loomed ghost-like against the western sky. Eastward, the serrated ridge of Mount Darwin, and the dark precipices of Malte Brun frowned on us from heights of over nine thousand and ten thousand feet respectively. The rounded snows of the Hochstetter Dome closed in the view at the head of the great ice-filled valley. The snow on the glacier was hard with a night’s freezing, and we made quick progress over its gently sloping, even surface. The sunrise on the Tasman peaks was devoid of the beautiful rosy tints that one so often sees in Alpine regions; but far away down the valley beyond the Ben Ohau Range, where the storm-clouds now gathered in great companies and battalions, there was a gorgeous and even a theatrical display, the mountain-tops and the distant cloud-land appearing as if lit up by some great conflagration, or the glowing fires of some vast volcano. Just as day was dawning, Graham halted to rope up his party for the ascent of the Dome, while we swung round to the left in the direction of our mountain.

Easy snow slopes broken by an occasional crevasse led us towards the foot of Mount Walter, from which “The Times” Glacier takes its rise on the western side. This fine peak (9507 feet) and Mount Green (8704 feet) rise from the main glacier, two glorious spires of rock, and ice, and snow, forming, with the pure dome of Elie de Beaumont, a magnificent Alpine view that dominates the head of the Great Tasman Glacier. The approach to the upper snows of our mountain was guarded by deep crevasses, great gaping bergschrunds, and gigantic séracs, and through and up these we had to thread our way. The snow was in bad condition, and the climb became a weary grind. Fyfe and Turner led alternately, and I, being in the middle of the rope, had little to do but follow my leader. Some great ice-cliffs on the left coming down from the shoulder of Mount Walter looked dangerous, and we gave them as wide a berth as possible. As we climbed past them on the right, a great ice avalanche fell away below us, crashing with thundering roar on to the glacier some distance to the left of our line of route. Ahead, the face of Elie de Beaumont presented a fine sight with its towering walls of ice and steep snow slopes. On the whole line of the ascent we could see no sign of any rock to contrast with the delicate harmonies of green and blue and white.

Mount Walter.

Beyond the corner of Mount Walter there was an interesting little bit of work in threading a way past great blocks of ice and gaping schrunds; but, generally speaking, the climb was uninteresting. It is a climb to do once, but never a second time. We dodged round a steep sloping ice-block, and ascended a fairly easy snow slope, only to find the way barred by a bergschrund—a crevasse with one lip lower than the other. This schrund, however, was narrow enough to permit of our jumping over it, and, though it was a case of jumping up, we had little difficulty in crossing it.

It is very rare for two parties to be climbing together within sight of each other in the Southern Alps, because in New Zealand we have not yet got to that stage in which, as Whistler put it, you can both admire the mountain and recognize the tourist on the top. It was a decided novelty, therefore, to watch the Longton party gradually ascending higher and higher on the Hochstetter Dome. By the time we had crossed this bergschrund we could see them—five small dots—like flies, sheltering from the cold wind on the lee side of the ridge leading to the lower peak of the Dome. They, wisely, did not attempt the higher peak.