George Edward Mannering

“ Bearing away southwards to avoid the crevassed parts of the slope below, we were soon enjoying a merry glissade—sometimes sitting, sometimes standing, whizzing down in a cloud of snow which curled up from our feet and showered down upon us.
Ah, the exhilaration of a good glissade! How you seem to fly through the air and cleave the fast-speeding surface! How the snow hisses and the axe grinds! How the excitement thrills you as you look out for danger ahead, or rushing avalanches behind! There is nothing to touch it—switchback railway, going downhill on a bicycle, skating—all are far behind. ”

“ Let any who have indulged in different branches of athletics put their swags on their backs and go for a mountain climb, and I venture to say that there are greater opportunities for bringing their frames into good going order and testing their muscular abilities than can be met with in any school of athletics.
I have known men in England who have revelled in all our great national games, but who invariably put mountaineering at the head of the list after once having tasted the sweets of climbing and been captivated by the charms of the world above the snow-line. ”

“ Far up in the heavens stands out a noble peak of the Malte Brun Range, rising out of a glacier which nestles in a basin of rock and bristles with séracs and pinnacles of blue ice pouring into the gorge below, from whence issues an imposing waterfall of seventy or eighty feet, sending up clouds of spray and drenching all within its immediate vicinity. ”

“ Northwards and eastwards extended in glorious and shining array the magnificent chain of the Alps; glacier upon glacier, peak upon peak, range upon range of splendid mountains. Eastwards a fine rocky peak without a name and Mount Darwin, and looking south-westwards down the Tasman Glacier, from whence we had toiled our laborious way, the eye could follow the course of the great ice stream for twelve or thirteen miles, flanked by the grand mountains which sent down their tributary ice streams to join the mass in the valley below. ”

“ One wild rush, a few strokes of the paddle, a mad tossing about in a sheet of crested foam, half-a-dozen bucketfuls of water on board, and we were through, breathing again as we tore down the hurrying, but straight and safe, current below. Though we met with no greater obstacles to canoeing than this rapid in the gorge, such performances were several times repeated, and we had to land now and again to survey the course ahead.
To describe the mad plunging of the river through the gorge is not an easy matter. ”

“ Ice blocks were continually coming down from the broken masses overhanging the top of the couloir, but luckily none struck us. The descent of an ice block in such steep ice slopes is something to remember. First a rattle above, and then 'swish, swish' as the first leaps begin, followed by a 'whir-r-r-r' and a 'hum-m-m-m' as, like a flash of light, a spinning and ricochetting object goes by and is lost to sight over the brink of the precipice below, or perchance is detected spending its momentum on the soft snow slopes 1,000 feet down. ”

“ I wonder if all Alpine climbers, in first 'tasting the sweets of climbing,' are similarly impressed with their initial Alpine view!
No words of mine can describe the ecstasy which seemed to pervade my whole being as on the early, cloudless morning the wonderful picture of Mount Sefton reared itself in indescribable sunlit grandeur above the old bush-clad moraine close by the Hermitage. Here, indeed, was a new and a fairy-like world to live in. ”

“ Three thousand feet below us lay the Tasman Glacier with its marvellous stream of pure ice, on our right the Hochstetter ice-fall, on which we could look down and view with wonder its chaos of séracs and crevasses, the ice-clad precipices of Aorangi rising heavenwards from it in bold ruggedness. ”

“ Who can say what the future may bring forth in the matter of Alpine climbing in New Zealand? There is an immense field—magnificent glaciers and noble peaks without number, as yet practically untouched.
One can already see visions of parties of enthusiasts threading their way amongst intricate ice-falls, cutting steps up hard ice slopes, conquering by persistent effort splendid rock peaks, drinking in the glories of a new and fascinating world. Not climbing from a gymnast's point of view, but climbing because—why? They cannot tell you why ”

“ Clambering down the rocks and jumping the bergschrund, away I sped over the névé slopes, and reaching Cooper after an hour's absence, found him just packing up his camera.
It is too long a story to tell of all our troubles and adventures in getting down the mountain in the dark; letting ourselves down on to the rocks, scraping our hands on sharp edges, plunging knee-deep in soft snow, following false ridges terminating in precipices down to the Ball Glacier below, retracing our erring steps, and at last coming to vegetation again ”

“ A low temperature alone can do nothing without moisture, and this fact quickly disposes of the popular notion that glaciers invariably exist in cold countries. Thibet, for instance, and also some parts of Arctic North America are destitute of ice streams, though eternal cold may be said to reign supreme in these parts.
Imagine for a moment the higher mountains clear of snow and ice, and then watch for the formation of a glacier. Snow falls and fills up all the valleys and gullies, avalanches descend from the higher parts, and a great accumulation gathers in all hollows. ”

“ Now we would have a stretch of gently rising snow, then a crevasse or perhaps a bergschrund, followed by a steep ascent for 100 or 200 feet, then a divergence to one side or the other to avoid a chaos of séracs or blocks of tumbled and broken ice; and so on, hour after hour. About noon we had gained a considerable elevation above the plateau and were well round the corner on the Linda Glacier. Into this elevated valley the sun poured down through a rarefied atmosphere on to slopes on either hand which reflected all the light and heat. ”

“ More than 8,000 feet above us were built up those ice-clad precipices, their glaciers glinting in the bright morning light, their avalanches tearing down the mountain sides and waking the echoes of a hundred ravines and valleys with their thunder.
Where is the man who can describe these
palaces of Nature, whose vast walls
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps?
Where is the mountaineer—not the mere gymnast, but the Nature-loving mountaineer—who can tell the feelings of such a first impression? ”

“ Leaving Timaru by an evening train, Fairlie Creek (the present terminus of the railway line) is reached, where the night is spent. Two days' coaching then are required to cross over Burke's Pass into the great Mackenzie plains, across this great ancient glacier bed, past Lakes Tekapo and Pukaki, over the rivers of the same names, and up the valley of the Tasman River to a comfortable hostelry called 'The Hermitage,' nestling right under the shadow of that wonderful pile of ice-clad mountain glory, Mount Sefton. ”

“ THIRD ATTEMPT TO CLIMB AORANGI
Photography on the Tasman Glacier—Attempt to scale Mount De la Bêche
Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends.—Childe Harold.
It is a thousand pities that the ennobling pursuit of mountaineering is so neglected in this wonderland of peaks and glaciers. Such advantages as we enjoy surely cannot exist much longer without calling out the spirit which lies dormant in hundreds of the lovers of adventure and worshippers of the beautiful in Nature, who live on in our midst from day to day in a conventional and monotonous round. ”

“ Indeed, there is nothing more calculated to put a man out of temper with all the world and his surroundings, to goad him to strong language, and to give him an uncomfortable and miserable time generally, than to have to sit for hours in a boat that floats like an unmanageable log, to say nothing of the increase of danger to which he is consequently exposed in some parts of a river such as the Tasman, running, as it does, something approaching ten knots in many places. ”

“ Time was quickly passing, and we had a terrible fight to reach the head of the couloir. The rocks now shaded us from the sun's rays, and soon our hats, coats, and the rope were frozen as stiff as boards, while the cold was so intense as to cause the skin of our hands to adhere to the steel of the ice-axes. ”

“ One enormous rock protrudes through the ice in its southern and lower portion, crowned with toppling séracs 200 or 300 feet in height, which at regular intervals fall over the face of the rock and descend in magnificent avalanches. First comes a report like a pistol shot, then follows an almighty crash accompanied by clouds of snow and ice dust, succeeded by a low rumbling thunder as the blocks expend their impetus on the gentler slope below, and finally settle down again into solid ice, to continue their journey of centuries towards the terminal face of the glacier nine miles down the valley. ”

“ Still down went the swag, turning over on its ends and bounding over crevasses in a manner which made us quite envious. At last it hovered on a saddle. In breathless anxiety we wondered if it would stop, or whether it would take the slope to the Hochstetter ice-fall on the one hand, or the Freshfield on the other. One little effort more it appeared to make, and then away it went, careering down again towards the Freshfield ice-fall below. ”