George Edward Mannering

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We now put on the rope, as crevasses began to appear in the gently rising slopes to the Linda Glacier. On our left we thought that the north-eastern ridge looked practicable, but deemed it better to rely on a route chosen by so able a mountaineer as Ulrich Kaufmann, and kept on our course for the Linda Glacier, taking ten-minute spells at leading and breaking steps in the soft and slushy snow, and winding our way amongst ever-increasing crevasses in search of snow bridges over which we would cautiously crawl. ”

“ We had now been seventeen hours with every nerve and muscle constantly in action, and yet, as the darkness set in and the awful glare of the sun had left us, we began to freshen up, and lighting one of our Austrian climbing-lanterns we retraced our footsteps of the morning, being most careful never to deviate from them. ”

“ It is one of those vast pictures which are indelibly impressed upon the memory—one of those overpowering examples of Nature's sublimity which seem to move a man's very soul and call him to a sense of his own littleness. ”

“ Soon we came to the lower termination of the new and unmelted winter snow in the couloirs or ditches between the rock ridges, and as the day advanced the hissing avalanches came down these slopes with increasing frequency, and falling stones and rocks now and again passed close by us. The snow being in such a loose and slushy condition it was imperative that we should avoid it as much as possible, but climb as we would we could not help occasionally crossing a snow-filled couloir, and this had to be accomplished with much celerity and caution. ”

“ As we reached the rise off the plateau on to the Haast Ridge the wind increased in violence, and we had great difficulty in keeping our lanterns (two of which we now kept going) alight.
The crest of the ridge was gained, and the descent of the dangerous snow slopes to the bivouac, 1,200 or 1,400 feet below, commenced. We were soon in trouble again amongst bergschrunds and crevasses, and on two occasions, in going down and feeling for the next step behind, I found on showing a light that my hind leg was dangling in a crevasse! ”

“ Immediately after crossing the big bergschrund stepcutting commenced; and from this point upwards every step, other than those on rocks, had to be cut in hard ice.
It is no easy task after climbing steadily for nine hours in soft snow to set to work and cut steps, especially when one knows that a slip must on no account be made, for with two men only on the rope it would mean a sudden descent to the crevasses or precipices (as the case may be) below, and our certain destruction. ”

“ That evening Dixon went across with Sladden to the Survey camp in the Murchison Valley, leaving me to wait for an expected friend from Christchurch.
Here I was quite alone amongst the mountains, with plenty of time to muse over the events of the past few days and to let my wandering thoughts fly back even further, to the struggles of the past five years whilst attempting to conquer Aorangi.
What is the climber's reward for all his trouble? Why does he climb? ”

“ We at once saw that it would be useless and dangerous to persuade him to join us in the final assault, for if his self-reliance failed on these lower slopes, what would the state of his nerve be on the upper ice work where so much step-cutting would be necessary? Dixon and I knew that we ought not to try to ascend the peak alone, that such work as we—two guideless amateurs—were about to attempt, would not be looked upon with favour by such a body as the English Alpine Club ”

“ Bad as it had been coming up the top couloir, it was infinitely worse going down, for what was trickling water on the upward journey was now solid ice, and many of the steps were filled with re-frozen chips of ice from the steps we had cut above, and these had to be cleaned out before we could get a secure foothold.
Cutting steps up is one thing, and cutting them down another, for on a steep slope one cannot turn round face downwards to get at one's work, which in the case of going up-hill lies convenient to the hand. ”

“ But the wind had risen quickly and was blowing a gale from the south-west—the cold quarter. To face such a wind for any length of time, or to attempt to climb Aorangi against it, would be simple madness, so we turned and ignominiously fled to the refuge of our bivouac, 1,200 feet below, which we reached at seven o'clock, having been but three hours absent. ”

“ We learned fast from that best of masters—'hard experience.' Had we been consistently following in the footsteps of trained guides we should not have concerned ourselves about this, that, and the other, but would have left everything to the men of experience, simply being towed about in their wake; whereas we have been obliged to train and exercise all those qualities which a guide possesses, perforce. ”

“ I must not weary you, dear reader, with further monotonous descriptions of crossing these deadly enemies of the mountaineer, suffice it to say that after an exasperating hunt on the steep slopes and in the dark for our bivouac—the candles being just finished—we finally discovered it at 2.45 a.m., an hour before daylight, having been twenty-three hours constantly hard at work without any halt worthy the name.
Sleeping soundly till 9 a.m. we made up our swags, and by 11 a.m. were on the downward route again for the Ball Glacier camp. ”

“ I have often tried to think why men undergo such labour and hardship, but cannot come to any definite conclusion. To overcome set tasks ('pure cussedness' the Americans would say) is one reason (after once putting one's hand to the plough) . To gain physical and mental strength, to raise and purify the mind in Nature's great school, are both potent reasons. ”

“ In hurrying down the easy rocks we missed a mark on a snow patch which Dixon had made to denote the right route, and this mistake at the outset caused us nearly half an hour's delay before we found the right spot from which to leave the crest of the rocks, Dixon led down the rocks and I followed, every now and then taking a turn round any prominent projection with the rope and easing him down, whilst he in turn secured a good hold and took in the slack as I came down. ”

“ Naturally, too, a colonial life is more calculated to teach self-reliance and independence, and from our earliest schoolboy days we have been accustomed to rough work on the hills, pig-hunting, &c., and in camp life on all sorts of hare-brained expeditions. ”