Malcolm Ross

“ From Mount Cook came a mass of broken ice, gigantic cubes, and pinnacles, of the most exquisite and dainty colourings, ethereal blues and greens. Down 3000 feet the great frozen cataract poured its masses of ice, ever moving, yet to our eyes in perpetual rest. Even while we looked a thundering roar, that had grown familiar [47] to our ears for the last two weeks, rent the air, as, over a black face of the cliff that breaks the cataract, and serves to heighten the beauty of its colouring, a great mass of ice crashed to the foot of the mountain. ”

“ But it will be as well to draw a veil over the details of that long, dreary walk—the zigzagging to find a way down through the broken ice; the jumping of many crevasses; the uncertain steps along the crumbling live moraine; and the mechanical, sleepy trudge along the final pathway. Our throats were parched, and, early in the morning, the roar of a [310] waterfall on the range across the valley mocked our thirst; but on the final slopes of the clear ice of the glacier we broke the frozen surface of some pools with our ice-axes and drank mighty draughts. ”

“ The valley is narrow and gloomy, and almost completely shut in from the late autumn sun, so that as the evening wanes one is glad to seek the shelter of the hut and to pile on the beech-tree logs till a great sparking fire goes roaring up the capacious chimney.
Late in the season as it was, we only gained the summit of the pass after a weary trudge through snow. Our reward was the view. One has seen nobler mountains, greater glaciers, and more beautiful snow-fields; but the wild and rugged grandeur of the surrounding country cannot fail to leave a lasting impression. ”

“ Beyond that, the rocky peak of De la Bêche, and the beautifully pure snows of the Minarets cleft the blue, leading the eye in turn to the gleaming masses of Elie de Beaumont and the Hochstetter Dome at the head of the Great Tasman Glacier. Across the valley Malte Brun towered grandly above all the other rock peaks of the range, and still farther away, towards the north-east, was the finest view of all, range succeeding range, and mountain succeeding mountain for more than a hundred miles, or as far as the eye could reach. ”

“ The hut on the Tasman lies at the foot of a spur of the mighty Aorangi. Above it, far up the hillside, grow masses of mountain-lilies and daisies, and little thickets of the most exquisite ribbon-wood, the very ideal flower for a New Zealand bridal bouquet. In front of the hut towers the great moraine, above whose stony ridge, and far beyond, rise the Liebig and the Malte Brun Ranges. At sunset the delicate colours of these mountains are indescribably lovely, outlined, as they often are, against a primrose sky deepening into amber. ”

“ Hanging on to the rope to avoid being blown away, I took a glance round. The soft snow from the tops of Haast and Haidinger, caught by the wind, was blown like a great cloud-banner half-way across the Tasman Valley, while the moon went plunging into the storm-clouds that came sailing in torn masses overhead. It was evident that we were in for a bad nor’-wester, and as I crawled back under the folds of the tent and into my sleeping bag beside my recumbent companions I could hold out little hope for the morrow. Hour after hour the wind raged. ”

“ But the talk of mountaineering is as the whiff of battle in the nostrils of an old war-horse, and when once the conquering of virgin peaks and the making of new passes into unexplored country begins to loom on the climber’s horizon, not all the gold in Golconda will keep him back. Therefore the difficulties were brushed aside, and one fine day my friend, my wife, and I found ourselves with ice-axes, tent, sleeping bags, Alpine rope, and provisions, on board the Mount Cook coach, bound once more for that goal of New Zealand climbers, the Hermitage. ”

“ It was only the call of a kea far up the mountain-side. Over the cold white snows on the shoulder of Mount Cook, one solitary cloud hung, fringed with the gold of the setting sun. Later the moon shone brilliantly through the clear frosty air, and the peaks became silhouettes against the horizon. A rock avalanche rattled down the side of the glacier. From across the narrow flat came the cry of the mountain parrot; and a weka that had crept close to our heads under the branches startled us with a loud screech. ”

“ Lying in bed there we looked far down the Tasman to where Aorangi’s great ice-capped ridge pierced the primrose of the western sky, and watched, through God’s great window, the coming of the stars—for in such bivouacs as these it is that you get the most glorious revelations of the night. True, our pillow of rock was somewhat hard, and the Milky Way was rather a cool counterpane. But what cared we? The Goddess of Indolence does not come so far up the glacier. ”

“ All the way up the valley we had been getting glorious glimpses of the Mount Cook chain, and De la Bêche, with its sharp peak and minarets of spotless snow, seemed to be ever beckoning us onward. Towering in the distance above the dull grey line of the great moraine, gleaming gloriously in the sunshine of early morn, tinted with the soft rose of the after-glow, or looming coldly in the mystic moonlight, this mountain seemed ever beautiful in outline, majestic in form. ”

“ Even on the dull days, when there was a clearing in the mist, we were out and about. The girls were “gone” on glissading, and used to toil up the 200 feet odd of moraine in front of the hut for the pleasure of coming down again. And they did the descent in style, ice-axe as rudder and anchor, and wild cries of delight accompanying the performance.
One day especially is a red-letter day in our memories. The aroma of boiled mutton even now rises as I recall the fun we managed to squeeze into those fourteen hours. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then we imagine that our hip bone is slowly working its way through the blankets, and we turn over to give the other one a fair share of the discomfort. But it also soon seems to be working its way through, and as a sort of compromise we lie on our back for a few minutes preparatory to going through the whole performance over again. Then the unwonted sounds add to our wakefulness—the roar of an avalanche above the mists; the noise of loose stones rattling eerily down the moraine near our bivouac; or the cry of a belated mountain parrot seeking his aerie. ”

“ CHAPTER V THE CONQUERING OF AORANGI—continued
“It thunders, and the wind rushes screaming through the void,
The night is black as a black stone.” Rabindranath Tagore.
A high bivouac in the Southern Alps, across which sweep the great summer ocean air currents, may, at any time, and without much warning, lend a spice of adventure to a big climb. And so it now happened. Before we could get comfortably warm in our bags, and settle down for the night, ominous gusts of wind began to flap the sides of our tent, and to send the snow swirling down the gullies. ”

“ There may come a day when some climber, caught in bad weather, or endeavouring to achieve the impossible by some new and more daring route, will meet his fate on the higher snows, or leave his bones among the beetling crags of the great precipices. One can only express the hope that such a day may be long delayed, and that, for many years to come, the steep white slopes, the grim precipices, and the towering peaks will continue as a health-giving playground, and resound with the laughter born of the fun and frolic of the [23] hardy mountaineer. ”

“ Leaving this stream behind, we plodded along a well-marked path, fringed with beautiful ferns, between the tall forest trees. The grade, easy at first, soon became steep, so that the cool shade was welcome. The forest that clothes the lower slopes of our great mountain ranges is frequently of beech trees, erroneously called by the settlers birch. On the slopes of the Tararuas, the magnificent, straight trunks of these stately trees, their spreading branches, and their beautiful tracery of foliage that more than half hides the blue above are a constant source of wonder and delight. ”

“ Beside his winter fire, too, when he sees the great valleys and the high peaks taking form, once more, in the smoke-wreaths of his evening pipe, the days spent in the valleys—days when he never climbed at all—will mean for him a flood of precious memories that he will have no desire to stay. This perhaps applies with greater force to the climber in a new country, for he cannot—like his brother in the older lands—take his ease along the level road, nor, in a moment of temporary mental aberration, be tempted by a mountain railway! ”

“ The amateur porter may begin gaily in the morning with a full stomach and a light heart. In the cool, bracing air that succeeds the chilly dawn his fifty or sixty-pounds burden may seem almost as light as his own heart. But a couple of hours’ experience of a New Zealand moraine, with a mile or so of hummocky ice thrown in, will convince him that neither his pack, nor the important part of his anatomy already mentioned, is quite the feather-weight of his early morning imagination. ”

“ On the top of the pass a strong wind was blowing, ruffling the sullenly grey surface of the tarns, and whistling through the tussocks. Near the cairn built [258] there we went to the edge of the great wall of granite which falls sheer to the valley below. Far down lay the Mintaro Lake and hut, mere specks in the misty distance. The mountains in front of us loomed up through the mist, that, lifting a little, gave us a glimpse of the spun silver of a waterfall or the rugged grandeur of a granite peak. ”

“ One awesome night, dark as pitch, when I lay awake in the hut and listened to the rain pouring and the rush of Roaring Creek as it carried its rain-swollen waters into the Arthur River, my thoughts veered round to the perennial scone. The rats that night were holding high carnival. They had discovered some figs in my swag. Among the bric-à-brac in the men’s hut, which was our kitchen, dining-room, and drawing-room in one, I had noticed a frying-pan with a large hole in the bottom. ”

“ As we gazed across the island and along the great Alpine chain, the virgin snowy peaks of the Minarets, quite close at hand, attracted our attention. They were first-class peaks, over ten thousand feet high. Why not attempt their ascent now that we were so high up [176] and had time to spare? While we were eating our breakfast and considering this problem, clouds formed in a stratum of cool air below us, and a marvellous transformation scene was unfolded before our wondering gaze. Northwards the mountains became islands in a sea of fleecy cloud. ”

“ In a little time the moon rose, enabling the three men to find a partial shelter beneath the rock-ridge, on a little ledge less than two feet wide and sloping outward, and there they spent the nine hours of darkness, stamping to keep up the circulation, and talking and singing to drive away sleep, which would have been fatal to them. Every quarter of an hour an avalanche rumbled, there being a warm north-west wind, which probably saved them from being frost-bitten. At 5.30 the descent was recommenced, and the snow was found to be very soft, one crevasse being almost impassable. ”

“ The splendid mountain chain that forms the back-bone of the Middle Island was, during the early period of colonization, a terra incognita to all but a few New Zealanders, and it is only within recent years that the sons of those bold pioneers who travelled over so many leagues of ocean to build themselves new homes and to lay the foundation of a new and sturdy nation have ventured into the heart of the Southern Alps to wrest the secrets of the higher snows. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But breakfast, and the bracing mountain air, which is like a vintage wine, and a glorious summer sun, and further exercise will gradually dispel the miasma of initial trouble, while a week of this kind of work, with a minor peak or pass thrown in, will send him forth as a giant refreshed, ready to oppose all the ills that flesh is heir to, and eager to conquer the long icy slopes and grim precipices that guard the way to the virgin summits of his native land. ”

“ Soon the clouds and the driving snow grew so dense that we could see only a very few yards ahead, and the line of route became quite obscured. The wind also increased in violence, and once or twice we had to cling to the frozen slope with the aid of our ice-axes. The wind was bitterly cold, and icicles hung from Turner’s moustache and half-grown beard. ”