DE LA BÊCHE AND THE MINARETS
“The mountains in their overwhelming might
Moved me to sadness when I saw them first,
And afterwards they moved me to delight.”
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
In the days when we first visited the Mount Cook region we thought De
la Bêche would be an easy mountain to climb. But our youthful eagerness
and inexperience led us into some difficult situations, and then we
began to think it was a difficult mountain to climb. In after years
one was apt to smile at the recollection of those early attempts,
which, try we ever so bravely, always ended in failure, and moved us
to sadness. Yet, if they had to be made over again, one would not have
it otherwise; for, notwithstanding our disappointments, we had great
fun, and we really could climb. It was our knowledge of route-finding
that was at fault. That knowledge has to be learnt slowly in the hard
school of experience. Fyfe was the first to acquire it, and after
that the rest was comparatively easy. The great peaks went down one
by one—Cook, De la Bêche, the Minarets, Malte Brun, Darwin, and the
Footstool. Fitzgerald bagged three of the finest—Tasman, Sefton, and
Haidinger; and, later on, the small band of West Coast climbers—Newton,
Teichelman, and Low—conquered others.
It was in 1893 that we first turned our steps towards De la Bêche and
the Minarets. De la Bêche had attracted the attention of the Rev. Mr.
Green, and as far back as 1889 Mannering, Dixon, and Johnston had had a
shot at it. In all, some four attempts to scale it had been made before
our arrival on the scene. Early in January of the year named, Fyfe and
I swagged bedding and provisions up to the Bivouac Rock. This rock is a
historic spot in connexion with New Zealand mountaineering. Many of the
early climbers have starved and shivered there, but seldom have they
waxed fat on a plethora of provisions. I recall especially one jolly
expedition when my wife and I and four others used it as an habitation
for some days, and I can still see Wilson of Glasgow and my wife vainly
endeavouring to cook something hot for supper with what remained of our
methylated spirit and the oil from a tin of sardines! That supper was
not quite a success. But, later on, one warm summer’s night, after a
jolly meal, we sat up singing songs and telling stories till midnight,
when we saw the New Year in, and then crept reluctantly into our
sleeping bags for the rest of the night.
[Illustration: DE LA BÊCHE BIVOUAC.]
Here, too, it was that Mr. R. S. Low was found in 1908, almost
unconscious, after his accident on the descent from Graham’s Saddle,
and after one of the most marvellous feats of physical endurance in
the history of Alpine climbing. While descending the couloir near the
Kron Prinz Rudolf Ice Fall he slipped and fell. He succeeded in driving
his ice-axe into the slope, and it held; but a heavy knapsack that he
was carrying threw him off his balance at the critical moment, with
the result that he shot down the couloir for some 20 or 30 feet on to
some jagged rocks. The shock was so severe that he rebounded on
to the most dangerous part of the couloir, with a clear slide of 200
feet leading down to a bergschrund about 20 feet wide and of unknown
depth. His knapsack apparently gripped against the slope, and he was
able to get a hand-hold on an isolated strip of rock jutting out from
the snow. He dragged himself on to these rocks with a badly dislocated
ankle, a lacerated knee, and minor wounds, and lay there for hours in a
semi-conscious state. Late in the afternoon, when the snow slopes were
soft, with the boot removed from his injured and now swollen foot, Mr.
Low started on what was the most perilous part of the whole descent.
Unable to ascend to get his ice-axe, he used his left knee on the
slope, and kicked steps in the snow with his right foot. In this way
he made two traverses down the slope and crossed two snow bridges and
the bergschrund at the foot of the couloir. He then crawled to a piece
of light moraine on the lower portion of the glacier. Here he passed
the first night, endeavouring to stanch the bleeding and to cover
his wounds with adhesive plaster. On the following day (Thursday) he
decided to make for the Bivouac Rock. He expected to reach it before
nightfall. Tying a 30-foot piece of rope to his knapsack, he lay on
his back on the snow and used his hands and his sound foot to propel
himself to the rope limit. Having gone so far, he would drag the
knapsack up to him and then proceed as before. This mode of progression
was fairly satisfactory so long as the smooth going lasted, but on
reaching the hummocky ice and the rough moraine lower down the glacier
he was again forced to crawl on his hands and knees. Towards evening
he crawled to the lee side of the biggest rock he could find. Next day
(Friday) it rained and hailed, and finally snowed to a depth of two
feet, making it impossible for him to move. On the Saturday, however,
he started off again and accomplished the most marvellous performance
of crawling on his hands and knees through newly fallen snow over
the rough and broken surface of the moraine-covered glacier, between
crevasses and over ice bridges, thence for 300 feet up the steep face
of the lateral moraine, and finally down a ridge of broken loose rocks
to the Bivouac. Here he remained for six days. His dislocated ankle was
much swollen and very painful, and the skin and flesh were considerably
worn from his knees. Each day he became weaker for want of food, as the
one day’s food that he carried had to last him ten days. At last he
had reduced himself to two pinches of cocoa a day. Fortunately there
were a few pieces of short board at the Bivouac, and out of these he
improvised a crutch, so that he was able to get about sufficiently to
obtain water by melting snow on the rocks.
It was not till the Friday that the people at the Hermitage knew that
Mr. Low was missing. On the West Coast a search party was immediately
organized, and the two young New Zealand Alpine guides, Jack Clark and
Peter Graham, at once set out from the Hermitage, and arrived at the
De la Bêche Bivouac at 4 a.m. on Saturday, March 3. There they found
Mr. Low alive, but in a very weak condition. They at once released a
carrier pigeon they had brought with them, with a brief message to the
manager at the Hermitage for medical aid. In case of any misadventure
to the pigeon, Guide Clark dispatched a man to the Hermitage with the
news. On the Monday Mr. Low was carried down to the Ball Glacier Hut.
This was a terribly arduous undertaking, as the Tasman Glacier at
this point is very much crevassed and broken up into large hummocks,
while, lower down, the Hochstetter and Ball Glaciers and some enormous
moraines had to be crossed. Next day (Tuesday) the guides improvised
a comfortable couch with a sheet of galvanized iron, a mattress, and
some pillows, and, this being placed on a stout pack-horse, Mr. Low
was taken across the Hooker River for twelve miles to the coach road.
Thence he was conveyed by road and rail to Timaru, and, subsequently,
to Christchurch, where, after an operation and skilful treatment, he
began gradually to recover. I had the pleasure of sitting beside him
at the Alpine Club dinner in London the other evening, and he told me
he had been rock-climbing in Wales! And yet there are some pessimists
who will tell you to-day that the young Briton is becoming decadent! I
did not mean to write anything about all this—and I am afraid Mr. Low
will not forgive me for having done so—but the incident is of historic
interest, and no chronicle of De la Bêche and its Bivouac Rock would be
complete without some reference to it.
It was on January 3, 1893, that Fyfe and I reached the rock. It was a
glorious evening, with not a breath of air stirring, and the warm sun
streaming down into the valley loosened the séracs of a fine glacier
opposite, sending avalanche after avalanche thundering down over the
precipices on to the Kron Prinz Rudolf Glacier below. We raked up the
gravel under the rock, and having levelled it somewhat and scooped out
small holes for our hips in order that we might be more comfortable,
we spread the tent and one blanket for a mattress, leaving another
double blanket for a covering. Just in front of us, above our Bivouac
Rock, was the main spur of De la Bêche, and at the foot of it the
lateral moraine of the Kron Prinz Rudolf, with six or seven older and
higher moraines, some four or five of which had plants growing on
them. The Kron Prinz itself, near where it joins the Tasman, was very
much broken, and its ice was black with morainic débris. Across this
glacier we looked on to the lower cliffs of the main range, over which
rock avalanches frequently fell. Above were visible some fine peaks,
and the upper portions of two or three unnamed glaciers. More to the
left, in the direction of Mount Cook, could be seen glacier after
glacier,—the Forrest Ross, the Kaufmann, the Haast, the Freshfield, the
Hochstetter, and Ball all being visible,—while down the centre of the
valley we looked for miles over the white billowy ice of the Tasman
to the opposite range far beyond its terminal face. One great rock on
the lateral moraine of the Tasman just above us seemed to menace our
safety, but a closer examination showed that it was firmly poised and
likely to retain its position for a year or two at all events.
The evening continued fine, and we sat at the mouth of our cave
watching the sun illumining the higher snows as it sank slowly behind
the bold outline of Mount Haidinger, and listening to the avalanches
thundering down from the glacier. Far away down the valley a bank of
sun-lit mist continued for a while above the Hochstetter Ice Fall, and
while we sat and watched the lighter wreaths mysteriously appearing and
vanishing on the highest peak of Aorangi, the last gleam of sunlight
slowly stole away.
We intended to make an early start next morning, but, just before the
gloaming, our hopes fell as we saw the relentless mists once more
gradually creeping down the mountain-side, and observed that a light
wind had begun to blow in at the mouth of our cave. Slowly the mist
descended, and glacier after glacier faded from our view, till at
last a dense fog filled the whole valley. It grew cold, and we found
it difficult to get to sleep. The more one tries to sleep in such
situations, and especially on the eve of some important expedition,
the more one cannot do it. The mind becomes abnormally active, and is
occupied by one train of thought after another in quick succession,
most of the subjects being quite incongruous, and entirely out of
keeping with the situation. I’m sure if any eminent mental scientist
ever has the good fortune to spend a night under the Bivouac Rock at
De la Bêche, he will find food for reflection, and perhaps be able
to write an interesting chapter on “Bivouacs and Mental Effect.” At
first our pebbly bed feels fairly comfortable: after a while we begin
to think it hard. About an hour or so convinces us that it _is_ hard.
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.
Next morning a drizzling mist was driving in at the mouth of our little
cave, and the rock had sprung a leak. There was nothing of the view
left but the huge boulders of the moraine looming up ghost-like through
the fog, while the only sign of life was a funny little wren that
every now and then fluttered inquisitively up to the mouth of the cave.
He had only the semblance of a tail. No doubt he philosophized in his
own little way as to what manner of beings they could be who had made
themselves a bed in such a strange situation and in such weather. Fyfe
brewed some hot tea over the spirit lamp, and after we had partaken of
breakfast we turned into bed again. By this time we were getting used
to disappointments, so now we resolved to take matters philosophically,
and wait for a chance at our mountain as long as the provisions held
out. We had little in the way of amusement, and our only literature
consisted of a copy of the _Sydney Bulletin_ that Fyfe had put into
his swag when leaving the Hermitage. We read the stories in this, then
the advertisements, and then read some of the stories over again. We
were, however, better off than on the occasion of our last expedition
to these regions, when our only literature was the labels on the meat
tins and what we composed ourselves. Later on we occupied ourselves by
keeping count of the number of avalanches that fell from the glacier
opposite. We found the average to be about ten an hour, or at the rate
of 240 a day.
Eventually, we got our climb, but I shall not weary the reader—gentle
or otherwise—with the details of it. We got caught in the mists,
and had to descend. We enjoyed some fine glissading and one or
two adventures, such as a tumble or two into narrow crevasses. We
returned to the Bivouac defeated, and the weather grew worse. The old
sea-captain who said, “Give me weather as is weather: none of your
damned blue skies for me!” would have revelled in it. Food got scarce,
and we had to tramp down the glacier for further supplies. It was
true that there were some provisions under the rock left by Harper and
Hamilton, to which we might have helped ourselves; but we resolved that
if we were to climb the mountain we should do so entirely by our own
exertions. We were painfully conscientious in those days.
In company with some visitors whom we met on the glacier, we had
another shot at the mountain later on. We got on to the main ridge just
below the final peak, and, finding ourselves on a bad route, again
retired defeated. We were, however, rewarded by the most glorious views
on every side. It will perhaps also be as well to draw a veil over
this descent. We got into some awkward situations, and I have a vivid
recollection of cutting steps down an almost perpendicular slope; of
making some very awkward traverses across others; and of dangling at
the end of the rope on a smooth rock in order to make a step in the
ice at its edge. And all the time the sun beat down furiously, and
there was so much refraction that our hands and faces were not only
browned to a dark chocolate colour, but painfully swollen into the
bargain. The rocks in places were so hot as to be quite unpleasant to
the touch, while the leather of my camera case began to smell as if
it were singed. In one steep place, during a rather ticklish piece
of step-cutting, I removed my goggles for a few minutes in order the
better to see what I was doing, but paid the penalty for it afterwards
by suffering considerably from snow-blindness. It was two or three days
before my eyes were quite right again.
Years later, one fine day, soon after our ascent of Haidinger, Fyfe
and I strolled from the hut up to the De la Bêche Bivouac, carrying
fairly light packs, consisting of sleeping bags and provisions for
three days. We were in fine form, and made light of the journey. We
reached our destination at three o’clock in the afternoon, lunched
sumptuously at four, lit our pipes, and basked, smoking, in the warm
sunshine. It was a gloriously bright day, and the higher mountains
lifted their ridges above the tumbled moraine, clear cut against an
azure sky, while glaciers and white slopes of snow billowing to still
higher and purer fields completed the picture. And there were those
other and sterner rock peaks that “took in their teeth the sun, the
storm, and the whirlwind, never changing countenance from day to year,
and from year to age.” We smoked, and talked, and watched the shadows
stealing across the ice-floored valley, till finally the sun dipped
behind the narrow ridge of Haidinger, and only the snow cap of Aorangi
was illumined. The gleaming silver brow of the monarch of the Southern
Alps was then transmuted into glowing gold, and, in turn, changed into
frosted silver, all in the space of the fleeting sunset half-hour. The
temperature fell quickly: we crawled under the rock and sought the
warmth of our sleeping bags. Through the mouth of our cave we watched
the stars being set like jewels in the darkness of the sky.
We were astir at half-past two of the clock, and breakfasted by lantern
light on tinned food and cold tea. By 3 a.m. we were marching, with
the lantern, across the old lateral moraines and up the Kron Prinz
Rudolf Glacier towards the Ice Fall, which we reached as dawn was
breaking. One does not make quick progress across these dreadful New
Zealand moraines by the uncertain light of a flickering candle. You
step on what appears to be solid ground, and a boulder, resting on
ice, slides from under your foot. You recover your balance with an
effort, but hit your ankle in the process against a sharp-edged slate
that is as unyielding as the other stone was unstable. Dark shadows
that you treat with confidence are discovered to be pools of water
with a thin covering of ice that lets you through, and the warmth of
your language is not sufficient to counteract the chilling shock that
you have received. It is to be hoped that the recording angel turns a
deaf ear to the language of the early-morning mountaineer. It is under
such circumstances that the climber notes, with a feeling of devout
thankfulness, the faint glow that heralds the dawn, and eagerly watches
the conquering march of the sun along the peaks of the giant range.
With the breaking of day our spirits rose, and, being in splendid form,
we simply romped over the first cliffs and snow slopes. Having gained
the crest of a narrow rocky ridge, we descended by a slanting crack
on to the plateau at the foot of the peak. We walked and ran across
this plateau, and then started up a snow slope that took us on to the
rocks of the final peak. There was one short bit of rock-work that
proved interesting, but we made light of it, and at 7.55 a.m. we were
having second breakfast on the top of the mountain! It was a record
performance, and one could not help casting a retrospective glance
at the unsuccessful struggles of the early mountaineers—ourselves
included—upon these slopes. 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 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. South and east there was a wilderness of majestic
peaks, and westward that glorious view upon which we ever cast longing
eyes—the dark lakes and forests, the silver streaks of river, and the
great ocean, far, far down below us. That islanded sea of cloud with
the sun shining on it was such a scene as Nansen saw when he sailed
in the _Fram_ along the fair coast-line of his beloved Nordland, past
Alden and Kinn, when he beheld “wreaths of mist glittering like silver
over the mountains, their tops soaring above the mist like islands out
of the sea”; only, instead of looking up at this, as he did, we looked
down on it, and saw the sun shining on the top of the clouds—a still
more glorious sight.
In order to get at the Minarets, we had to descend on the western
precipices of De la Bêche to a somewhat extensive plateau of snow.
The rocks were rather difficult where we attacked them, and when we
got down and on to the snow we came on a kind of bergschrund with an
almost perpendicular wall of ice, down which steps had to be cut. I
dug the handle of my ice-axe deep into the snow and took a hitch of
the rope round it. I held on to the cliff with one hand and paid out
the rope with the other as Fyfe cut down this wall of ice. It was not
of any great height, but it was a ticklish bit of work, and it took
three-quarters of an hour to cut twenty-three steps, so hard was the
ice, so difficult the slope, and so carefully had the steps to be
fashioned for the descent of such a place. After this there was no
difficulty, and we simply romped up those two icy peaks. The higher
one was a perfect cone of ice with scarcely room for one to take a
photograph of the other on it. We left a record of our ascent in the
rocks on the western side just below the ice-cap, and then climbed the
other peak, leaving on the highest rocks another account of this the
first ascent. For some time now we were enveloped in the clouds, and
had difficulty in finding our way back to De la Bêche, which we had to
climb once more on our way back. The ice-staircase which we had cut on
the descent gave us no trouble in ascending, and we gained our peak in
quick time, and waited for an hour on its summit enjoying the panorama
and a smoke. We felt quite pleased with our performance.
The descent was made in splendid style. We glissaded and scrambled down
the final slope in a manner that would have made a model mountaineer’s
hair stand on end, but we had absolute confidence in each other’s
powers. The bergschrund at the foot of the ice fall was a little
awkward to cross, but we gained the glacier while it was still early
in the afternoon. We ran down its ice for a mile or so, and after
scrambling over the final moraines, found ourselves back in camp at 4
p.m.,—a ridiculously early hour—so, after tea, we must needs start off
again down the Tasman Glacier to the Ball Hut, which we reached in the
dusk of evening. Here we had another tea and turned in for the night to
enjoy a well-earned rest. Oh for those glorious days again! Why does
one grow old?