ACROSS THE SOUTHERN ALPS
“A wretched invention, forsooth, for people who wish to push on is ‘a
line of retreat,’ an everlasting inducement to look behind, when they
should have enough to do in looking ahead.”—NANSEN.
When we were on the Hochstetter Dome, and subsequently, when we climbed
Haidinger and De la Bêche, we saw, far below us, the silver streaks of
rivers winding seaward through the sombre forests, and cast longing
eyes adown the western slopes of the Alps. The more we saw the more we
wished to go over. And what better way could we go than by some unknown
pass at the head of the largest and most splendid of all our glaciers?
After our ascent of De la Bêche and the Minarets it was decided to
try over the Lendenfeld Saddle, and down the left-hand branch of the
Wataroa River. “About twenty miles down the coast” (from the Wanganui),
writes Mr. Harper in the latest work on the Southern Alps, “is the
Wataroa, another large river, draining the main range at the head
of the Rangitata, Godley, and Murchison Glaciers. It has many large
branches in the mountains, up which, no doubt, there are considerable
snowfields and some fair-sized glaciers; but except the tributary
coming from the Sealy Pass at the head of the Godley Glacier, it may
be said to be _terra incognita_.” Mr. Roberts, of the Westland Survey
Department, wrote in a similar strain. There were, he stated, many
legends of people who had come over different passes from Canterbury in
the early digging days, and stories of others who went up into unknown
valleys and never returned; but amongst all these, he had never heard
of anyone who had come down the left-hand branch of the Wataroa River.
On Thursday, the 18th February, the weather was fine, and Fyfe and I
shouldered our packs, and started off once more for the Tasman Glacier.
Our friends at the Hermitage came out to say good-bye and wish us
good luck. “Take good care of yourself,” said my wife; and I replied,
laughingly, that there was little danger. Fyfe had written to his wife
to say that there was “absolutely none.” It was not like climbing a
mountain; it would be just a walk. Such wretches we men are! For after
all there _might_ be danger. We could not tell. As I turned my back
on the Hermitage and marched off over the tussocky shingle flats to
the cage in which we had to pull ourselves across the Hooker River, I
fell a-wondering if we should get over the pass and down through the
unexplored country in safety. But it would never do for Britons to be
poor fibreless mortals and to turn tail and run just because there
was a spice of danger in an adventure. So what if there were risk? We
should keep our eyes and our ears open, and go through in the face of
it; and no sirens of the mountains, charm they ever so sweetly, should
tempt us to destruction. We were Spartans for the moment, and our packs
seemed feather-weights, as we swung out over the uneven plain in fine
style, bound for our old bivouac some twenty-two miles ahead.
But such an inconsistent animal is man, that by the time we got
half-way over the dreary shingle flats of the Tasman, the pace had
relaxed somewhat, and the feather-weight packs of an hour ago began,
in some mysterious manner, to be transmuted into lead. After leaving
the shingle flat behind us, we strode out bravely once more; but, while
walking up the hot valley, we were met by the Goddess of Indolence. And
she, in her most insinuating manner, said men were fools to toil along
with heavy swags on their backs under a broiling summer sun, and talked
pleasantly of “to-morrow” and the cool of another morning. So, by the
time the Blue Lake was reached, we had succumbed to her blandishments,
and stopped there eating and drinking, in arcadian simplicity, by the
lake-shore. Then we smoked and sauntered slowly over the remaining
miles of the rocky track to the comforts of the Ball Glacier hut, and,
once arrived there, wild horses would not have drawn us farther that
night. Thus does the Spartan morning of the mountaineer too often end
in lotus-eating afternoon!
And next morning we were in no great hurry to leave our beds. There was
a red dawn, and we pretended that it was going to be bad weather—
“When the morning riseth red,
Rise not thou, but keep thy bed;
When the dawn is full and grey,
Sleep is still the better way:
Beasts are up betimes, but then
They are beasts, and we are men.”
But, as a matter of fact, the weather was glorious, and we had
reluctantly to tear ourselves away from the flesh-pots of the hut. So
once more we shouldered our loads, marched up the glacier to the De la
Bêche Bivouac, and dined there at 3 p.m. In order to save our fresh
provisions, we ate some bread that was a month old and had been lying
under the rock for three weeks. It was blue mouldy in the cracks, but
judicious paring made it palatable, and we even enjoyed it. The butter
was also old. It had been buried in an ice-slope near the Bivouac some
weeks before, and now we found it had mysteriously disappeared. After
some considerable search, it was discovered in a cranny between the
rocks, into which it had fallen owing to the recedence of the ice slope
by melting. It was fairly good. Dinner over, we left for the Malte Brun
Bivouac, higher up, on the other side of the glacier. Here, in a little
flat hollow between the lateral moraine and the mountain, we discovered
a scanty supply of snow grass that had been used for bedding by Dr.
Kronecker, a German climber, four years before. Apparently the worthy
Doctor had left camp in a hurry, for, on shaking out the grass, we
found in it an Austrian climbing lantern of the folding pattern, and,
near at hand, on the rocks, a penknife, much rusted, also the remains
of a leather case for a field-glass.
When crossing the upper portion of the glacier from the De la Bêche
Bivouac we came to the conclusion that our swags were too heavy for
difficult climbing, so we now set to work to reduce them to the
smallest possible compass. We jettisoned some spare clothing and
provisions, and it was finally decided, after much deep thought, that
my camera should be left behind—a decision I have never since ceased to
regret, because, on this expedition, we traversed unexplored country by
a route that in all these years no one has since attempted. Moreover,
when, dishevelled and aweary, I returned, some weeks later, by a more
southern pass to the Hermitage, it cost me a walk of forty-eight
miles to retrieve the camera! We had a beautifully fine night for our
bivouac, and, having supped, and there being nothing else to do,
we turned into our sleeping bags while it was yet day. The view was
glorious, and we watched the great steadfast peaks slowly changing
colour in “the held breath of the day’s decline.” Across the glacier,
but a mile and a half away, rose the main range of the Southern Alps
in all its glory of broken glacier, black precipice, and snowy dome.
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. We were Spartans again.
On Saturday, an hour after midnight, we crept out of our sleeping bags
to prepare breakfast, and at 2 a.m. we shouldered our packs and set our
faces towards the unknown. In the dim light we had to exercise a little
care in descending the loose rocks of the moraine and in getting over
the broken ice at the edge of the glacier. Once we had left the moraine
and the crevasses behind, the going was easy; but we went at a very
leisurely pace, wishing to keep our strength in reserve, for we knew
not what difficulties were in front of us. The white mountains at the
head of the glacier looked ethereally beautiful in the clear moonlight,
which cast strong cold shadows on the white ice as we walked along.
On our left, a fine avalanche fell from the lower slopes of Elie de
Beaumont, and came thundering down into the head of the valley. In the
east a pale flush heralded the dawn.
[Illustration: CREVASSE ON TASMAN GLACIER.]
Some clouds came floating up over our pass from the north-west,
and hung menacingly on the white shoulders of the Dome. It was an
ominous sight, and our spirits fell. We were soon in the region of
covered crevasses, so we put on the rope. The eastern light gradually
brightened, and we watched the moon-shadows on our right grow fainter
and fainter till they disappeared, and the sun-shadows took their
places on the left, growing slowly in boldness of outline with the
advancing sun. As we mounted the final slopes towards the saddle, the
sun was bathing the higher snows of the western range with a golden
glow, and by the time we were fairly on the pass, his slanting rays
fell athwart our way.
The pass did not look inviting. The glacier fell away on the other
side in a broken ice fall, and great chasms yawned immediately below
us. It was not possible to get straight down, that was clear, so we
climbed a snow-slope and got on to some rocks on the left, higher up.
“Don’t say a blessed word till we’ve had a smoke, and then we’ll look
round,” remarked Fyfe. I acquiesced, and we sat down on the rocks,
munched a few figs and some chocolate, and then had our smoke and
the look round. We were not enamoured of the prospect. The panorama
certainly was magnificent, especially towards the north-east; but
the getting down—that was the trouble. Far below us we could see the
Whymper Glacier, much crevassed in its upper parts, and farther on
entirely covered with moraine. “How far below do you think it is?”
asked Fyfe. “Three thousand feet,” I hazarded. Fyfe thought four
thousand. But even four thousand feet would have been nothing on good
rocks and unbroken ice slopes. The rocks, however, were very rotten,
and the ice was just about as bad as it could be. Away down below us
on the left—a long way it seemed—was a track where the avalanches had
completely swept away the snow, and loose blocks of ice had filled up
the crevasses. If we could get into that we could get down. It was our
only hope, and everything depended on speed; for it would never do to
be caught in that narrow ice-gut after the sun had acquired strength
and the ice-blocks were hurtling down. We rose deliberately, shouldered
our packs, shortened up the rope, and started down the first ridge.
The rocks were fearfully rotten, and the last man on the rope had to
exercise the greatest caution lest, by starting a block, he should
crack the leader’s skull. But we got down the first bit all right,
and at the foot of the rocks encountered a snow slope, which, though
beautiful enough, was, from a climber’s point of view, altogether
uninviting, because in two places there were clear indications that it
was swept by avalanches that poured over a precipice immediately above
on our left. But we knew there was not much danger at that early hour
of the morning, and we started across. One of the avalanche tracks was
scooped out to such an extent that the farther side was a perpendicular
wall of snow some ten feet high. Up this we had considerable difficulty
in climbing, as the steps we made repeatedly gave way. But we went at
it doggedly, and in due course it was vanquished. The final avalanche
shoot for which we were making was still a distressingly long way
off, and a great ice fall, through the séracs of which we should have
to thread our way, now began to loom large in front of us. We made a
traverse across the last bit of the soft snow slope on which we were
now climbing, taking good anchorage with our axes in the difficult
places. Near the end of the slope was a schrund which was partly
filled with avalanche snow, but we jumped it, and, crossing a little
more snow, got on to good solid rocks. There was ice above, and the
rocks were dripping. The débris of avalanches lay below. We crossed on
slippery rocks right underneath a great wall of ice, and then climbed
downward, more to the right, to gain a rocky ridge of a peculiar
reddish-brown colour. There we halted for two or three minutes, and
enjoyed a deliciously cool drink of the ice-water that was trickling
over the rocks in several places. We then saw that one strand of the
Alpine rope, about midway between Fyfe and myself, had been cut through
by a falling rock. The cut was as clean as if it had been made with a
knife. Having repaired the damage with a “fisherman’s bend,” we began
to climb down on easy rocks. Good progress was now being made, and, if
we could only get down this ridge of rock, and on to the snow slope at
the foot of it, it was apparent that the back of the climb would be
broken. But, in mountaineering, as in many other things in this life,
it often happens that, just as we are nearing the goal of our ambition,
some unexpected obstacle bars the way. So, now, our hopes were quickly
dashed to the ground—we were face to face with a precipice down which
it was impossible for man to climb. We thought we should have to give
it up as hopeless, but we pondered the situation, and then began to
scan the ridge immediately behind on our left. Here an almost vertical
slab of wet rock, between thirty and forty feet, led into a narrow
gulch or chimney, down which a waterfall was pouring. There were no
hand-holds to speak of—only one or two cracks in the rock—but one of
the climbers thought he could get down. It was truly a case of hanging
on by one’s eyebrows, but it was managed somehow, without putting much
strain on the rope, and the one stood patiently waiting under the
waterfall till his clothes were quite wet, and until the other had
scrambled down. The descent of this chimney, which was dripping all the
way down, did not take us many minutes, for two pinnacles of ice loomed
threateningly overhead, and there was also some danger of falling
stones. We kept in the shelter of the cliff as much as we could. The
passage under the great sérac and the little bit of work into and down
this chimney were somewhat sensational, and put all thoughts of return
by the same route out of our heads. An hour or two later it would have
been absolutely dangerous to go that way. We had burned our boats
behind us, and must needs push on. That wretched invention, “a line of
retreat,” had, by this time, to all appearances, been shattered, and,
save for an occasional turn of the head to see if there was danger
behind, our glances must be ever forward. In a few minutes we had
reached the ice fall, and, without further hesitation, we commenced to
thread a way through it.
Had we not known our work we should have been afraid. The toppling
séracs looked dangerous. Higher up the fall, two enormous pinnacles
of ice towered splendidly in all the glitter of the morning sun. One
felt so fascinated with them, and with the surroundings generally,
that one needs must occasionally indulge in a momentary halt to gaze
on the scene, greatly to the vexation of Fyfe, who always remonstrated
and kept urging the necessity for greater speed. We threaded our way
down that ice fall in a way that we felt sure would be a credit to
any guide, and in due course arrived at the avalanche shoot. It had
been raked by blocks of falling ice and masses of snow, but at this
early hour of the morning, when King Frost still held the situation
in his icy grip, there was no business doing. Later in the day, after
the sun had been at work for some hours on the snow slopes and ice
pinnacles above, it would have been a veritable death-trap. Even now
there was no time to waste, for the sun was gaining strength every
minute. Without a word we got into the shoot and started down. I am
free to confess that when we were on the other side of the overhanging
ice cliff an hour before, I should have been quite glad to have turned
back. Now I was keenly enjoying the adventure. There is something
intoxicating in danger once you are fairly in it, and once you are
keyed up to that point of daring and alertness at which you begin to
feel the _spin_ of the blood in your veins, as, exultant, and with
every confidence in your own prowess, you go forth into the battle.
Whether man be at close grips with Nature; whether he be batting with
opponents in sport; or pitting his wits against rivals in commerce—in
play or in work, in love or in war—it is under such circumstances that
his greatest successes are made. And so it was that our dash and daring
pulled us through.
For a time everything now depended upon rapid climbing, and we started
off down the shoot, jumping half-filled crevasses, scrambling over
solid ice-blocks, and even glissading on hard névé in a way that
would have made the hair of the authors of the Badminton book on
mountaineering stand on end. We slid down places where, under ordinary
circumstances, we should never have dreamt of going without first
cutting steps in the ice. Sometimes I found myself slipping down at an
alarming rate, only to be pulled up by Fyfe with a jerk of the rope.
At other times Fyfe came hurrying down after me, and I had to hold on
with my axe and set a stiff back to check his descent. It was splendid
fun and we were making wonderful progress, albeit the destruction of
our nether garments was not exactly in inverse ratio to the rapidity of
the descent. There was a succession of steps in the ice shoot at the
foot of which there were invariably loose blocks or masses of avalanche
snow, and these, also, assisted us in checking a too-long-continued
and precipitate glissade. Thus, frequently, just as an unnecessary and
somewhat alarming amount of friction was being developed, were we by
the aid of the avalanche snow in front, and the ice-axe acting as a
brake behind, pulled up and brought to a sudden stop. The shocks from
the unexpected interposition of an avalanche block and from the sudden
tightening of the rope around the most boneless part of one’s anatomy
came in about equal proportions, though, occasionally, the effects
were somewhat modified by a combination of both; but the moment we had
recovered from the surprise of the former or the tension of the latter,
the process was commenced again _de novo_. Thus did we make a truly
wonderful, albeit a somewhat undignified, progress. Once only, during
this stage of the proceedings, I looked behind, and saw the great
séracs and pinnacles poised aloft. After twenty minutes of fast going,
for such a place, we came to a point at which we could see the foot of
the shoot, filled with avalanche débris, bulging out in fan-like shape
as it reached the more gently sloping part of the glacier. Without
further adventure we made our way down to this débris, which, as it
had no snow on it, made somewhat difficult walking. But we were now out
of danger, and could afford to slacken our pace. Soon we had crossed
the last bit of avalanche, and had gained the gently sloping solid ice
of the Whymper Glacier. There we approached each other, and, solemnly
shaking hands in that wonderful _terra incognita_, with the everlasting
hills as witnesses, vowed that whatever happened we should not attempt
to go back by that route. I thought a little ruefully of the long walk
I should have from the Hermitage on my return to get my camera, and I
wondered, also, if we could get down to the coast from where we were.
But of this surely there could be no doubt. After what we had just
accomplished, no West Coast river, nor gorge, nor forest could possibly
stop us, though the question of food might cause us some little anxiety.
We halted a few minutes to scan our route. Looking back at it, no one
would have imagined it possible for human beings to come down that
way—the rocks seemed so steep and the ice so terribly broken. As we
gazed, a few small blocks of ice started down the avalanche shoot. We
had got out of it none too soon. Old Sol was making his influence felt.
The ice was followed by a large piece of rock, that broke away above
the shoot and came hurtling down in our tracks. On it came, in great
leaps and bounds, till at length its progress was arrested, and it
found a resting-place, half buried in the débris of the avalanche at
the foot of the shoot.
Rock avalanches continued to start from the Dome, which on this side
was a series of magnificent ridges and precipices. At one time there
was a regular cannonade, but we were well out of the line of fire. To
the left of this mountain the range continued round the farther side
of the Whymper Glacier. There was one sharp rocky peak next to the
Dome, and, adjoining that, on the other side of a long snow couloir,
some enormous slabs of slate, sloping up to the summit of the range.
Then there were two glaciers, joined at the bottom, where they poured
their tribute into the Whymper, but separated, higher up, by a ridge
that came down for some distance between them. Beyond this, the range
was very rotten. Farther away still, on the right-hand side of the
Wataroa, we could see other rocky peaks and a ridge with a flat-shaped
glacier on the top of it. The Whymper Glacier went straight down the
valley for some distance, and then took a fine sweep to the left. An
effort was made to follow it down, but, after going some way, dodging
one or two crevasses and jumping others, we came upon some enormous
rents in the ice, very deep, and extending right across the glacier.
There was nothing for it but to retrace our steps. There was a possible
route on the left by way of the rocks above the ice. Threading our
way through some more crevasses, we climbed this ridge, and having
gained its crest, were delighted to find that, so far as the ice-work
was concerned, all our difficulties were now at an end. We sat on the
warm rocks and smoked. The ridge below was studded with numbers of
beautiful yellow ranunculi, the wax-like petals of which glistened like
burnished gold in the sunlight amongst the dark rocks. From this ridge
we scrambled down some slopes of séracs, and gained the glacier again.
Here, beside a stream that ran in a channel in the ice, we stopped
for lunch at 11 a.m. We had been going without food or rest for nine
hours, and now took off our wet things, and dried our putties, boots,
and stockings on the warm rocks that here almost covered the glacier.
How we did enjoy that lunch! We stopped for nearly an hour, dozing for
part of the time in the sunshine. Then off down the glacier for fully
a mile over moraine—in some places composed of small rocks, in others
of great erratic boulders—then up the face of a great ancient lateral
moraine, on top of which there was a luxuriant growth of vegetation;
thence down to the terminal face of the glacier, where the Wataroa
River came forth in majestic volume from a cave of clear ice. A creek
flowed in from the left, fed from some beautiful waterfalls that came
over the precipices from the everlasting snows beyond. It was fringed
with fine trees and Alpine plants, and one ribbon-wood tree was gay
with beautiful white blossoms that peeped out from amongst the tender
green of its leafy branches. It was so different from the eastern side
of the Alps, and altogether such a charming spot, that we were tempted
to halt a while. A cold wind sprang up, so we made a fire and boiled
our little billy to make bovril. We put a whole pot of bovril in it,
and this we ate with dry bread. In half an hour we were on the march
again down the left-hand side of the river, finding our way through
scrub, over enormous boulders, and on through dense bush. The river
was now a seething torrent, roaring over and between the great rocks,
and the mountains towered above the sombre vale. We seemed to make but
slow progress, and hour after hour went all too quickly by. At 6 p.m.
we camped for the night beside the turbulent torrent that went roaring
down the unexplored valley. We had been on the march since two o’clock
that morning, and now, after our sixteen hours’ toil, during which
we had carried swags over by far the roughest pass ever made in New
Zealand, felt we were entitled to a well-earned rest. Tea; then bed;
and soon the crackling of the camp fire mingled with the rumble of the
river, which was ever present, and seemed to haunt us in our dreams.