With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps/Chapter IV
CHAPTER IV
SECOND ATTEMPT TO CLIMB AORANGI
A Flooded Camp in the Tasman Valley—Hard Struggles with Bad Fortune—We reach Green's Bivouac
If at first you don't succeed,
Try, try, try again.—Nursery Rhyme.
During the winter following my first essay at Alpine climbing I was not idle, but made several pig-hunting excursions amongst the foot-hills in North Canterbury, in addition to which, with a companion in the shape of an old friend and schoolfellow, Mr. M.J. Dixon, I made the ascent of Mounts Torlesse (6,434 feet) and Puketeraki (5,780 feet) at a time when these mountains were snow-covered to within 2,000 feet of their respective bases.
The former ascent was accomplished in the face of a nor'-west gale, and well I remember how we had sometimes to lie down on the snow and hold on to our sticks to avoid being blown clean away. We have twice since climbed this peak under similar conditions, and I never remember the wind blowing with such force as it does on Mount Torlesse.
It was on February 1, 1887, that Messrs. M.J. Dixon, C.H. Inglis, and myself left Christchurch for a second try at Aorangi.
We were now well equipped for the attack, having obtained 160 feet of Alpine rope, three good ice-axes from M. Fritz Boss of Grindelwald, and suitable nails for our boots, Inglis had his camera and two dozen plates.
On arriving at the Hermitage we found that the Hooker River was up and quite impassable for horses, consequently we were forced to cross the Mueller Glacier by the Hermitage, walk up the Hooker Valley, and cross the terminal face of that glacier on to the western slopes of the Mount Cook Range, after which we worked our way down the river till opposite the Hermitage again, where a length of fencing wire was thrown across the torrent by which we were able to take our swags over.
The roar of the torrent was deafening, and oral communication across was quite impossible. The wire on our side was made fast eight or ten feet above the water, and on the other about twenty feet. Three cheers were given us by the party of tourists on the other bank, to which we replied, and then we were cut off from the haunts of men for a week, and thrown quite on our own resources for clothing, food, and shelter—board and lodging, in fact.
Then came the arranging of swags, adjustment of carriers, &c., and we soon discovered that we had all we could carry—over 50 lbs. each. Then followed the toiling down the steep bank of the river to reach the end of the range, in the piping heat and glaring sun, now and then having to ascend the slopes to avoid the river, which rushed along close to the rocks.
At one place in particular we experienced some difficulty, having to resort to the use of the rope to climb a ditch or couloir in the rock-face where the river boiled past at a terrific pace. Here the camera was accidentally dropped, and falling down fifty feet or so, lodged on a ledge which overhung the water. Strange to say, when recovered it was found to be quite uninjured!
By dint of continued exertion and considerable expenditure of adipose tissue we at last turned the end of the range, and upon reaching the first water as we struck up the Tasman Valley, boiled the 'billy' and made a good lunch.
The wind now began to rise from the nor'-west, and clouds of dust were sweeping down the valley, so we lost no time in pressing on to a patch of Irishman scrub a mile or so below the terminal face of the glacier. We hurriedly cut some bedding and pitched the tent before the rain came on, in rather close proximity to an old creek-bed, which had apparently been dry for some time.
That creek made up for lost time during the night, and soon the rain came down in bucketsful as we lay our wearied limbs to rest in our oiled calico blanket-bags. The thunder crashed and the lightning flashed, and the Tasman River began to roar, and by one o'clock such a quantity of rain had fallen as to convert the dry creek-bed into a roaring torrent, whose waters threw up a bank of shingle, and, turning its course (horror of all horrors!), came right into our tent. In less than a minute from the time that we felt the first trickle there was a foot of water in the tent, and all our impedimenta of every description were sopping or floating about in the dark, and in imminent danger of being washed away.
Hurriedly we collected all we could into our blanket-bags, got into our boots somehow, and made for higher ground. We could not see a rise in the ground, but after wading about found a small portion out of water, and, with much strong language and trouble, succeeded in repitching the tent—after a fashion.
Ah! well do we remember the miseries and discomforts of the scene. Wind blowing in fitful gusts, rain coming down in sheets, while thunder and lightning and the incessant roar of the Tasman all tended to make the scene one of terror and discomfort. Matches nearly all destroyed; bread reduced to a state of pulp; blankets and clothes wet; instruments, boots, ropes, ice-axes muddled up anywhere, some in the tent, some being silted up or washed away from the spot where the tent was first pitched; the floor of the tent now hard, wet stones, in lieu of comfortable, dry tussock. Oh, the misery of it!
We lay in our wet clothes the rest of that night, all the following day, and the next night. Inglis and I scarcely stirred but to eat some disgusting, soppy mixture or to light our pipes; but Dixon pluckily rigged up a breakwind with an old tent left by the Birch Hill shepherds, and after three hours' persistent labour kindled a fire, improvising a chimney out of a pair of white flannel trousers and sundry other garments!
We were quite hemmed in by water, and were in a constant state of anxiety lest the river should make depredations in our direction, as it was quite close to us, whilst in the creek on the other side we could hear the rocks being rolled down by the force of water.
Nine inches of rain had fallen during the forty-eight hours, but on the Sunday it cleared, and once again the warm sun shone out, the clouds drifted away from the mountains, the birds began to sing, and the waters subsided as quickly as they had risen, and our spirits rose again as we spread out our wet belongings on the scrub and donned a shirt, hat, and a pair of boots apiece, and set out for a visit to the scene of devastation at the face of the glacier whence the river issues. The costume was airy but convenient, as we had to cross several streams before reaching our destination.
We were well rewarded for our walk, for a wonderful sight was presented where the river flows out from the glacier. For a distance of half a mile from the face the banks of the main stream were strewn with blocks of ice of all sizes up to twelve or fifteen feet in thickness. At one spot the river rushed in mad violence from a great cavern of ice; in another it rose as from a geyser from under the ice, sending up a large column of water to a height of six or eight feet.
It was quite a new sensation to be dry again, but that night rheumatism screwed my joints, and some venomous insect bit my shoulder, causing intense pain for a short time.
While the rain continued we had all thought of falling back on the Hermitage as soon as we were able, but a bright sunny morning caused us to change our plans and forge ahead for the Ball Glacier camp, weakened though we were in strength and supplies.
Already we felt that our chance of ascending Aorangi was gone, for the snow lay thick on the upper peaks and avalanches were of common occurrence; yet we doggedly pushed on, determined not to turn without a struggle.
Leaping from rock to rock, avoiding the scrub and Spaniards by sticking to the moraine slopes, and scrambling over great tali of boulders which came from the mountain sides, by evening we reached our destination (the Ball Glacier), and finding the surveyor's chain, tent poles, and hatchet—left by Fox and myself the previous season—in good order, we quickly had a comfortable camp pitched. A small army of mountain parrots or keas soon assembled, and the unerring shanghai procured grilled kea for supper.
Next morning broke gloriously fine, and by 7 a.m. we were away with blanket-bags, three days' 'tucker,' and a change of warm clothing, intending to reach Green's bivouac on the Haast Ridge that evening, and to make a final dash at Aorangi on the day following.
Once again we plunged into all those pleasures and joys of mountaineering. Again we felt the clear ice of the beautiful Hochstetter Glacier crunch under our iron-shod feet. Now we were away from all the hum-drum cares of life, from the misery of flooded camps, in the free mountain air, with the stupendous ice-falls and the majestic peaks all around. We seemed to breathe a heavenly atmosphere, to live a new life in another and a better world. Where is the man who can come into contact with these surroundings and not be better in body and soul?
We reached the foot of the Haast Ridge by 9.30, and here we debated as to whether we should tackle Aorangi after all, or try De la Bêche, further up the glacier (which peak would be an easier ascent and command a magnificent view of both eastern and western glacier systems). Aorangi it was, however, we had come to tackle, and so, again shouldering our swags, we went at the ridge.
We kept to the crest of the spur and found the climbing very simple, for a thousand feet amongst lilies and snow-grass; but after that the real business amongst rotten and precipitous rock ridges and faces commenced, and we had to put on the rope. At this time none of us were very proficient in the use of the rope, but we soon began to value the assistance it affords and to appreciate the assurance it inspires.
It was not until 5 p.m. that we reached the top of the ridge, where we soon discovered Green's bivouac, not far from which spot we determined to spend the night.
All the way up we had been climbing with the Hochstetter ice-fall on our left, and had been favoured with the grandest views of Aorangi, which looked absolutely impregnable; but as our view of the Linda Glacier and the Great Plateau was shut off by the upper part of the Haast Ridge, we could not see the route which we were bent on following.
Here I may remark that the route by which Mr. Green, and subsequently Dixon and myself climbed the mountain cannot be seen from any distant point. I refer, of course, to the upper part of the route above the Haast Ridge. Even the plateau is so shut in as to be invisible from any distant point, except from the peaks of the Malte Brun Range on the opposite side of the valley.
Scraping away all the larger stones from under an overhanging rock and building a semicircular break-wind, we dug holes for our hips (one gets very sore in hard beds of this nature if such a precaution be neglected), wriggled into our blanket-bags, boiled a pannikin of Liebig, and slept like tops till the morning.
The rosy fingers of the morn had just opened the gates of day as our heads emerged from the apertures of our bags, and showed one of the most magnificent panoramas of Alpine wonder which it has been my lot to view.
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. Down the valley to the south-west the grey moraine, with the meandering river still further afield. Across the valley the rocky peaks of the Liebig and Malte Brun Ranges with their hanging glaciers, and right opposite to us Malte Brun himself, a pyramid of red rock, flanked by ice and snow slopes, standing out clearly against the morning sky like a great grim castle, and looking quite safe from any assault of man—on this side at all events. Following round the panorama to the northwards. Mount Darwin sends its one great glacier sweeping down into the main stream; then the Hochstetter Dome stands at the head of the Tasman Glacier itself, and westward rise the noble summits of Mounts Elie de Beaumont, Green, and De la Bêche—the last a most beautiful triple peak, queen of the whole group, and over 10,000 feet in height. Still following round, the eye falls on the Rudolf Glacier descending from the peak of the same name, then Mounts Jervois, Spencer, Glacier Peak, and lastly Mount Haidinger, a fine flat-topped mountain clothed from base to summit in broken ice.
Behind us lay Mount Tasman (11,475 feet), invisible over the higher parts of the spur on which we were now situated. From our coign of vantage we counted twenty-five tributary glaciers of the Tasman, some with ice-falls, others joining with graceful curve.
We congratulated ourselves that all our weary toil and hard swagging had not been fruitless, and felt quite compensated for the miseries we had gone through at the lower camp, though the main object of our visit, we feared, was about to be defeated in a very short time. We pulled ourselves together, put on the rope, and resolved to make some pretence of a fight for it.
After an hour's work we reached the highest rocks, then there came a dip on to a snow saddle, beyond which, again, snow slopes lead on to the final summit of the spur which hid the Great Plateau.
But it was not to be; for whenever we went on to snow we sank waist-deep, and struggled in vain to make any headway. Here, then, we were beaten, and planting our Christ's College flag in the highest rocks, gave it three, cheers for the old school days, and depositing a bottle with the record of our ascent, turned our backs on the grim giant Aorangi, and began to go down.
We struck a better route down by going into some couloirs north of the arête of the spur, and reached the Ball Glacier camp again, going down the following day to the Hermitage, after crossing the Hooker by the kind assistance of a shepherd from Birch Hill. The Hooker River had risen to such an extent during the rain storm as to carry away the wire on which we had slung our swags across. The camera was warped with the wet at the lower camp, whilst the plates were anything but 'dry' after the storm, so photography was altogether a failure in this excursion.
In the winter time we amused ourselves with another ascent of Mount Torlesse.