# The Conquest of Mount Cook

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THE CONQUEST OF
MOUNT COOK
AND OTHER CLIMBS
An Account of Four Seasons' Mountaineering on the Southern Alps of New Zealand
BY FREDA DU FAUR
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.
First Published in 1915
[All rights reserved]
* MOUNT COOK FROM THE SILBERHORN.
* Frontispiece.
TO
MY FRIEND
MURIEL CADOGAN
WHOSE LOVE AND SYMPATHY HAVE NEVER FAILED ME
I DEDICATE
THIS BOOK
PREFACE
Some of the material contained in this volume has appeared in The Otago Witness, The Christchurch Press, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Dupain Quarterly, and The Lone Hand Magazine. My thanks are due to the editors of these periodicals for their permission to reprint my articles in their present form.
I am also greatly indebted to Dr. Teichelmann of Hokitika for the generous manner in which he has allowed me to reproduce specimens of West Coast scenery from his fine collection of photographs, and to Mr. Severn Storr for a picture of the Hermitage after the flood.
I have attempted in my first chapter to give a slight summary of the climbing accomplished between 1862 and 1909. This record is necessarily incomplete, dealing as it does with only the main district surrounding Mount Cook. If by any chance I have overlooked any important incidents of the period I have chosen, I can only crave indulgence for my unintentional omissions on the ground of want of data. The history of New Zealand mountaineering is at present so slight and scattered that it is difficult to obtain reliable details.
In compiling my résumé I have made use of the following authorities: (1) "High Alps of New Zealand," by W. S. Green; (2) ​ by G. Mannering; (3) "Climbs in the New Zealand Alps," by Edward A. Fitzgerald; (4) "Pioneer Work on the Alps of New Zealand," by Arthur P. Harper; (5) The New Zealand Alpine Journal, and (6) "The New Zealand Government Reports." The record kept in the last-mentioned volume is very slight, and when driven to use it I have frequently only been able to discover the names of the mountains ascended, and by whom they were climbed, with no details as to dates, routes, etc.
Slight as is my summary, I hope that it may be of some use as a record of New Zealand mountaineering. Perhaps it may induce some New Zealander with more material at his command than I have been able to obtain to go into the matter thoroughly, and to write a complete and comprehensive summary of New Zealand mountaineering before all the present records are obliterated and forgotten.
FREDA DU FAUR.
London, December, 1914.
CONTENTS
| Preface | vii |
| CHAPTER I ||
| A Résumé of Mountaineering in the Mount Cook District between 1862 and 1909 | 17 |
| CHAPTER II ||
| Reasons for taking up Mountaineering | 25 |
| CHAPTER III ||
| The Hermitage Again | 31 |
| The journey to the Hermitage—Inconvenience of being a woman pioneer | |
| CHAPTER IV ||
| Mount Sealy and the Nun's Veil | 38 |
| CHAPTER V ||
| Mount Malte Brun and the Minarets | 47 |
| CHAPTER VI ||
| Mount Cook | 63 |
| Plans for the Ascent of Mount Cook—The Attempt and Failure | |
| CHAPTER VII ||
| Westland | 73 |
| The Copland Pass—Waiho Gorge, and the Franz Josef Glacier | ​ |
| CHAPTER VIII ||
| Getting into Training | 87 |
| Mount Annette—The Ball Pass—A Virgin Peak—Harpies' Saddle—Mount Wakefield | |
| CHAPTER IX ||
| The Ascent of Mount Cook | 99 |
| CHAPTER X ||
| The Ascent of Mount De la Bêche | 112 |
| CHAPTER XI ||
| A Great Ice Peak | 121 |
| The Ascent of the Silberhorn, and Defeat on Mount Tasman | |
| CHAPTER XII ||
| Three Ascents | 133 |
| An Attempt to cross Graham's Saddle—The Ascents of Mount Green, Mount Walter, and Mount Chudleigh | |
| CHAPTER XIII ||
| Two Virgin Peaks | 148 |
| Return to the Hermitage, 1912—Ascent of a Virgin Peak north of the Footstool—Defeat on a Virgin Peak immediately south of Mount Cook | |
| CHAPTER XIV ||
| A Difficult Climb | 158 |
| A Virgin Peak north of the Copland Pass—The First Ascent of Sebastopol by the Eastern face | |
| CHAPTER XV ||
| The Ascent of Mount Tasman | 168 |
| CHAPTER XVI ||
| Mount Dampier and Mount Lendenfeld | 176 ​ |
| CHAPTER XVII ||
| On the Mount Cook Range | 191 |
| The Ascent of the Virgin Peak south of Nazomi | |
| CHAPTER XVIII ||
| The First Complete Traverse of Mount Cook | 196 |
| CHAPTER XIX ||
| The Hermitage Flood | 209 |
| CHAPTER XX ||
| A Trial Climb | 216 |
| Mount Sefton from Tuckett's Col—Over the Copland Pass to Welcome Flats | |
| CHAPTER XXI ||
| The First Traverse of Mount Sefton | 224 |
| CHAPTER XXII ||
| Good-bye to New Zealand | 238 |
| The Ascents of Mount Cadogan and Aiguille Rouge—Defeat on Mount Elie de Beaumont—A Second Flood | |
| Index | 247 |
ILLUSTRATIONS
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1935, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 88 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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