# With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps/Chapter 9

CHAPTER IX
FIFTH ATTEMPT TO CLIMB AORANGI
Are not the mountains, waves, and skies a part Of me and of my soul, as I of them? Is not the love of these deep in my heart With a pure passion?
Whymper was eight seasons climbing the Matterhorn. Dent made innumerable attempts ere he conquered the Aiguille du Dru—why should we despair about Aorangi?
We certainly were at a great disadvantage as compared with Swiss mountaineers; we had to begin at the very bottom rung of the ladder, having no trained guides. But I am confident that if we had been as many years climbing with guides as we have been without them we should be far less proficient mountaineers.
Probably our case is a unique one, and I doubt if there exists another instance where two or three novices—at any rate at ice work—have banded themselves together and gone systematically into heavy Alpine work 'right away' (as the Americans say), doing all ​their own porterage and guide work from the start. We learned fast from that best of masters—'hard experience.'
Had we been consistently following in the footsteps of trained guides we should not have concerned ourselves about this, that, and the other, but would have left everything to the men of experience, simply being towed about in their wake; whereas we have been obliged to train and exercise all those qualities which a guide possesses, perforce.
Naturally, too, a colonial life is more calculated to teach self-reliance and independence, and from our earliest schoolboy days we have been accustomed to rough work on the hills, pig-hunting, &c., and in camp life on all sorts of hare-brained expeditions. I have, indeed, been in many an awkward place amongst rocks when out on the foot-hills, and must have—perhaps unconsciously—acquired many of those qualities which denote the cragsman.
Want of fixedness of purpose had often lured us away from the peak, and temptations in glacier expeditions had thwarted our determination. I felt confident, however, if Dixon and I got together again we should make a good fight of it with the mountain, for we had learnt to place confidence in each other in many rough trips, and Dixon was a man after my own heart for determination.
On December 1, 1890, then, for the last time Dixon and I found ourselves on the way to the Mount Cook district; we reached Burke's Pass that evening in an express waggon which contained besides ourselves two small Rob Roy canoes, it being our intention to navigate ​the Waitaki River from Aorangi to the sea—should we not previously leave our lifeless bodies at the foot of some precipice or frozen in a crevasse, as many of our friends prophesied.
December 2 saw us crossing the Tasman River in our canoes ten miles below its exit from the glacier, and as it was in flood and running full ten knots, with waves four or five feet high in the rapids, we had an exciting time of it, yet managed to reach the Hermitage side in safety, but not without shipping a good deal of water. This was the first case of a boat of any kind being on these rushing waters, and our good friends in all directions prophesied dire disaster to what they were pleased to term our 'rash venture.' We are getting quite used to these consolations of our friends, who seem quite disappointed that we do not afford them some sensational obituary matter in the daily papers.
Again the faithful Annan was at hand, and greeted us at the Hooker wire rope with the pleasing intelligence that our camp at the Ball Glacier was fixed and our swags conveyed there. The Government surveyor (Mr. Brodrick) and his party were at hand too, and working their way to the Murchison Glacier to make a survey in continuation of their work on the Tasman; we spent the following night in comfort at their lower camp, one mile above the terminal face of the Tasman Glacier, to which point a horse track had already been formed through the scrub.
Again we carried our swags up that cruel piece of walking to the Ball Glacier camp, stopping half-way for lunch at our customary resting-place—'The Cove'—a snug little nook in a rock-face where a rill from ​the mountain-side offers cool refreshment to the weary swagger.
Friday morning, December 5, found us early astir, and making up swags of blanket-bags, tent, tinned meats, biscuits, chocolate, raisins, prunes, rice, oatmeal, Liebig's Extract, and all such necessaries as might ensure sustenance and a certain degree of comfort at a high bivouac. Seeing that our boots were well nailed, our ice-axes and snow-goggles in good order, we struck out across the Ball and Hochstetter Glaciers and reached the foot of our climb—the southern termination of the ridge of Mount Haast. Here we deposited a small supply of provisions as a standby, in case we should be driven back by bad weather or by some unforeseen cause.
The day was very warm, and as we toiled slowly up under the weight of our heavy swags (we were carrying enough provisions to last us for some days) the perspiration streamed from every pore, and the sun's rays seemed to penetrate with singular fierceness.
Soon we came to the lower termination of the new and unmelted winter snow in the couloirs or ditches between the rock ridges, and as the day advanced the hissing avalanches came down these slopes with increasing frequency, and falling stones and rocks now and again passed close by us. The snow being in such a loose and slushy condition it was imperative that we should avoid it as much as possible, but climb as we would we could not help occasionally crossing a snow-filled couloir, and this had to be accomplished with much celerity and caution.
Annan was particularly anxious concerning the ​'shocking state of repair' of these lower slopes, and seemed to lose his nerve entirely, though he is accustomed to work on the higher beats in mustering, &c., and he declared his intention of going no farther than the bivouac at 7,400 feet, which we reached in the afternoon. We at once saw that it would be useless and dangerous to persuade him to join us in the final assault, for if his self-reliance failed on these lower slopes, what would the state of his nerve be on the upper ice work where so much step-cutting would be necessary? Dixon and I knew that we ought not to try to ascend the peak alone, that such work as we—two guideless amateurs—were about to attempt, would not be looked upon with favour by such a body as the English Alpine Club; but we were so tired of knuckling under to Aorangi that we were becoming desperate, and we decided to try conclusions without a third man.
Two hours of excavation work removed two feet of snow and eighteen inches of ice from our bivouac, revealing the faithful 'Aurora' stove and sundry potted meats left twelve months before by Harper and myself, and soon we had the tent pitched and were snug for the night.
At three o'clock on the Saturday morning Dixon and I crawled out of our sleeping-bags, and by 4 a.m. we were on the snow slopes, determined to make a vigorous attack upon the peak which had so long defied us.
Two hours on fairly good snow slopes and a scramble over a nasty slab-like face of rock, and once again the plateau, and that glorious scene of Aorangi and Tasman, were before us.
​But the wind had risen quickly and was blowing a gale from the south-west—the cold quarter. To face such a wind for any length of time, or to attempt to climb Aorangi against it, would be simple madness, so we turned and ignominiously fled to the refuge of our bivouac, 1,200 feet below, which we reached at seven o'clock, having been but three hours absent.
We then sent Annan down, as we were keeping him from his work in the lower country, telling him to leave word with the survey party that if we did not arrive back at the Ball Glacier by Monday night something would probably have gone amiss with us.
During the day the gale blew itself out, and next morning at 3.45 we were in our steps of the day before, reaching the plateau in an hour and a half. The morning sun lit up the peaks with a rosy glow, soon his piercing beams forced us to put on the goggles, while the crust of the snow began to soften under the great power of penetration which the rays possess in the rarefied air. This forced us to plod onward in slushy snow as we headed right for the Linda Glacier, which we could see rounding the point of the north-eastern arête of our mountain.
On our right rose Mount Tasman clothed in ice, from which during the night an immense avalanche had descended. We walked close to its furthest point of motion as it lay stretched out on the level snow-field like a gigantic breakwater, and found it to be 300 paces in width; Dixon estimated that it covered from forty to fifty acres.
We now put on the rope, as crevasses began to appear in the gently rising slopes to the Linda Glacier. ​On our left we thought that the north-eastern ridge looked practicable, but deemed it better to rely on a route chosen by so able a mountaineer as Ulrich Kaufmann, and kept on our course for the Linda Glacier, taking ten-minute spells at leading and breaking steps in the soft and slushy snow, and winding our way amongst ever-increasing crevasses in search of snow bridges over which we would cautiously crawl.
Now we would have a stretch of gently rising snow, then a crevasse or perhaps a bergschrund, followed by a steep ascent for 100 or 200 feet, then a divergence to one side or the other to avoid a chaos of séracs or blocks of tumbled and broken ice; and so on, hour after hour. About noon we had gained a considerable elevation above the plateau and were well round the corner on the Linda Glacier. Into this elevated valley the sun poured down through a rarefied atmosphere on to slopes on either hand which reflected all the light and heat. The glare was something dreadful, and before midday our faces and hands had assumed the customary chocolate colour, and the skin was literally broiled off me; Dixon did not suffer to such an extent. The heat was most intense, though not of the enervating kind which one feels at lower altitudes.
Viewed from this quarter Aorangi presents a totally different form than from any other, and we began to be sanguine about accomplishing our task. I was in possession of notes and sketches of the route kindly sent me by Mr. Green, and these were of material assistance to us.
Before us lay the final peak with its capping of ice. From the summit, now in full view, descended in a ​north-westerly direction to the right a steep rocky arête connecting with the ridge leading on to Mount Tasman. From the lower parts of these rocks steep ice slopes streaked with marks from falling rocks descend to the upper portions of the Linda Glacier, bounded all along their lower termination by an immense bergschrund which severs them from immediate contact with the glacier itself.
On the left of the summit slopes the north-eastern arête, consisting of a ridge of alternate knife-edges of ice and gensdarmes or towers of rock. The northern side or face of this ridge descending to the Linda Glacier is composed of very steep slopes of ice set with three immense masses of red-sandstone rocks, with two ice-filled couloirs or ditches between them. Up these two couloirs lay our route. We thought, however, that by leaving the glacier and taking to the crest of the ridge we could improve on the route, but soon found that the change was a mistake, and so struck back on to our old course up the middle of the glacier, the final slopes of which were very steep and exposed to the chance of avalanches from either hand.
It seemed a hopeless task this plunging through soft snow hour after hour, and it was nearly one o'clock ere we gained the edge of the big bergschrund and with difficulty discovered a sound enough snow bridge. Shortly before this an incident occurred in crossing one of these snow bridges which brought forcibly before our minds the serious nature of the work in which we were engaged. I—the lighter man by two stone—had crawled over in safety, and planting myself well in the soft snow above, was taking in the slack of ​the rope as Dixon followed, when suddenly he went through up to his armpits and was dangling in space, held up by a thin crust of snow and by the rope from above. I pulled with the strength of despair, and Dixon struggled till he secured a hold somehow on the other lip of the crevasse and got out.
That sort of thing is all very well to look back upon and talk over afterwards, but I am not likely to forget for many a long day the sensation of holding up a thirteen-stone man under such circumstances, and I must say that I should have been much easier in my mind if we had had such a man as Emil Boss or Ulrich Kaufmann on one end of the rope.
Immediately after crossing the big bergschrund stepcutting commenced; and from this point upwards every step, other than those on rocks, had to be cut in hard ice.
It is no easy task after climbing steadily for nine hours in soft snow to set to work and cut steps, especially when one knows that a slip must on no account be made, for with two men only on the rope it would mean a sudden descent to the crevasses or precipices (as the case may be) below, and our certain destruction.
An hour's steady work and we gained the foot of the lowest rocks, which were found to be quite unscalable. We then sidled round the base of these rocks to the left and commenced cutting steps up the first couloir, keeping close into the rocks on our right, on which we could get an occasional hand-grip. Ice blocks were continually coming down from the broken masses overhanging the top of the couloir, but luckily none struck us. The descent of an ice block in ​such steep ice slopes is something to remember. First a rattle above, and then 'swish, swish' as the first leaps begin, followed by a 'whir-r-r-r' and a 'hum-m-m-m' as, like a flash of light, a spinning and ricochetting object goes by and is lost to sight over the brink of the precipice below, or perchance is detected spending its momentum on the soft snow slopes 1,000 feet down.
These falls of ice on the upper slopes are not like the hissing avalanches, which sometimes even crawl down the lower snow slopes, but come down with the speed of light, and are calculated to strike terror into the heart of the stoutest-nerved climber.
We crossed the couloir near its head, partly on ice and partly on rocks, amid the gravest peril from showers of ice, and took to the rocks on our left, which were both dangerous and difficult, mainly owing to their being here and there coated with ice. Soon they became quite inaccessible, and we were again forced towards our left on to the ice slopes in the second couloir, and here we found the ice even harder, and we could only make an impression on it with the spike end of our axes. To add to the difficulty, the angle of ascent became steeper, inclining in places to about 60° from the horizontal.
We negotiated this couloir in a similar manner to that below, but water trickling from the overhanging rocks formed awkward hummocks of ice on the slope close to the rocks, over which we thought it almost impossible to climb, and to go out into the middle of the couloir was impossible, owing to falling ice.
Time was quickly passing, and we had a terrible ​fight to reach the head of the couloir. The rocks now shaded us from the sun's rays, and soon our hats, coats, and the rope were frozen as stiff as boards, while the cold was so intense as to cause the skin of our hands to adhere to the steel of the ice-axes.
It seemed now more than ever a hopeless task to reach the final ice-cap, which we knew could not be far above us; but we silently and doggedly cut away, and at length were rewarded by finding the rocks on our right practicable; taking to them we were soon on their crest, and the ice-cap of the mountain lay straight before us. An easy bit of rock-climbing led up to the slopes, which we found to be covered with a peculiar form of lumpy and frozen drifted snow. At the top of the rocks we looked around in vain for Mr. Green's cairn, with his handkerchief and Kaufmann's matchbox, left on the occasion of their ascent in March 1882. Doubtless they have either been long since swept away by falling ice or were buried in the terminal of the ice slope, which in December would encroach farther down upon the rocks than in March.
Dixon now counselled a retreat, arguing that we had virtually overcome all the difficulties and had only the final and easy slope to cut up; but I persuaded him to stay a little longer and make a push for it, or at least as much of a push as we were capable of making.
It was half-past five. Four hours and a half we had been toiling from the head of the Linda Glacier, thirteen hours and a half from our bivouac, without any halt to speak of. A wind began to blow from the north-west, adding fresh cause for anxiety about the descent. One thing was certain—if we wanted to get ​down alive we should have to reach the Linda Glacier again before dark.
We worked as hard as we were able at step cutting for another fifteen minutes, but only made slow progress; yet there was the cornice, just away to the right, the crest of the ridge to the left, and the top scarcely a stone's throw above, with no difficulty in the way. What would we not have given for another hour of daylight? How could we turn away when so near to a complete victory over our old foe?
Dixon again suggested turning, and I could not do otherwise than defer to his advice, for already we were caught in a trap, and should bad weather come upon us—and the wind and cold were fast increasing—before we reached the Linda Glacier again the probabilities were that we never should have returned from the giddy heights of the great Aorangi, the 'Sky-piercer.'
The height of the mountain is 12,349 feet; our aneroid read at our turning-point 12,300, and we reckoned the summit to be 140 feet above us. The slight error in the reading of the instrument would be accounted for by the impending change of weather.
The view is magnificently comprehensive. Looking northwards we could see clear over the top of our giant neighbour, Mount Tasman (11,475 feet). On the western side, the ocean, but twenty miles distant, was covered by a mantle of low-lying clouds creeping into the bays and inlets of the coast, studded here and there with islanded hill-tops, and stretching away to what seemed a limitless horizon on the west. A streak of blue ocean showed through the cloud mantle near Hokitika, seventy miles northwards.
​North-eastwards the glorious array of the Southern Alps extended, presenting a panorama of such magnificence and comprehensiveness that it defies any attempt at description. It is one of those vast pictures which are indelibly impressed upon the memory—one of those overpowering examples of Nature's sublimity which seem to move a man's very soul and call him to a sense of his own littleness.
Close under us lay the scenes of all our joys and sorrows of the past five years: the Tasman Glacier, encircled by those splendid peaks and snow-fields whose forms we had learned to know and love so well; further afield lay the Liebig Range, and, showing over this, Mount Jukes and his attendant satellites of rocky peaks. Beyond this again, far, far away in the blue and indefinite east, we could distinguish the hills of Banks Peninsula, close to our homes near Christchurch, whilst we could imagine that the blue haze distinguishable there was indeed the eastern ocean, 120 miles distant.
It will, of course, be said that we did not make the complete ascent of the mountain. Be that so; neither does Mr. Green claim that honour, though for all practical purposes to be on the ice-cap of Aorangi means the same thing as being on the top. Mr. Green's highest point must, according to his sketches, have been as nearly as possible 100 feet above ours.
But we could not spare time to moralise and rest as we should like to have done, for it was imperative that the terrible ice slopes should be descended before the light failed, and at a few minutes to six we began to go down backwards in our steps, taking a firm hold with our axes at every step.
​This going down is a fearful strain on the nerves, and requires the greatest steadiness and caution. In hurrying down the easy rocks we missed a mark on a snow patch which Dixon had made to denote the right route, and this mistake at the outset caused us nearly half an hour's delay before we found the right spot from which to leave the crest of the rocks, Dixon led down the rocks and I followed, every now and then taking a turn round any prominent projection with the rope and easing him down, whilst he in turn secured a good hold and took in the slack as I came down.
Bad as it had been coming up the top couloir, it was infinitely worse going down, for what was trickling water on the upward journey was now solid ice, and many of the steps were filled with re-frozen chips of ice from the steps we had cut above, and these had to be cleaned out before we could get a secure foothold.
Cutting steps up is one thing, and cutting them down another, for on a steep slope one cannot turn round face downwards to get at one's work, which in the case of going up-hill lies convenient to the hand.
How we did get down without the fatal slip which I was momentarily expecting would be made by one or the other of us I never could quite understand.
The rocks below the topmost couloir were negotiated and the lower couloir reached. This was not so difficult to descend, and the effect of the frost was such as to prevent such a continual shower of ice blocks from above, thus minimising one prominent danger.
The lower parts of the couloir were reached, and here are situated the rocks which form the ledge upon ​which with Boss and Kaufmann Mr. Green stood out for the night. There are several ledges accessible, but Mr. Green's party must have been upon one of the higher, for on some of the lower ledges there is room for a dozen men to stand or even lie down, though scarcely space enough for a circus or Wild West show, as Dixon humorously suggested. The light was now fast failing, and we strained every nerve to reach the big bergschrund below before darkness was upon us.
We were just in time and that was all, and the frail snow bridge was passed by our sliding over on our backs; I, the lighter man, led, and Dixon followed as steady as a rock—not a Mount Cook Rock, but the proverbial one.
We had now been seventeen hours with every nerve and muscle constantly in action, and yet, as the darkness set in and the awful glare of the sun had left us, we began to freshen up, and lighting one of our Austrian climbing-lanterns we retraced our footsteps of the morning, being most careful never to deviate from them. Soon it became very dark, for there was no moon, and we could but dimly distinguish the ghostly forms of the white-robed peaks which shut us in on all hands.
Hour after hour we plodded on. On one occasion we were brought up by the crevasse into which Dixon had nearly fallen in the morning; it had opened wider during the day, and only after walking along its line of fracture in both directions for half an hour did we discover a bridge which seemed sufficiently strong. We crossed in our usual way, sliding over at full length, and putting some weight on to our axe-handles ​laid lengthways on the snow to distribute the weight as much as possible.
As the night wore on, the crust of the snow became harder, and after passing through that most unpleasant crusted stage when it will bear until all the weight is put on one foot, became quite pleasant to walk upon, and over the lower part of the Linda Glacier and across the plateau we made a fair pace. As we reached the rise off the plateau on to the Haast Ridge the wind increased in violence, and we had great difficulty in keeping our lanterns (two of which we now kept going) alight.
The crest of the ridge was gained, and the descent of the dangerous snow slopes to the bivouac, 1,200 or 1,400 feet below, commenced. We were soon in trouble again amongst bergschrunds and crevasses, and on two occasions, in going down and feeling for the next step behind, I found on showing a light that my hind leg was dangling in a crevasse!
I must not weary you, dear reader, with further monotonous descriptions of crossing these deadly enemies of the mountaineer, suffice it to say that after an exasperating hunt on the steep slopes and in the dark for our bivouac—the candles being just finished—we finally discovered it at 2.45 a.m., an hour before daylight, having been twenty-three hours constantly hard at work without any halt worthy the name.
Sleeping soundly till 9 a.m. we made up our swags, and by 11 a.m. were on the downward route again for the Ball Glacier camp.
It was quite a wrench to leave our friendly rock, which had become a haven of rest and refuge to us on ​this upper beat. Five nights have I spent under its protection at different times, and as often have I arisen with the early morn to gaze upon those vast and sublime solitudes of Nature so grandly unfolded to view. From this little home—out of which if one stepped one had to be careful not to lose one's footing and make a rapid descent to the Hochstetter Glacier on one hand or to the Freshfield on the other—I have seen the rosy tints of the newly-born day creep downwards from the hoary snow-caps of the mountains, and when evening drew on have watched the afterglow envelop all in its warm embrace, even black rocks turning to a deep crimson which seemed to pervade the higher peaks ere the black and cold night once again grasps them in his icy hold.
Here had tired limbs been laid to rest whilst wearied minds dreamed dreams of success and hope, gaining renewed vigour with the morning light to go forth afresh into new struggles and enjoyments. Here in the heart of great Nature's solitudes the thoughts flew back to homes of comfort and of love. What wonder that we should have formed associations with such a spot?
The Ball Glacier camp was reached at 4.30 p.m., where we found Mr. Sladden of the Survey party anxiously awaiting our arrival, with that forethought which shows the kindly feeling and consideration for others that characterises men of worth in these outlandish parts.
That evening Dixon went across with Sladden to the Survey camp in the Murchison Valley, leaving me to wait for an expected friend from Christchurch.
Here I was quite alone amongst the mountains, ​with plenty of time to muse over the events of the past few days and to let my wandering thoughts fly back even further, to the struggles of the past five years whilst attempting to conquer Aorangi.
What is the climber's reward for all his trouble? Why does he climb? Who can tell?
Is it renown he struggles for? No; I am convinced that is a very infinitesimal motive. For mercenary ends? No; there is no financial harvest to reap.
I have often tried to think why men undergo such labour and hardship, but cannot come to any definite conclusion. To overcome set tasks ('pure cussedness' the Americans would say) is one reason (after once putting one's hand to the plough). To gain physical and mental strength, to raise and purify the mind in Nature's great school, are both potent reasons. But, above all, there is some mysterious influence pervading all true mountaineers—a mountain fever, a close kinship with Nature (call it what you will), a hidden impulse that grows on a man who has once felt what it is to taste the sweets of climbing and to enjoy the fascinations of the world above the snow-line.
My friend did not arrive, so I made my way over to Mr. Brodrick's Survey camp on the Murchison, walking through a thick mist, and steering across the Tasman by the aid of a compass—a distance of seven miles, or three hours' walking from camp to camp.
Here I found Cooper—Messrs. Wheeler & Son's photographic operator—who was down securing views of the district for a lecture which I was to deliver before the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science.
​It was our intention to make a two days' excursion up the Murchison Glacier with Cooper, but showery weather put a veto on our plans, and we were fain to be content with a short excursion to the Onslow Glacier, where some exposures were effected.
Leaving Mr. Brodrick's hospitable quarters on December 10, by the 12th we were again at the Hermitage.