HOLIDAY IX THE SOUTHERN ALPS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13086, 27 January 1906, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOLIDAY IX THE SOUTHERN ALPS.

NEW ASCENTS IN THE MOUNT COOK DISTRICT. BY MALCOLM ROSS. Grav skies and chilling breeze; The drip of falling rain; A stony path: a lonely hut— And memories. I had been in the hands of my doctor — twenty-one visits in as many days —blistering, and battery, and medicine, medicine, and battery, and blistering—but a good recovery and a moderate bill had made me once and for all a worshipper at the shrine of /Esctilapius. Also, with renewed health and strength came, a longing for the pure air and the glorious and ever-changing scenes of the Southern Alps. Therefore, when Mr. Turner, F.R.G.S., came along with a big reputation as an Alpine climber, and asked me to join him in an expedition to Mount Cook, I willingly consented. I. still had some doubts as to my fitness for serious alpine work, but learning that Turner, through the instrumentality of Mr. Dcnne, of the Tourist Department, had enlisted the services of my old friend and climbing companion. Mr. T. C. Fyfe, I was all the more ready to join the expedition. Finally I went back to my doctor, and he, having thumped me all over and listened to my heart and lungs, said. " Co—it will do you good." Turner and Fyfe-*had a- week's start of me, and the former was alreadyfamous'throughout the Mackenzie Country. He had balanced newspapers on his nose and holders on his (bin : he had crawled all over a boulder at Pukaki, and had made the ascent, of the half-way-house at Glentanner, so that even the famous T-rVtarin of Tarascon might have envied him the reputation he was fast acquiring. It was several years since I had made the journey to Mount Cook, and I found that. under the, management of the Tourist Department, a great improvement had been made. The number of visitors also had greatly increased, as was evident from some entries in the visitors' book at I'ukaki. '"Very comfortable (in the laundry)." wrote one man. "We mangled our pants and had nice creases for Mount Cook. The ' Duke/ snored, so we put him through at 2.30 a.m." From this and from my own experience, it is evident that a new accommodation house, is needed at Pukaki. One naturally objects to paying half-a-crown for a shake-down in the laundry, or a like sum for half a bed the other half being occupied by a strange gentleman who snores, or who has had spring onions for supper! The long detour via Pukaki, involving a two days' coach journey, still kills the Mount Cook trip, and the sooner the Government realise this and run a more direct motor and launch service to meet the coach at Glentanner, thus making a one-dav's journey of it, the better it will be for the tourists and for the colony, for Mount Cook is undoubtedly " the" show place of New Zealand.

Two days later we left the Hermitage and walked up the Tasman Valley, fourteen miles, to the Ball Glacier Hut. Clarke, Graham, and Green, of the Hermitage staff, who were packing provisions to the huts, came with us. Fyfe and I could not help admiring the skilful way in which Clarke manages this portion" of his duties. He has reduced it to a science, and, though he declares that the dreadful Hooker River will one day be the death of him, he continues year after year successfully to make these packing pilgrimages with the horses across swollen streams and moraines and avalanche debris to tire Ball Glacier. Hut, arid thence, without horse.**-, over the, solid hummocky and crevassed. ice to the Malto Brim Hut, far up the Great Tasman Glacier.

What changes have been wrought since my wife and I first pitched our solitary tent in this rocky wilderness sixteen years ago! With the assistance of one man we carried our tents-, blankets, and provisions along the crumbling moraine and up the trackless valley on our backs. I remember one night we slept out in the open with only a 'possum rug for covering. The thermometer fell from 85deg. Fall, in the afternoon to 26deg. Fall.— drop of 59deg.—in the evening. In those days kea stew was a luxury. Now the kens are preserved to amuse the tourists, and Clarke, with wonderful celerity, will produce you a four-course dinger that is warranted to satisfy even a Mount Cook appetite. It is true that coloured oilcloth takes the place of spotless damask, and that soups, entrees, releves, and entremets are evolved from the mysterious* contents of gaudily-labelled tins. Nevertheless, after a. hard clay's tramp, it is a banquet fit for a king. There is a story current—and it is quite a true —of two tourists who finished a four-course wine dinner at the Ball Glacier Hut with black coffee and cigars, after which one, looking at the unusual surroundings, remarked quite seriously to Ins companion, "Bni Jove! We are roughing it, aren't we , Next day we walked up the glacier to the Malte Brun Hut. which we found half-buried in snow. A week before it was covered, and Clarke and Green, coming up with the Simpson party from Timaru, had to dig their way down to the door, and once inside the but, six candles had to be kept burning all day to give- light, We were bent on the conquest of Elie de Beaumont, but a storm came up from the north-west, and a heavy fall of snow put climbing out of the question for some days. We decided to bent a retreat to the Ball Hut, and walked down the glacier in the dying storm, the gaunt precipices of the Malte Brun Ranee looming darkly through the mists, while the murmuring of waterfalls and the roaring of avalanches were borne on the winds across* the floor of the glacier.

(In Christmas Eve. the weather having cleared, we packed up tent, sleeping bags, and provisions, and started across, the Tasman Glacier and the Mnrchison Valley, for a climb on the Liebig Range. Our objective was the Nun's Veil, a mountain of about 9000 ft. It occupies a commanding position on the range, and Fvfe and I had often expressed a desire to climb it for the sake of the splendid views likely to be obtained. It was a hot walk across the glacier, here almost entirely covered with morainic debris. A solitary kea. from the flank'' of the Malte Brun Range came and screeched at us. daring us to enter his demesne, but we heeded not his eldritch cries and descended into the Mnrchison Valley, the upper portion of which is filled with a fine glacier drawing its supply of ice from an area of country of 14.000 acres. Tire Mnrchison River coming from this oight-mile-long glacier barred our way. but we doffed our nether garments and crossed if in comfort in the garb of old Gaul. We pitched camp close to a great waterfall that came, down in a series of leaps and cascades for fully two thousand feet. It was a most interesting corner. We boiled tile billy, had supper round a blazing fire, and then turned into our sleeping-bags inside the Whymper tent, with its waterproof floor.

We slept fairly well till Tumor roused us with an attempt to sing "Christians, Awake!" and we realised that it was Christmas morn. Turner had the billy boiled— an hour too soon, but that was a mere detail—and, breakfast finished, we waited for the dawn. Then we started up the steep slopes of a spur of the Liebig Range. The waterfall on our right came down in magnificent leaps. At our feet the Murchison River, in numerous branches, wandered over its stony bed, and north and north-east hundreds and hundreds of rocky peaks and ice-clothed mountains cleft the sky. Directly opposite, and just across the valley, the splendid mass of Mount Cook rose abruptly from the glacier. Presently the sun caught it- upper snows and grim precipices, bathing them in a warm, ethereal rose —the despair alike of the artist and of the writer. The. rosy flush crept slowly down the slopes, and then faded as it can™ «;«;«.*

place to a wonderfully delicate pearly gray with just the faintest trace of warmth in it. This in turn vanished, and then, as old Sol came boldly up above the eastern mountain* tops, the snows (if Aorangi were changed to gleaming silver. It was a sunrise to live lout; in the memory.

A detailed description of this climb would : only bore the reader unacquainted with alpine heights. Suffice it. then, to say that the ridge that from below looked " .1 cake-walk" became very much broken, and gave us some interesting rock work. Fyfe, who was, of coins*', in his element, decided to keep to the, arete, and gain the snowslopes higher up: but Turner urged a deviation, and. somewhat reluctantly, we descended a snow "couloir" flanked on either side by magnificent precipices. This detour lost us five hundred feet of elevation, and the climb became, for an hour hi more, a weary snow trudge. We gained the main arete again, only to find ihat we were completely cut off from the Nun's Veil. We therefore had to bo content with the ascent of the nearest, peakMount Beret, 3761 ft. which is the highest point of tin' rocky buttresses that form the well-known Priest's Cap. The final climb was interesting, especially the crossing of one narrow snow ridge, on which there was just room to stand. On either hand the snow-slope swept sharply down to great bergschrunds that yawned far below. From the summit of our peak the view of Mount Cook was magnificent—probably the finest in all the Southern Alpsand. towards the north-east, there was a most glorious panorama of mountain peaks that seemed to stretch for over a hundred miles, losing themselves at last in the haze of the fatdistance. The weather was still unsettled, and a. cold wind had arisen; but we secured some very interesting photographs. On the descent we got some two thousand feet of glissading, and reached camp early in the afternoon. We packed up, waded the Murehison River, crossed the Tasman Glacier, and were back in the Tsall itlacier just before nightfall, after fifteen hours' fairly hard work—an easy day for an invalid! (To lie continued.)