MOUNT MOLTKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21153, 9 April 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

MOUNT MOLTKE.

THE GLORY OF THE HEIGHTS

BY ET.STE K. MORTON,

,Tu the starry dawn J climbed up through the dense thicket surrounding Defiance Hut, and after a stiff pull up the first, P nr t of the climb to the : fi'est of Mount. Moltke sal, down on a jutting crag to take breath and to watch the glorious pageant of sunrise on the Alps. We had breakfasted before five o'clock; it was now nearly six, but, the stars were still bright and the last quarter of tho Easter moon was sinking in tho western sky. There arc moments that can never be recaptured, moments of dawn-hush and sunset, in remote and solitary places whero the glory and majesty of the Croat Creator fill earth and sky with a host of invisible worshippers, and the soul is borne upward on wings of song too sweet, too full-toned for mortal ears to hear. In moments such as theso one must be alone; no sound of human voice may break tho thrall of that deep communion of mortal soul with tho Immortal. And so it was that I sat, alone upon the mountain side in the starlight, and looked out over the ico waves of Franz Josef to the snow-clad heights beyond. Strange and awesome was the scene immediately below me; tho outer edge of tho glacier, descending over rough and broken country, was split into a wild, fantastic jumble of ice pinnacles, peaks and columns. In tho dim light of dawn they leaked like a mysterious, unearthly procession of shrouded figures crouching, huddling, marching between tho upper and lower worlds.

Gradually the last bright star paled in the primrose flush of sunrise; the first (lames kindled on glorious Elie do Beaumont, ran swiftly up the Minarets and do la Beche, and swept within a circling banner of flame all the noble peaks and snowfields of tho Great Divide. Tho bright beams swept down and down, played hide-and-seek with the mist-clouds shrouding Waiho, lit, tho still waters of lovely Mapourika, set gem-liko in forest depths, and turned the Waiho River to a ribbon of silver trailing ' out to tho ocean.

When _the guide appeared, soon after sunrise,- the 'world was full of sunshine and warmth, and'birds were singing in the mountain forest through, which our track still lay.' It was time to he moving up and on toward our goal, tho summit of Mount Moltke. a climb of over 6000 ft., L*p and up wo climbed, pulling ourselves up steep pinches by tree-roots and creepers, and coming out at last to tho wild grandeur and picturesquo desolation of Castlo Bocks and their lovely Alpine garden half way up the mountain sido. An Alpine Meadow.

The Rocks are mighty crags rising in strange, jumbled pillars and pylons, liko tho ruins of some curious bit of primeval architecture wrought when the world was young. And at tho foot of the ruins, in this rocky, arid waste, bloomed a garden of loveliness such as one glimpses only in dreams, a garden of flowers' snowwhite, and gold, of rare and fragile loveliness enhanced by tho desolation smv rounding them. Hero wej) exqtiisito > Alpino lilies, ranunculus Lyallii, chalices of ivory uplifted on straight, slender stems, each wide, saucer-shaped leaf still holding a tiny draught of crystal dew. Every nook and crevice held some tiny flower, > or snow-whito gentian. The latter were like a smaller crocus, branching in terminal clusters that held sometimes as many as a hundred blooms on a single stem. White curisias glowed liko stars beneath tho towering rocks, and the ground was carpeted with tho beautiful mountain daisy, Celmesia, coriacea, in appearance like a very fino white aster with golden centre, and with the senecia, another variety of mountain daisy similar to tho pyrethrum of the lower world. All these flowers were snow-white. Presently I caught a gleam of purest gold •—the splendid ranunculus godleyanns, a monster mountain buttercup larger than a half-crown.

I gazed enraptured upon that glorious Alpine garden, the loveliest wild garden I had ever beheld. It was the indescribable fragility and pale, wistful beauty of theso snow-flowers that held the mind in thrall. Why should 1 toil upwards for thousands of feet in the hot sun. when I could lio down in the grateful shade of these great rocks, and gaze all day upon this exquisite wild garden ?

Across the Snowfields. But the guide was moving steadily up the steep and'rugged mountain side, and one doesn't argue with Alpino guides. With a sigh I stooped and drained tho dewdrops from six of tho largest lily leaves; drinking is strictly taboo on a mountain climb, and the Moltke snowfield was a long, long way above. Up and up I toiled, over almost perpendicular slopes covered with rough shaley rock and great boulders. Presently the grey mountain side was cut sharply with the dazzling gleam of white ice, and we came to tho edgo of the Moltko snowlicld. Hp and ever up, across the snow toward the high western ridge leading up to the summit. The going was much easier now. although tho beat of the sun beating hack from the snow was terrific.

So long bad I lingered at Castle Rocks that it was now almost, lunch time, although the Moltke climb usually takes only about three hours from Defiance. From the snowfield we passed lo the western ridge, and continued our climb to the foot of the peak. Panting and weary, 1 looked up at the almost frowning perpendicular rock-pile, three or four hundred feet above, and once again I felt that sinking feeling, that renegade impulse (hat had assailed me on tho glacier and at the Rocks. Why did people always want to get to the very tip-top of tilings?

Above the Clouds. " T think we'll have lunch here, and do the peak afterwards," said the guide tactfully. Half an hour later T was sitting on a rock on the summit of Moltke, and I knew why mountaineers always want to get lo the very tip-top. Three wonders in one brief morning—dawn on tho glacier, the Alpine garden, and now, fifty miles of glorious panorama of the snow peaks of the Great Divide, stretching in a half-circle from north to south. Supreme, predominant, rose Cook and Tasman, glorious in their robes of white, so close that it seemed as if another hour's tramp across the snowfield in tho clouds would bring us to their crests, dazzling in a sky so intensely blue that it seemed almost black against the glare of the snow. Wo looked out over a glorious company of mountain monarchs, Elio de Beaumont, Green, Coronet, the Minarets, do la Beche, Jervois, Spencer, Conway, Douglas, Haidinger, Lendenfcldt —all between 9000 and 10,000 feet in height. Below this glittering world of ice and snow stretched the rock-ribs of the lesser ranges, striking down into (ho forestgirt valleys of Waiho and Weheka. Of the lower world wo could seo nothing, for swiftly, silently a sea of fog had uomo rolling in from the ocean, and now we looked out over Polar seas, a mass of billowing waves that were creeping gradually up tho glacier far below. For a long time not a word was spoken. Wo sat there .in golden sunshine on the roof of the world, tho earth beneath submerged in that whito tide of rising fog, nothing between us and the high blue sky. Tho silence of the everlasting hills enfolded tho whole world, a grave, majestic stillness that was th e very soul and essence of the spirit of the mountains. All the little human griefs and crosses of lifo were forgotten. Here on the mountain tops was uttermost peace, and that uplift of soul that is the foreshadowing of things immortal and sublime.