A THRILLING NARRATIVE

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11251, 1 July 1922, Page 11

A THRILLING NARRATIVE

my SINGLE-HANDED ASCENT OF MOUNT COOK. BY SAMUEL TURNER, F.R..G.S. (From “The Conquest of the New Zealand Alps,”) For my final climb Guide Cowling prepared a good meal, and showed special concern and attention in helping me to start punctually. His manner was gentlemanly and sportsmanlike, and he showed me real encouragement, the best I had felt for my several years of attempts to climb Mount Cook alone. It was pleasing. After wishing the witnesses “good-bye,” I. went out of tho hut at twelve (midnight) into a fog, singing “Oh, for tho wings of a dove,” and plodded np the slope quickly. I was climbing fifty-three minutes' to the top of the rocks leading round the dome from the hut, and under two hours round the Silberfiorn corner, going easily and carelessly in the fog, thinking of what if this was “the day;” iny dreaming suddenly stopped. I just pulled up at the edge of a crevasse as though by instinct and continued my journey on the alert. Want of sleep made me for the moment forget I was by myself. I became steadier, and very soon commenced chipping where no steps appeared; crossing snow bridges and numerous avalanches, I took the big wide steps made the night before, and! this enabled me to ascend quickly-

The dawn of a beautiful morning came at a convenient time, as I was having a little early breakfast at the head of the Linda Glacier, above the spot where Darby Thomson, Bannister and I had breakfast five years before. From here the journey across the face under the summit of Blount Cook was done in good time, considering the broken ice and sohrund. Then re-cutting a few steps which had been wiped out by falling stones, I gained the snow couloir leading to the commencement of the summit rocks. Halfway up this couloir it was necessary for me to cut steps for about 250 feet to gain a bettor take-off from the ioe to the rocks than the ono on the previous attempt, which was too low down and not good. In this I lost two hours, owing to it being ioe; even then the takeoff was not good, but it had to go ; and carefully picking my way np tho lunrmit rocks once more I found big patches of snow across, tho upper part of them, which I had! climbed 'round previously. The top of the summit rocks afforded me a welcome restingplace for half an hour. I did not waste time looking for previous records left there, as some of them must have fallen down between big loose roclcs (I saw one tin of records down in a crack of a big lump of rock) on the very top of the summit rocks. On the top of a big block of rock there is a convenient place for a record, so I placed my daughter’s photo in a small camphorat-ed-ice tin, and placed a stone or two on top of it. I had drunk all my tea and a small bottle of lime juice, so, filling the water-bottle full of snow, I left it exposed to tho sun while I climbed to the summit and down again, and I also filled this small bottle with snow and put it on the outsido of my ruck-sack to molt in tho sun. Feeling myself well supplied with liquid gave trio relief, because a mountain thirst is a had thing, particularly on tho most critical priH of the climb up the exposed ice cap on the top of Mount Cook.

It was with great caution that , tackled this final SIX) feet of slurp ice. The Linda Glacier side or this steep slope was a seething face' of water and slushy snow, causing a waterfall to fall over the rooks below. This final slope bad caused me a good deal of thought every time the details of my solitary climb were contemplated. How would I find the anow conditions? Everything depended upon this; the hard or soft condition of the suo.v, and the diifetence between perfect conditions and bad conditions, means walking up in about one and a half hours in good conditions, or several hours-of bard work in a delicate position with a drop of about 5000 feot for every piece of ice one cuts out of tlie steps, which must bo cut carefully on such hard snow and ice conditions. The bad or good condition of snow means the success or failure to climb to tlie summit of a mountain like Mount Cook. My worst feara were realised: I found “beady ice,” which, after many cuts with the axo, afforded a very insecure footing and just as much work as fairly hard ice. It meant hours of work, but the hardest task Blount Cook had set me had heen more than prepared for in my step-cutting up mountains, in training for the present task. Nothing from the mountain could! fall on me. I had to just keep cutting I cutting I cutting!—in fact, persuading myself that I was a machine was my beat plan. When one is alone on a long ice-slopo its top does not seem to get any nearer. This is what makes even tho most determined parties turn back. The kind hints given mo by Mr Peter Graham (the Chief Guide) were very comforting, but there was no best way to cut up this slope. My reason repeatedly told mo I had no right to be climbing in such had 1 conditions ; but, like the second ascent of Mount Aspiring, and my first climb of Mount Sefton (in a galo), it was death or conquest; so the summit had to oome nearer. I crossed tho face, selected a good snow-ledge to get across tho bergsehnnd on tlie slope leading towards Mount Dampier, and slowly plodded my way up to the summit, where I appeared, so my witnesses said, in very quick time after getting through with the step-cutting The summit of Blount Cook shows this year’s very heavy snowfall, and I should calculate that it was 10 to 15 feet higher this year than I have' ever seen it. On the first crossing of Blount Cook tho slope down to the north-west could ho walked from tho summit; and nearly every time I havo been on the summit, except once, that condition has prevailed. On this present occasion, as well as on ono other occasion, tho summit was uneven. Five years ago I slept two hours on tho summit protected from a cold north-west wind by most of tlie summit being about two feot higher than the 4ft wide ledge on which I slept. This year tho 10 to 15 feet of snow was an irregular “wind-piled, slightly honeycombed gap” on the northerly and north-west slope, but nearer the Tasman face it was flat, with the usual steep drop. Tho summit generally was in a scraggy, unsatisfactory condition compared with the nice smooth summit I have always seen before, with but only ono exception. Tbs mile aud a half ridge down to tho third peak showed evidence of tho same irregular, over-supply of snow in tho act of being got rid of by tho last week or two of hot sunshine.

Tho sun had begun to pink. My Watch was stopped, and it meant a race against time. My witnesses record the time as four o’clock when T stooped flown and planted the harlved wire with a 2ft fiin British Ensign on it in the anow and pushed the small bottle in

at its side. I planted my flag about six inches from the edgo of tho Tasman face, so that when tho prevailing northwest wind blew it could bo seen from the hut, and in this I was successful. Standing up and stamping tho snow around it I felt that by that act I had conquered Mount Cook alone; if the mountain had made me feel cautious and unable to move about freely, the proud feeling of conquest could not have survived!