THE SOUTHERN ALPS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19136, 2 April 1924, Page 2

THE SOUTHERN ALPS.

FRANZ JOSEF GLACIER TO MOUNT COOK. A BOTANIST’S EXPEDITION. Written for the Otago Daily Times. By Professor Arnold Wall. IV. We reached the Memorial Hut at 9 a.m. on January 21, after about lour hours’ easy travelling. The route lies across the ends of the Ball and Hochstetter Glaciers, along the Tasman. The guides take you through the moraine with the least poss : ble trouble, and there is almost a track formed for a part of the way. After crossing the Hochstetter, the foot of the steep spur is reached, and this spur is ascended with very little ditliculty to the hut, over green slopes at first, and then by way of rocky knobs and faces. From the glacier the spur looks very precipitous and d ; fficult, but this is an illusion. The Memorial Hut was built to commemorate the tragic loss of Air S. R. King and Guides Thomson and Richmond, who were overwhelmed by an avalanche on the Linda Glacier, a! f er mak'ng the ascent of Mount! Cook, m February, 1914. The hut occupies a tiny Ant space on the steep, rocky spur, and is 6800 ft up. A. little below it is the overhanging rock used before the days of this hut as a bivouac by those intending to ascend Mount Cook. Ihe hut is now the jumping-off place. All the material was carried up the steep spur oh men's backs; even two 621 b doors were thus transported hither whole. It is reckoned the best built ot all the huts, in spite of this handicap; the whole scheme, in conception and execution, reflects the greatest credit upon al| concerned, and the building of this hiit is a feat of which New Zealand as a whole should be proujl. The snow-line begins just above, and water is obtained by melting snow. It seems to be generally agreed, however, that the situation is very precarious; great rocks, not too firmly seated, threaten it from above; and we hear it piedicted that the hut may not last very long. A rumour got about some time ago that it had been destroyed already, some slight damage was really done, by wind, I believe, but this was quickly repaired A WONDERFUL PANORAMA.

It is a great experience, and unique in New Zealand at aify rate, to find yourself “at home” nearly 7000 ft above the sea, with a vast panorama ot alps and glaciers before you; Mount Cook at your elbow, and all the comforts of home at your back. The scene from tins hut is indescribably grand. It commands the whole of the‘Tasman Glacier from the Hochstetter Dome at its head to the terminal lace, six miles below the Bail Hut; the whole of the Malt© Bran Range and most of the Liebig Range opposite; the Hoclistettcr Falls and the grand grand sweep of the Hochstetter Glacier as it swings southwards from its steep fall and merges in the Tasman ; tho lovely snow slopes at* the head of the Tasman; and the high peaks such ar Silberhorn, Haidingcr and Haast, which continue the Mount Gook Range northwards as far as the Minarets, Mount de la Boche and Elie tfe Beaumont. We now followed tlie usual plan, which is to ascend the Glacier Dome in the afternoon and sleep at the hut. The climh to the Glacier Dome is easy ; snowslopes, at first very stoop, are followed right to the summit, but here and there rocky outcrops occur, and the route lies over these. We had some quite interesting experiences on these rocks, and the steeper parts of the snowfields. The summit (8047 ft) is reached in an hour and a-half or so. From here an even more glorious outlook than from the hut rejoices the heart. LITTLE KNOWN WONDERS.

Wc learned from the visitors’ booK that the memorial hut had been only visited six times during the preceding twelve months, and one of these visits was that of Mr Wigley’s party on their famous winter ascent to Mount Cook. It seems a pity that the public should care so little (or know so little) of this wonderful plate; perltaps the journey seems too strenuous to" those who do not reckon themselves alpinists. Yet it is really by no means difficult or arduous, and we noted that on two separate occasions, the hut and the Glacier Dome were visited by parties which included boys aged ten and eleven years. It also seems a pity that the hut, which is on the “Haast Ridge”—the ridge leading up to Mount Haast— should be generally referred to as “the Jtiaast Memorial Hut,” a title which is most misleading. Sir Julius von Haast has his monument and memorial elsewhere and' richly deserves them, but this hut surely ought to be familiarly known by its true name, “the King memorial. ' Early on the 22nd wo descended from our lofty station and returned to the Ball Hut. Here we found our friend Jim Stout ready to rejo’n us. He told us how he had found, a few weeks ago, at the end of the Horhstetter, the first traces of the remains of the unfortunate victims of the 1914 tragedy. THE BALL PASS AND GREEN’S HAASTIA. January 22 was the botanist’s day, lon-tr set apart, long expected and hopedforf The rest of the party, on arrival, had a long spell, a bathe in the beautiful creek about a mile below the hut, and

from about 9.30 a thoroughly lazy day Green’s first attack upon Mount Cook was made by way of the spur which descends from the southern arete of Mount Cook to this place. He gathered a plant on his way which was thought to bo new ana has' since held its place in our flora as “Haastia Urecnei.” It has never been seen since that time. To observe and collect a stock of this rare plant was one of the chief aims of the botanist on this expedition; a t ; ny scrap only exists in the Canterbury Museum. 1 left the Ball Hut at 9.30 and travelled fast along the spur, with some very interesting climbing of high knobs and disturbing of chamois, until, at 12.i)0, 1 reached the limn of vegetation. I was then about half a mile from the

Ball p ass (7090 ft), the saddle on the main ridge of Mount Cook, which Green and his guides had visited. Nothing but a smooth, easy snowfield separated me from this spot and from the twin peaks “Rosa and Mabel” just south of the Pass. My task had now fairly begun, and I spent several hours in examining the alpine plants, all perfectly familiar, among which Greer, hac found his treasure. Complete lists were made of everything growing on this spin from about 5500 to 6500 feet (the altitude mentioned by Green). No success attended these efforts, and I am now convinced, in the light or my experiinco, and of a closer study of the Museum specimen, that a mistake was made and that Green’s Haastasia must be banished from the flora; this, however, is not the place to develop that thesis.

Quite apart from the furious climbing land searching, this was a very memorable day for the botanist. From the lop of the Ball Spur I had a matchless “ciose-up” of the eastern face of Mount Conk, separated from me only by the Ball Glacier far below and about a mile or a miig and a-half of air space. The whole great series of hanging glaciers, one above the other on a five-thousand-foot facing, was directly before me like the dron scene in a theatre, and during the whole day which was extremely hot, the avalanches from these glaciers poured down incessantly with terrific crashing and booming—mueh too fine an accompaniment for a mere bunt for a paltry herb. I reckoned myself one up or. the party over this little trip, and would not, nave exchanged mv barren search for all their bathings and junketings down below. The previous articles of this senes appeared on March 22, 26 and 29.