Chapter X: An Ascent of Haidinger

“Swinging there over the world, and not high enough to get a hold on heaven, it makes you feel as if things was droppin’ away from you like.”—GILBERT PARKER.

Fyfe arrived at the Bivouac Rock in due course, and we began to think of other plans. It was decided to attempt the ascent of Haidinger by the eastern face. We were not yet in sufficiently good training to do ourselves justice on difficult climbs, and were moreover somewhat tired with the previous day’s exertions. Once more the good resolutions formed at nightfall were dispersed with the dawn, and instead of starting at 3.30 a.m. it was a quarter-past five before we got under way. Crossing the lateral moraines of the Rudolf Glacier, we hurried over the clear ice to the foot of our mountain at a speed that was too fast to be pleasant. I began to wish myself back in my comfortable sleeping bag under the Bivouac Rock. Fyfe was cutting out the pace at an unusual rate, but I set my teeth, followed doggedly in his footsteps, and answered his remarks with the briefest of monosyllables. This, ultimately, had the effect of stifling conversation altogether. In any case, it was too early for talk. But in an hour’s time we had made such excellent progress that we were on the ridge and scrambling up the first rocks, which offered no serious bar to our progress. The sunrise was splendid. Rocks soon gave place to snow, which rose in a gentle curve to a continuation of the rocky arête two or three hundred yards above. Climbing along this ridge, we at length found ourselves face to face with two enormous slabs of rocks, rearing themselves on end above the softer strata, and recognized in them the well-known Penguin Rocks, so plainly visible from the hut at the Ball Glacier, the summit of De la Bêche, and many other points miles away. The close view that we now obtained of them was decidedly interesting. They completely blocked our passage along the crest of the ridge, but we found a way round, and, gaining a safe spot on the other side, where there was room to sit down, we basked awhile in the warm morning sun and enjoyed our second breakfast.

On the right the ridge fell away in a great precipice to the Forrest Ross Glacier, here very steep, and raked by falling rocks and blocks of ice. Waterfalls shot from the edge of the clear ice above, and tumbled, with continuous roar, over the black buttresses of wet rock. The thunder of avalanches also rose on the clear morning air from the depths below. Immediately on our left another glacier flowed down the steep slope, and poured its tribute into the Great Tasman. From the highest rocks on this ridge a hummock of ice rose and curved over our heads, and through a great crack close beside us we peered down into the awesome depths of a bergschrund in the glacier on our left. At the end of this there was a beautiful grotto where the white of the snow and the tender blues and greens of the ice melted away into the gloom that shrouded the depths of the crevasse, and seemed as if it had been transported unsullied through the pure air from Fairyland. All the same it was awesome. I drew Fyfe’s attention to it, and, after we had duly admired its wondrous beauty, he remarked that it would be awkward if we dropped through! Whereat, we took another look, and, sitting, each, on a flat slab of slate placed on top of the snow, began once more to munch our “second breakfast.” Water was trickling from the ice-block above. We caught it in the crowns of our hats, and, squeezing the juice of a lemon into it, enjoyed a delightfully cool and refreshing drink. Then the fragrant incense of tobacco was wafted abroad—wafted abroad on this fantastic ridge for the first time since the world began. And we two sat there in the sunshine, watching the smoke wreaths caught up in the gentle morning airs and carried over the white snow to the base of those two palæozoic giants that frowned disdainfully upon us. Hitherto no one had dared to pass over the ramparts of rock and beyond the portals of ice that guarded their domain.

On top of one of the pinnacles was a weather-worn and lichen-covered boulder that forcibly brought home to our minds the wear and tear of the ages. Clearly, at one time, the ridge had been as high as the top of these rocks, but had, bit by bit, crumbled away, leaving the harder pinnacles, with their solitary coping-stone poised aloft, to tell to the first explorers the tale of the ceaseless warring elements. And perhaps the time may arrive when mountaineering shall have become a lost art, and some highly developed mortal, in the due process of evolution, sailing by in his airship, will halt awhile on this same ridge to find these adamantean giants gone—nay, even a time when these great glaciers shall be no more, and the very ridge itself shall have crumbled into dust. Such has happened before in the world’s history; such will happen again. I am writing this chapter, on a blazing hot day, on board a P. & O. liner in the Arabian Sea, and Priestley, returning from Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition, has just been telling me that they found the fossil wood of fir trees in that land where to-day there is no tree, nor flower, nor herb. And I doubt not that in this same Arabian Sea, where, now, ice is in much request, there were, at one time, great glaciers flowing down from the mainland, and huge bergs drifting aimlessly out to sea. So it may be again, through some change in solar heat, or in the earth’s axis.

But these problems did not greatly concern us on the ridge of Haidinger that morning. We had got our second wind now, and the sunrise, and the beautiful surroundings, found us once more in high spirits, and ready, nay eager, to pit ourselves against the opposing forces of nature. Is it not Quiller-Couch who says, if he were to draw up a hierarchy of sports, he would rank them as they oblige a man to pit himself and take his chances against opposing forces? Such sports have helped to make Britons brave, and if our New Zealand youth engage in them—as a pastime, but not as a business—it will be well, and “danger, when it comes, will not grin suddenly upon them with an unfamiliar face.”

We looked anxiously ahead at the two turreted ridges that came down from the summit of our mountain. The one on the right seemed as if it might give an easy route, but the tracks of falling stones on the glacier below were indicative of danger, and, even as we looked, a great mass of rock broke away with a loud report from the higher crags, and came thundering down to the glacier. The whole face of the rocky buttress was raked with a fire of falling stones, more deadly than the most destructive artillery. The chances were a thousand to one that, had we chosen that route, we should have met with swift and certain death. Without giving this route another thought we bore away to the left over the ice on the plateau, and made for the ridge on the left. We decided to keep to the crest so that we should be safe from falling stones and blocks of ice; but we were still in doubt as to whether we could cross the plateau and gain the rocks on the foot of the ridge. A snow-covered bergschrund met us at the outset, and we crawled cautiously across it, distributing our weight over as great an area as possible. Below us the ice was broken into enormous séracs, and one peak-like pinnacle towered aloft above the surrounding masses. Some of the schrunds were exceptionally large, and the colouring in their depths was marvellously beautiful. It was as if they had been made in some fairyland factory in which the manufacturer had mastered all the arts of delicate colouring and blending of tints.

Having arrived at a comparatively level bit of the plateau, where there were some tremendous cliffs of ice poised above, we ran as fast as possible on to safer ground. Two great schrunds gaped before us at the farther edge of the plateau, but we dodged one and crossed the other gingerly on a frail snow-bridge, one man anchoring till the other was safely over. Then we saw that we should have difficulty in getting on to the main ridge; but a secondary ridge farther down promised success. We turned towards it, and clambering up a soft snow slope, found ourselves once more on solid rocks.

These rocks gave us some interesting climbing, and the main ridge ahead looked practicable. We began to see the West Coast peaks away beyond the Lendenfeld Saddle and the Hochstetter Dome at the head of the Tasman Glacier. The view up and down the Tasman with the startling peaks and precipices of the Malte Brun Range right opposite across the glacier was one that we could not help every now and then halting to admire.

Having climbed over this first ridge, we found ourselves on a very narrow snow arête. There was just room for a man to walk on it. It sloped down steeply on either side, and we agreed that in the event of either slipping, the other would immediately throw himself bodily over on the opposite side, in which case we should find ourselves dangling one at each end of the rope in perhaps a not very elegant pose, but, at all events, in safety. However, there was no need for any such gymnastic performance, and we walked along the snowy ridge without a slip and gained a rock arête. This ridge was still narrower—Fyfe declared it was sharp enough to cut bread with. The rocks were, moreover, very rotten, and the crumbling masses that we sometimes dislodged went clattering down on to the glaciers on either side.

We were now quite on the main ridge, but it was evident our peak was going to die hard. It was even doubtful if we should succeed. A short ice-slope intervened, and the axes were brought into play. The splintered ice went down the slope with a swish! swish! at every blow of the axe as we hacked the steps, till at length the slope was vanquished. Then a series of rocky teeth blocked the way, but we climbed over them, one after the other, and commenced to storm a dark precipice that was, beyond a doubt, in places, absolutely perpendicular. This precipice is plainly seen from the hut far down the Tasman Glacier, and it was a moot point whether it could be scaled. However, at it we went with a defiant jodel, and inch by inch, foot by foot, we pulled ourselves up. It was certainly a glorious climb, and whether we succeeded in reaching the summit ridge or not, we felt that this bit of rock-work was worth coming up for. But the rocks were very rotten, and we had to exercise the greatest caution. In some places one man had to assist the other, and the ice-axes were handed up after the leader had gained a secure stand. Only one man moved at a time, and there was a constant cry of “Have you a good hold?” before the climbing of any difficult bit was undertaken by either of us.

My axe weighed heavily on my mind. When passing through Christchurch I had asked Mr. Kinsey to lend me an ice-axe, and he generously gave me Zurbriggen’s. When a mountaineer gives away the trusty axe that has stood him in good stead on many an arduous expedition, it is like a soldier giving away his sword. Zurbriggen had presented his axe to Mr. Kinsey. It was an axe with a history, and prized accordingly. It had accompanied the famous guide to the top of some twenty peaks in the European Alps—the Gabelhorn, Dent Blanche, Monte Rosa, Matterhorn, Weisshorn, Roth-horn, Jungfrau, Silberhorn, Schreckhorn, Dôme, Nadelhorn, Mont Blanc, Finsteraarhorn, Aiguille de Charmoz (five peaks), Kühalphorn, Aiguille de Dru, and Aiguille de Géant—truly a goodly array. On top of the Nadelhorn, which is higher than Mount Cook, the axe and Zurbriggen spent the night. It was also with him on the summit of Mont Blanc for eight days and nights! Subsequently, in New Zealand he carried this same ice-axe on Mount Cook, and to the summits of Tasman, Sefton, Haidinger, and Sealy, also over Fitzgerald’s Pass to the West Coast and back over Graham’s Saddle.

Later on it did good work with me on the ascent of Haidinger, De la Bêche, the two Minarets, the descent of the pass from the head of the Great Tasman Glacier to the Wataroa, and the first crossing of Fitzgerald’s Pass from the West Coast. An axe with such a record had never before been seen in New Zealand, and it was naturally greatly prized by its new owner. Therefore it was that, though light enough in my hand as ice-axes go, it weighed heavily on my mind, and I was as careful for its safety as for my own. But there was always a haunting dread lest I should let it slip and never see it again. I was then half sorry I had brought it, but when we came to a slope up which steps had to be cut in the hard ice, we prized it highly, for it was cunningly made and of excellent design for that kind of work.

The storming of the great buttress put us thoroughly on our mettle, and so long as there was a knob to grip or a chink into which we could get our fingers we advanced slowly. In places the rocks were very rotten, and in places they were glazed, so that our progress was painfully slow. The mountain was certainly not in good condition, and this glazing of the rocks, which is a thing all mountaineers abhor, gave us much trouble. The rocks were so steep that often the leader’s feet were just above the other man’s head. At last, however, we got over the worst of it, and paused awhile to see what was ahead. Things looked more promising, and it seemed as if we should top the peak after all. The slope eased off considerably; but then there came another long stretch of bad rock-climbing with bits of ice-work, and our spirits sank. Verily this was a regular Teufelsgrat, and the devil and all his angels must have been present at the making of it. On two or three occasions we asked each other if it was worth going on, and I am free to confess that a very little excuse would have tempted me to turn at this point, but neither would give the word to retreat. I am inclined to think now that the modern rock-climbers might not think it at all difficult; but as the route has not again been attempted one cannot speak for certain. A snow slope intervened, and we went bravely at it, kicking steps in the half-frozen snow; but soon we found that the snow thinned out, and that there was glazed ice underneath. One felt in no mood for step-cutting at this stage of the climb, but, nevertheless, began to chip away at the hard ice. Then Fyfe took a hand. It was hard work, and slow. The snow had to be scraped off the slope and each step carefully cut with the pick end of the axe. Chips of ice came rattling down, hitting me on the head and hands, and filling up the steps that had been cut. I employed my time in clearing out the ice from the steps with one hand and throwing it athwart the slope, so that it would not fall in the line of steps below me. When one hand got half-frozen I gave the other one a share of the work. But my labour was mostly in vain, for such showers of ice and snow came down that most of the steps were completely filled up again as soon as they were cleaned out. I was not sorry when we gained the rocks above, though they were in places rather difficult. We made fair progress for awhile, but at length were brought to a complete standstill by a smooth sloping slab of rock that offered neither hand nor foot-hold. We could have cut up on the shady side of the ridge and avoided this obstacle, but there was now no time for difficult step-cutting. It was the rocks or nothing. We had brought with us a pair of rubber shoes for such an emergency as this, having on former expeditions proved their efficacy in swarming up smooth rocks. Fyfe having taken off his boots and put on the rubber-soled shoes, I got on firm standing-ground and gave him a leg up. The rope went out slowly and then stopped. It was now that my turn came. “Have you a good stand, Fyfe?” I asked. “No, not at all good,” came the reply; and, not daring to put any great strain on the rope under such circumstances, I scrambled up as best I could with only its “moral” support. It now seemed a short distance of the top, and we determined to push ahead as quickly as possible, for the afternoon was wearing on, and the descent began to weigh a little heavily on our minds. There appeared to be some likelihood of our spending the night out on the mountain, especially as there were still one or two bits of bad rock-work ahead of us. At one place Fyfe left his axe behind, in order the better to grapple with the difficult rock-work.

At last we gained the highest rocks and what seemed, from the De la Bêche Bivouac, to be the highest point of the ridge. We found, however, that there was a snow slope beyond this leading to the end of the summit ridge, and up this I cut till we gained the crest. Fitzgerald’s rocks were a long way off at the other end of the ridge, and much as we should have liked to have visited his cairn, there was no time to do so, even if we could have surmounted the cornice that seemed to bar the way. We were some 27 feet, according to the map, below the highest point of the mountain, so we did not claim its complete ascent.

From the summit ridge of Haidinger, over ten thousand feet above the sea, we had an Alpine view at once extensive and imposing. We were on the main divide, and we looked northward along its snowy crests and jagged pinnacles of rock to where a long snow arête led up to the dazzling summit of Glacier Peak. Beyond that again, stretching away towards the north-east, was a grand array of peaks and glaciers, several of the mountains rising to altitudes of over 10,000 feet. The magnificent sweep of the mighty Tasman lay below—thousands of feet down—and, on its eastern boundary, rose the gaunt precipices of the Malte Brun Range, culminating in a splendid peak 10,421 feet high. We looked eastward across the island to the dim sea-haze beyond Timaru; westward the lazy swell of ocean broke in a white line along the indented coast. Near at hand, on our left, the giant mountains of Cook and Tasman reared their hoary summits, and the children of these mighty monarchs stood around at respectful distance. But grand as all these were in their serene and stately loveliness, it was ever the west that held our gaze. Westward ho! What magic is there in these words! We felt their influence upon us once more as we gazed down at the broad expanse of spotless snow that fed the Fox and Victoria Glaciers; at the dark lakes embosomed in the darker forests that climbed upwards from the sea; and at the white line of the Pacific breakers, that, up where we were perched, seemed to fall with noiseless beat along the western shore.

In the glorious sunshiny weather, with such marvellous views all around, our stay was all too short. But we had to think of the descent, which promised to engage all our attention and require alike nerve and skill. So, reluctantly, we turned our faces eastward and went down the snowy crest to the highest rocks at this end of the ridge, where, under a flat stone, I left a card. There were not enough loose rocks to build a cairn. Returning to the ridge, we made our way down in the ice-steps, exercising the greatest caution, as we had now only one axe. The steps were for the most part filled up, and Fyfe had to feel for them with his feet after cleaning out those on a level with his face so that he could get a grip in them with his hands. The rope was kept taut, and I took good hold above, going down with my face to the slope, and using my axe as an anchor, digging the handle in where there was snow and the pick end where there was hard ice. With my face turned to the wall I could look between my legs and see Fyfe immediately below me, cautiously feeling his way down. When we got to his axe we were able to progress more rapidly. We wasted no time, but climbed steadily without a halt, for that grim precipice still lay below. Just above it the rocks were terribly rotten. It was almost impossible to avoid dislodging them, and I, who was now leading, was, for a time, subjected to a regular bombardment. First of all I was nearly knocked out of my steps by a blow on the leg. Then I was struck on the shoulder. A few minutes later, a flat chunk of rock that lay half buried in a bit of soft snow was dislodged by Fyfe and hit me fair on top of the head. This half-stunned me for the moment, and Fyfe was warned to keep a good hold while I leaned against the rock to recover. Luckily I have a good thick skull, and the rock struck me with the flat, and not endways on, so there was little damage done.

At length we reached the precipice. The descent was quite a work of acrobatic art, and the attitudes we sometimes got into would have been the envy of a contortionist, could he have seen them. “Swinging there over the world,” writes Gilbert Parker, in one of his graphic bits of description, “and not high enough to get a hold on heaven, it makes you feel as if things was droppin’ away from you like”; and that was somewhat like the feeling we had in descending this cliff. After a good deal of slow and careful climbing, we reached the plateau, and knew that our difficulties were over. We went down the final slope at a good pace, getting some fine glissading on two or three snow slopes. Below these, we took off the rope and hurried down over the final rocks. Some of the slates were very sharp and cut like a knife. One long cut on my hand bled profusely, and the handle of Zurbriggen’s axe was dyed a brilliant crimson. Fyfe was still more unlucky, for he knocked his leg on a projecting slate which cut a hole in his stocking and took a bit out of the leg just over the shin bone. Spartan like, however, he said no word about it until we reached the Bivouac.

In the gathering dusk of evening two tired mountaineers, battered and bleeding, but victorious and triumphant, sought the shelter of the Bivouac rock, where Hodgkins and my wife were kept busy for the next half-hour in the preparation of supper. We began with a steaming billy of porridge, then we had stewed tinned peaches, followed by mulligatawny soup, and tea made in the same billy as the porridge! The tea was not quite a success; but in those days we did not stick at trifles, and the mixture quickly vanished.