There are recreations and recreations. For myself, I would rather
walk. I went horse-riding last week-end. Next time I shall walk-you can't
beat walking as an exercise. For nights I have tossed and turned in bed
and groaned in spirit. Instead of drugging my insomnia by counting sheep,
I recount the name of every individual muscle in my body and ascertain
whether it is stiff and sore. It is! No thanks; keep your horse. I'd
rather walk !
Now
bushwalking, the summer bonum of all sports in Australia, becomes
mountaineering in New Zealand for the simple reason that, to make any
headway in the dense, waterlogged forests, you would need a road gang
armed with axes, spades, and mattocks, and backed up by a bulldozer and a
steam-roller or two, and that, to anyone other than an alderman, is
clearly impracticable. But on the mountains you have clear going, even
though it be nearer the vertical than the horizontal, and the despised
vegetable dies before it is born rather than contend with the
unsympathetic, icy vastness of a superior world.
Speaking of mountains brings me to my subject-Malte Brun, the object of
our aspirations last Easter. The name "Malte Brun," while it conveys
practically nothing to a stranger, save, perhaps, a nebulous groping into
his elementary French grammar days, to the New Zealand climber conjures up
a vision of over 10,000 feet of clean, red, reliable rock, the best of all
God's stones. The fact that Malte is situated in the Mount Cook district
and thus consorts with the proud, snowy aristocracy of Sefton, Tasman,
Dampier, The Minarets, and even Cook itself, decided us to spend our
holiday in real climbers' country.
Leaving Dunedin by car on the Thursday evening, our party of three
traveled Mount Cook-wards all through the night. There was a brief respite
of four hours when we crawled into our eiderdown bags and refreshed the
body with sleep on a pile of boulders by the roadside-actually the best
camp-site offering, as the whole plain for miles around was a fair
representation of the Gibber Desert.
First light saw us on our way again. Mount Cook Hermitage welcomed us for
breakfast, after which, loaded down to Plimsoll mark, we set out on
the twenty-mile plug up the heaped moraine rocks and hummocky ice
of Tasman Glacier to De la Beche Hut, which was to be our headquarters for
the next couple of days. The hut reached, dinner disposed of, and the
alarm-clock set in anticipation of a big day on the morrow, we rolled into
our bunks by 9 p.m., and vacated them at 3 o'clock next morning after a
terrible mental struggle. Soon we were sleep-walking over the
half-mile or so of wrinkled epidermis of the Tasman Glacier, which flowed
like a river of ice between De ]a Beche Hut and the foot of our "Hearts'
Desire."
Uncertain weather conditions caused us to dilly-dally for some time at the
foot of Malte Brun, but eventually we decided that we would be doing
something profitable if we did a spot of reconnoitring, even if
unable to climb that day. So we plodded upwards aver tumbled rocks to the
Malte Brun Glacier, from which vantage point we gazed long and lovingly at
our peak, till, fired by the undeniable truth of the saying, "Familiarity
breeds Attempt," we decided to make for the summit As if just waiting for
this vote of confidence, Heaven now smiled on us ; the clouds cleared
away, and a perfect day shone forth.
We skirted a yawning gap in the glacier ice and bent our minds and our
muscles in an attempt on the steep-walled N.E. face of the western
arrete, which my experienced eye judged to be as good as
perpendicular. An inexperienced clinometer might have made a more moderate
estimate. But, my dear readers of conventional fiction, do not
imagine that the inevitable choice of a climber always rests
between an unscaleable precipice and a bottomless crevasse ; some~ times
there is a middle way, and on this occasion we were lucky enough to find
one which led us to the skyline ridge. Of course, it was not as easy as
that-it took about eight hours in all, which, like the laying of an egg
(on the 40-hour a week estimate), is a whole day's work for a hen.
For another two hours we clambered over the mountain's knobbly back-bone,
part of its length including the famous Cheval Ridge, so steep on either
side that if you had to fall you wouldn't bother to make a choice either
way.
It has been said by second-rate climbers that there are only two joys in
mountaineering-one when you reach the top, and one when you reach the
bottom. Well, we certainly enjoyed ourselves-but we did not reach the top
; 3.30 p.m. found us still 400 feet from our goal. The heights were
enveloped by a heavy mist, which thinned occasionally, revealing the
summit rocks well plastered with snow, thus making quite dangerous
climbing. We decided, in view of the lateness of the hour, to retreat
while daylight was still with us. After all, the idea in climbing is not
necessarily to get to the top of a mountain, but to enjoy life (and I say
"life" advisedly), as far as you go.
The Descent
We retraced our steps along the switchback ridge till it appeared to end
in an impossible drop, then transferred our attention to a steep, dark
couliour which, in our happy ignorance, seemed the less of two evils. It
could have been called either a frozen watercourse hung on the face of the
mountain, or an avalanche chute, being both. Darkness overtook us before
we had fairly started the descent, and for five solid hours we belayed
ourselves every foot of the way down the sort of dark, loose, slippery
corridor that you wouldn't look at twice in daylight, except to say
"impossible!" As the hours vanished into the dark void of night, this
concentrated progression became so mechanical that we did it
unconsciously.
Just to relieve the monotony, the mountain found occasion, at irregular
intervals, to launch portions of the hillside o-1 to our heads. But what
though the going was dark and difficult ! Somehow we at last found
ourselves at the top of a steep snowfield into which our crampons would
grip. The full splendour of an Easter moon lit up the expanse of white
with a radiance not of this world, and the strain relaxed.
After a little scouting about, we picked up our tracks of the day before.
Then it was just a downhill trot all the way, and at 4 a.m. we lumbered
into Malte Brun Hut as the foot of the mountain. Here we refueled with two
tins of iced apricots, as we hadn't eaten since the previous afternoon,
and then it had only been half a bun each and a piece of chocolate. The
apricots more than fortified us ; they kept continually reminding us of
their presence as we crossed the Tasman Glacier to our own little hut at
De la Beche.
Dawn saw three small figures moving slowly up the high moraine rocks till
they gained the hut. The sun rose above the eastern bar and shouted,
"Hullo! Hullo!" to a waking world, but we tumbled into our sleeping-bags
and let him shout. And all day long he called and called, but we lay fast
asleep; aye, all the day, because our need was deep. After our own
fashion, though, we had enjoyed ourselves. |