Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/160

124 mountaineering. Shivering and but half awake, one swallows a weird sequence of food, made bearable only by the hot tea with which it is washed down. Only the entreaties of my guides ever make me attempt to eat in the early morning hours.

After breakfast comes the deadly struggle into frozen boots and the endless winding of putties. A soft hat well tied down on my head completes this somewhat sketchy toilet, and leaves me free to crawl out into the cold morning breeze and wait while the guides roll up the tent and portion out the alpine rope which has served for its ridge-pole. By 1.30 all was finished, and we started off. Our golden moon was shining bravely, but threatened soon to disappear behind Mount Haast; we therefore lit a candle to assist us when the moonlight failed, and began groping our way through the loose boulders which surround the bivouac, over which we must pass to reach the ridge and the steep snow slopes beyond.

The night had been exceptionally warm, and the snow was still quite soft. Up and up we climbed, following the steps the guides had tramped the previous night. Steeper and steeper grew the slope, which loomed dimly above us for a thousand feet. At 2.30 a.m. we reached the summit of the ridge. After a short rest we began the descent into the great snow plateau, three miles long by a mile or so broad, which forms the basin at the feet of Mounts Tasman, Lendenfeld, and Haast. At its left-hand side this basin is joined by the Linda Glacier, which flows between Mount Cook, Mount Dampier, and Mount Tasman. All the accumulated drainage of these great peaks empties itself out of the narrow opening between the Haast ridge and the east arête of Mount Cook, and forms the wonderful hanging glacier known as the Hochstetter Icefall, whose chaotic splendour beggars description.

The moon had sunk behind Mount Haast, and with