Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/169

Rh one of the great elements in my many successes. It has often spurred me on to bigger efforts, where a want of confidence would simply have crumpled me up and made me lose faith in myself. Some idea of the difficulties of our descent may be gained by the knowledge that it took us just as long to descend as it had to ascend, in spite of the fact that on the ascent the steps had to be cut, while on the descent we had simply to walk down them. After an hour we at last arrived on the other side of the schrund, all very thankful that we had not attained the summit, if the descent could only be safely managed at such a strain. We retrieved our rucksac from the mound in which we had buried it and consumed a good meal. As the day was still young we decided to cross over to the north-east face and see if there was any possibility of an ascent from there. We followed along the lower lip of the schrund for some way, looking for a crossing-place to the slope above. A very little acquaintance with this face proved it to be quite as icy and steep as the arête we had just left, though slightly more protected from the wind. As the summit was now shrouded in thick fog and the weather around us anything but promising, we definitely gave up the attempt and started for the Silberhorn with all speed. I was desperately disappointed, when on reaching it I was unable to take a photograph of the Tasman arête with our steps showing how far we had ascended. I had left this particular photograph in the morning when taking several others, thinking it would be much more interesting taken after our ascent. A little acquaintance with alpine photography soon teaches that "a bird in the hand is worth two in a bush." I thought I had learnt this lesson, and was thoroughly annoyed with myself for having backslided so badly.

Our descent down the Silberhorn arête proved a minor edition of our experiences on Mount Tasman. We had several very nasty patches of rotten ice where the steps had melted and broken away, involving the cutting of new