Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/172

 and our party, which consisted of the two Grahams, Miss Murray Aynsley, Mr. Hugh Chambers, and myself, set out for the Ball hut, at which we arrived without incident. We were rather late getting away the next morning, and so did not arrive at the Malte Brun hut till 4 p.m. We had decided to start for Graham's Saddle at two o'clock next morning, so spent the remainder of the afternoon and evening in gaining as much rest as possible. The trip over Graham's Saddle to the accommodation house at the foot of the Franz Josef Glacier is a long and trying one. It may be expected to occupy anything from fifteen to twenty hours, according to the state of the glacier, and the capabilities of the party, so to journey across with only a few hours' rest after the tiring ascent to the Malte Brun hut was something of an undertaking.

After a scrappy breakfast at 1.20 on the morning of the 23rd, we set out at 2 a.m. There was no moon, and we stumbled painfully over the lateral moraine by the light of a lantern, and then across the Tasman Glacier until we reached the point at the base of Mount De la Bêche. Here we scrambled up some scree and snow slopes for a few hundred feet, and then made a traverse across to the opposite side, facing the Rudolf Glacier.

The dawn was now beginning to break in a riot of colour. Mount Cook blazed blood-red as the first rays of the sun caught his gleaming summit, then peak after peak caught the glow and ran the gauntlet of colours—red, pink, golden, primrose, they gleamed in a revel of beautiful shades. Far away in the south a thunderous bank of black and evil clouds darkened the sky, and by the time the sun had finished his morning pageant a bitter, icy wind was upon us. We toiled steadily up the Rudolf Glacier for two hours, fighting our way against the wind, and casting anxious glances above us. Soon our unspoken fears were realized and Graham's Saddle was blotted out by a great bank of clouds from Westland.