Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/230

180 was surrounded with a halo; move how we would the halo followed us, till at last the strengthening sun dispelled mist and halo alike, and we were left to tread our upward way beneath his all-too-burning rays.

We arrived at the Haast bivouac early on Saturday morning. After a few hours' rest the guides set out to tramp steps over the plateau, as this always means such a saving of time and effort next day. We could only count on thirteen hours' daylight; but fortunately the moon was at the full, and its light would help us considerably. The guides returned about 5 p.m., reporting the snow soft, but the route, as far as they had been able to see, quite feasible; so immediately after our evening meal, regardless of the temptation to linger out in the glorious moonlight, which bathed the surrounding mountains and turned the Tasman Glacier into a sheet of rippled silver, we turned in to get what rest we could before thewretched alarum, which was set for 1.30 a.m., should rouse us. We each had a sleeping-bag and blanket, and were quite warm and comfortable; but somehow sleep would not come, and every now and then some one would consult a watch in the moonlight streaming through the tent door, then heave a weary sigh and turn once more to try and sleep. We got up punctually, and by 3 a.m. we were roped together and ready for the start. The way up to Glacier Dome was by now all too familiar after our two trips to Mount Tasman the previous week, and the long, long snow slope, on which I had counted 1,400 steps, loomed before me like a nightmare. It is such a waste of energy to spend the first hour, when one's enthusiasm is at a low ebb, in climbing 1,000 feet and then immediately descend them again, which is the unfortunate fate of any one who climbs from the Haast bivouac, and has to gain the Hochstetter Plateau. On reaching the plateau we turned to the left and traversed the slopes at the base of Mount Silberhorn. We followed