Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/246

 was a bitter blow, as the Grahams and I had always planned to make these two big expeditions together—they were to be the crowning-point of their ambitious pupil's career and the triumphant proof that their faith in her powers and years of training had not been wasted.

After blowing steadily for a week, the westerly gales moderated, and on the evening of December 10th Peter Graham and I set out for the Hooker hut, intent on conquering the virgin peak immediately south of Nazomi. If we were successful, I should then have climbed every peak on the Mount Cook Range except one. This range is not, as is generally supposed, a portion of the main divide, but a spur branching off from it at Mount Dampier and extending to Mount Wakefield.

We left the Hooker hut at 3.30 a.m. on the 11th, and crossing over the moraine of the Hooker Glacier reached the base of our peak at 4.45 a.m. A strenuous struggle ensued before we gained the main western arête. I soon became painfully conscious of my lack of wind, and sighed regretfully for the form of 1910, when I could romp gaily up the western ridge of Mount Cook with no effort worth mentioning, where now I had to drag a seemingly dead weight up rocks that were no more difficult, though the ridge was considerably longer. We had a clear 5,000 feet of good rock-climbing such as I can confidently recommend to any one in search of training and hard work. For the first four hours I was mainly conscious of my many deficiencies. I had not done a big rock-climb since Malte Brun in 1909, as the seasons had all forced me, much against the grain, to learn the art of snow- and ice-work. Now I looked back regretfully to the easy hours on some icy slope, where I could contemplate the view at my leisure for ten minutes at a time, while the guides did all the hard work of step-cutting. This continuous work of climbing obstacle after obstacle at a steady pace was