Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/300

228 westerly gale was blowing, and a great bank of white clouds was rolling up from Westland at an alarming rate. About Mount Cook torpedo-shaped grey clouds were gathering. Altogether it was as unpleasant a morning for a dangerous climb as one could well imagine. We hastily swallowed some tea and biscuits, and at eight o'clock started on the worst part of the climb.

As we traversed the narrow rotten ridge leading from Tuckett's Col to the north-east arête, we were exposed to the full force of the gale; it swept up in fierce gusts from the Copland Valley, blowing out the rope between us as if it were a thread. Fortunately the rope was 100 feet long, and so gave the leader a chance to pick out a good spot before he told the next in order to move. The ridge drops a sheer 6,000 feet into the Copland Valley on one side, and on the other falls away into a deep crevasse. In most places it is not more than two feet wide, and in some not that; so to follow it in a wind against which you could just hold your own, with the help of the rope, was no easy matter. Fortunately there was only about 300 feet of it. We could have stood but little more, for by the time we reached the Sefton rocks and cowered down behind them, we were stiff and numb with cold. They afforded us a few moments' shelter, time to collect our wits and undergo the agony of returning circulation. Then slowly and carefully Graham led up the north-east arête. It was almost inconceivably rotten, lumps of shale like rockpiled one above the other ready to fall at a touch. The wind caught pieces like the slates of a house, and whirled them away as if they were bits of paper. We kicked what we could out of the way, and put but the slightest possible weight on anything we touched. Never more than one of us moved at a time, or stood directly in the line of fire if it were possible to avoid doing so. After the first 100 feet the rocks improved slightly and we were able to keep a little on the east side instead of on the crest of