Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/304

230 the north only the summits of the mountains were visible. Below us lay the Hermitage, still clearly to be seen. We waved a towel hoping they would see us, and know that so far we were safe. We had about another 50 feet of difficult climbing, and then reached comparatively easy rocks, which brought us to about 150 feet below the summit. Here we traversed round to the West Coast side, meaning to follow Zurbriggen's route up the rocks overhanging the Copland. We found these rocks impossible; they were hung thick with great icicles. So large were they that one breaking away and falling upon the climber would knock him backwards into the valley thousands of feet beneath. They hung in an unbroken fringe exposed to the full force of the gale. Only one course was left open to us: we must traverse the snow slope beneath them and trust to luck, or return to the north-west arête, the last 100 feet of which were probably impossible.

We decided for the snow slope, and there we played an exciting game of hide-and-seek, with our lives for the forfeit. Thomson, being a notably quick step-cutter, was put in the lead. He cut steps to the full length of his rope, we taking shelter meanwhile beneath a projecting rock. Then when the rope was all played out, Graham said to me, "Run for it," and off I went, picking up the slack of the rope as I ran, and glancing apprehensively above me at the great icicles swaying in the gale, ready to dodge if I saw one coming. Reaching Thomson's place of shelter, or exposure as the case might be, I would remain there while he went on, and Graham ran the gauntlet in his turn. We played this game of catch-as-catch-can on a steeply sloping frozen snow slope on which a slip might have had very disastrous consequences. How I raged at the long, snow-stiffened rope that evaded my half-frozen fingers, and was so hard to coil up as I ran, and equally dangerous to leave slack to trip my flying