Page:Mannering - With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps.djvu/108

70 first on to a small dip or saddle in the ridge (sloping off on the right to the Freshfield Glacier and on the left to the Hochstetter ice-fall), and then on to steep snow slopes leading up to the crest of the ridge overlooking the plateau, now about 1,000 feet above us.

We proceeded cautiously over many half-covered crevasses, and crossing the small dip or saddle took to the slopes beyond, now and then taking to the rocks on our left. The climbing was somewhat dangerous, mainly owing to the bad state of the snow, which would start away in avalanches, or give way on the edge of a crevasse just at the moment one put one's weight on to spring.

At length we gained the highest rocks, which proved very bad going and seemed likely to bring us to a stand; but the leading man going up the last fifty feet alone, sent down a spare rope, making one end fast above, by whose assistance the second man followed in safety, the last man making the swags fast to the rope below to be hauled up. In the act of hoisting them, however, one broke away, and commenced a furious flight down the slopes up which we had so laboriously toiled. To the swag was attached a pannikin and the tin cistern of our lamp stove, and at every bound we could hear the rattling of the tin as we watched the truant bundle leaping down, and we thought of what might be our fate, were it not for our trusty rope and axes, should we start unexpectedly down the steep slopes.

Still down went the swag, turning over on its ends and bounding over crevasses in a manner which made us quite envious. At last it hovered on a saddle. In