Page:Mannering - With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps.djvu/110

72 mountains in New Zealand—Aorangi and Mount Tasman; the former a lowering fortress of black rock and hanging glaciers, avalanche-streaked throughout, the latter an ice-clad mass with three summits, covered thickly with hanging glaciers overlapping one another as do shingles on a housetop, looking utterly unclimbable. Only two masses of rock are visible, over which avalanches constantly swept.

The sight is certainly the grandest of its kind I have seen in the Southern Alps, and Harper tried in vain to recall its equal in Switzerland.

After working our way upwards along the ridge to the nearest rocks we deposited a note of our visit in a pannikin, and building a small cairn over it, beat a retreat.

We experienced some difficulty in getting down the top rocks, but eventually gained our footsteps in the snow, and following down the route of the truant swag, recovered it from its snowy bed some 600 feet below the point where it commenced its downward journey.

We arrived at the bivouac just before dark, and had scarcely finished brewing a warm drink when down came a nor'-wester upon us.

Pitching the tent was out of the question, so piling stones upon it we spent a miserably cold night, and by the time morning came all thoughts of tackling Aorangi had flown, and soon we were speeding down to our refuge at the Ball Glacier camp again.

Thus ignominiously ended my fourth attempt to climb Mount Cook.

In the afternoon Annan went down the valley with directions to join us two days afterwards at the Hermit-