Page:Mannering - With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps.djvu/142

96 On our left we thought that the north-eastern ridge looked practicable, but deemed it better to rely on a route chosen by so able a mountaineer as Ulrich Kaufmann, and kept on our course for the Linda Glacier, taking ten-minute spells at leading and breaking steps in the soft and slushy snow, and winding our way amongst ever-increasing crevasses in search of snow bridges over which we would cautiously crawl.

Now we would have a stretch of gently rising snow, then a crevasse or perhaps a bergschrund, followed by a steep ascent for 100 or 200 feet, then a divergence to one side or the other to avoid a chaos of séracs or blocks of tumbled and broken ice; and so on, hour after hour. About noon we had gained a considerable elevation above the plateau and were well round the corner on the Linda Glacier. Into this elevated valley the sun poured down through a rarefied atmosphere on to slopes on either hand which reflected all the light and heat. The glare was something dreadful, and before midday our faces and hands had assumed the customary chocolate colour, and the skin was literally broiled off me; Dixon did not suffer to such an extent. The heat was most intense, though not of the enervating kind which one feels at lower altitudes.

Viewed from this quarter Aorangi presents a totally different form than from any other, and we began to be sanguine about accomplishing our task. I was in possession of notes and sketches of the route kindly sent me by Mr. Green, and these were of material assistance to us.

Before us lay the final peak with its capping of ice. From the summit, now in full view, descended in a