Page:Mannering - With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps.djvu/62

38 contact with these surroundings and not be better in body and soul?

We reached the foot of the Haast Ridge by 9.30, and here we debated as to whether we should tackle Aorangi after all, or try De la Bêche, further up the glacier (which peak would be an easier ascent and command a magnificent view of both eastern and western glacier systems). Aorangi it was, however, we had come to tackle, and so, again shouldering our swags, we went at the ridge.

We kept to the crest of the spur and found the climbing very simple, for a thousand feet amongst lilies and snow-grass; but after that the real business amongst rotten and precipitous rock ridges and faces commenced, and we had to put on the rope. At this time none of us were very proficient in the use of the rope, but we soon began to value the assistance it affords and to appreciate the assurance it inspires.

It was not until 5 that we reached the top of the ridge, where we soon discovered Green's bivouac, not far from which spot we determined to spend the night.

All the way up we had been climbing with the Hochstetter ice-fall on our left, and had been favoured with the grandest views of Aorangi, which looked absolutely impregnable; but as our view of the Linda Glacier and the Great Plateau was shut off by the upper part of the Haast Ridge, we could not see the route which we were bent on following.

Here I may remark that the route by which Mr. Green, and subsequently Dixon and myself climbed the mountain cannot be seen from any distant