Page:Mannering - With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps.djvu/77

Rh the glacier, we seemed to gaze into an enormous blue grotto, the sides being the slopes of the main chain with all its broken glaciers, and the western slopes of De la Bêche, whilst the overhanging mist furnished the roof or ceiling. A soft, warm, blue colour pervaded the whole, beautiful beyond expression.

Arriving at the foot of our mountain we commenced the ascent, finding the snow of the ice slopes in a loose and powdery condition, and having to exercise much judgment to avoid precipitating avalanches in the steeper pinches.

We climbed without the rope, rapidly, and alternately in snow and rocks, finding the latter very good—mostly of a red sandstone on which the nails of our boots took good hold. Looking now and then at the aneroid, we began to feel confident of making the ascent and returning to our camp by nightfall. But it was not to be, for, at an altitude of 8,100 feet, we were brought up by a very bad bergschrund and ridge of rocks succeeding it.

To the unlearned in Alpine parlance perhaps an explanation of the nature of a bergschrund is necessary. At the upper termination of nearly all highly situated ice slopes there almost invariably occurs between the rocks above, or between the ice slope and the permanent clinging ice above, a large gap or crevasse, partially filled or bridged with new snow during the winter months, but more open as the warmth of spring and summer causes the snow to melt and the ice to shrink away.

This crevasse or gap is called a bergschrund, and occasionally one may find in it places where the ice