Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/351

Rh to suit their own malicious pleasure. The fractious things appeared to be eager to see the world, and the ways they chose lay far apart. Now we were on, now off; now wearing out our clothes on the snow.

From Malte Brun Hut one of the most popular trips is the ascent of Hochstetter Dome (9258 feet). With the most ambitious essayers of this climb it is customary to start anywhere from one to three o'clock in the morning, thereby reaching the summit, six miles distant, in time to see the sun rise over mountain, forest, and sea. When taken by moonlight this is one of the most alluring excursions imaginable. About these moonlight expeditions there is an air of mystery. In preparation for one of them my guide and I awoke long past midnight. To avoid arousing sleepers we talked in whispers while breakfast was being prepared; and finally, softly closing the door, we stole silently away, out into deep silences unbroken save by an occasional word and the crunching of snow. Above us, enveloping us, was the soft glow of the moon; beneath us was the glistening snow; and in every direction dark mountain masses loomed through mantles of white. It all seemed like a dead and frozen world, a ghostly, goblin-like world. En route to Hochstetter Dome little more than thirty-five hundred feet of altitude had to be surmounted. The first part of the journey was up easy grades; the latter part was so steep that if we had made a serious slip on one of the Dome's great billows we should have rolled