AMONG THE SOUTHERN ALPS

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 2456, 8 May 1915, Page 11

AMONG THE SOUTHERN ALPS

SYDNEY GIRL'S CLIMBS,

Miss Freda Du Faur, a well-known Sydney girl, is the author of a large and beautifully-presented book, entitled "The Conquest of Mount Cook, and Other Climbs," in which she relates her adventures when mountaineering in the Southern Alps of New Zealand (states tho "Telegraph"). After a good deal of varied climbing in New Zealand, she made up her mind to be the first woman to ascend Mount Cook, and she relates in this book that she prepared for this feat by going through three months of hard training at the Dupain Institute of Physical Eduoation in Sydney. She says that she emerged from her quarter of strenuous work "fit for anything and with a reserve fund of endurance to draw upon which may mean all the difference between success and failure on a difficult and possibly dangerous climb." Leaving Sydney iii November, 1910, she did some preliminary climbing on Mount Wakefield, where she saw several of the Austrian chamois that were sent, out as a present by the Emperor Francis Joseph, and were liberated on the Now Zealand Alps in 1907. Ascent of Mount Cook. • And then came Mount Cook. Miss Du Faur performed the climb with two guides, the brothers Graham, whom she describes as known and honoured from one end of New Zealand to the other. A night spent in a shelter hut, "straining at the wire cables that bound it to the ground, under the onslaught of a fierce westerly gale," provided plenty of excitement. "Sleep was impossible," writes the author; "it seemed as if each momont we would be lifted bodily and blown over the edge of the moraine, on whose side the hut is perched, and deposited in the glacier 200 ft. below." All the next day the westerly gale continued, and the climbers were obliged to remain at the hut. But on the following morning they started out at 5.15 o'clock, and, favoured by the weather, made excellent time to the last bivouac. For the final stage the start was made at a quarter to 3in the morning. "It was bright starlight, perfectly calm, and very cold," writes the author. "We put on the ropo, lit two lanterns, and started away, Peter leading, I in the middle, and Alex, bringing up the rear. The snow was frozen very hard, and in tho dim light seemed to slope away to fathomless depths." Over the schrund and up the couloir they marched, and at 4 a.m., when thoy gained the rooks, it was dawn. At 11,000 ft. up from sealevel the mountaineers found the rocks coated with a thin film of green ice like glass, making footholds dangerous; but at last they came to the ice-cap that crowns the higbost peak. Here is the author's story of the supreme moments: "Wben wo reached the ice-cap we found it all wind-blown into projecting wavelets of ice, under which the ropo caught on every possible occasion, Peter cut steps for 200 ft. straight up the summit; then we turned slightly to the left, and reached some soft snow, up which we could kick our way. We wore within a few feet of the top. They sent me on alone the_ length of the rope. I gained the summit, and waited for thorn, feeling very little, very lonely, and much inclined to cry. They caught my hands and shook them, their eyes glowing with pleasure and pride, and with an effort I swallowed the luxup in my throat and laughed instead. Then we all began talking at once; it was enly 8.40 a.m., and we had beaten any previous record by two hours, and I a mere woman I I felt bewildered, and could not realise that the'goal I had dreamed of and striven for for years was beneath my feet." A Slip and an Escape. Of the return climb she writes;—"At 11 a.m. we began the descent, Alex, leading; the thought of descending the icy rocks was ratlier a nightmare, but we overcame them without harm, by care and patience. I was congratulating myself that all was well, quite forgetting the rotten rocks lowei down, 'l'liey did not let us forget them for long; even now, after two years and much experience, the thought of tho four hours

we spent upon them makes mo feel sick and shaky. Wo moved one at a time, and took every possible care, but now and again someone would dislodge a stone, and it would clatter dotvn beliind, or, if small, ping past like a rifle bullet. One fairly largo one caught me in the middle of the back; fortunately it had not come far or fast, but it doubled me np for the time being. We had then only been on rotten rock for two hours, and had at least another two before us. I was afraid to put one foot before the other, my knees*were shaky, and my bruised back one dull ache. Half an hour later, just as I was traversiug an overhanging point, the whole thing gavo way beneath my feet. Instinctively I jumped back and heard an exclamation from Peter, behind me, and felt the jerk of the rope as he tightened it. I stood with my face to a cliff, and rocks beneath; then I crawled on to Alex, who was round the corner, and Peter followed. Probably my face was

white under its sunburn—l know the guides' wore. Without a word we all sat down in a safe place." When the party of three returned to the Hermitage, Miss Du Faur went to bed and awoke to find herself famous. Miss Du Faur has climbed a great many of the peaks in the Southern Alps— Mount Sealy and the Nun's Veil, Malte Bran and the Minarets, the Copland Pass ; Waiho Gorge and the Franz Jcsef Glacier, Mount de la Beche, the Silverbom, Sebastopol, Mount Tasman, Mount Sefton, and many others..