IN GLACIER LAND

Hokitika Guardian, 14 August 1929, Page 8

IN GLACIER LAND

(By Elsie K. Morton in the Auckland Herald.) Straight down, from the vast snow - fields of the Soutiiern Alps plunge.; Franz Josef, a tempestuous, froze., river, surging headlong into a narrow valley no more than half a nine across, hemmed in by dark mountain walls over 7000 ft in height. On the trip down to Waiho Gorge we had dutifully studied the guide nooks and acquainted ourselves witJj all those dotaiJs that every goo., tourist is supposed to memorise—tha. Franz Josef and its lordly neighbour, the Fox, arc unique among glaciers of the world, because they descent, to within less than 700 ft of sea level, that the open ocean is only a shar. 12 miles distant from the foot of the glaciers, and that nowhere else on this earth may you see rivers of iaplunging down from a world of snow into sub-tropical forests. And when, to these freakish attributes, you adc. the presence of hot springs welling up flbesidie a river where blocks ol glacier ice crash and grind in theii swift rush to the sea, when you recall the .fact that 'the rata blazes reti in the forest-clad walls above the ice, and that dainty bush orchids, native lowers and lovely henries are to be found almost within a stone’s Jirow of these amazing Westland glaciers—when you remember all these things you are in some measure prepared for further' revelations as ,ou set out to explore Franz Josef and the Fox. . . In some measure only. s Trips up the Tasman and tVltakauapa had revealed some of the beauties of a glacier, but when J stood beneath the pinnacles and ice--valls •of Franz Josef, I was face to face with 'beauty undreamed, an awe.aspiring grandeur such as one might behold in some vision of the temples of the ice king ...

The ascent of Fran? Josef is remarkably ejasy, as compared with that of other glaciers. Hero are no dreiiry miles of stony moraine—rocks and mountain debris brought down by the ice-flow in' its descent from the heights—no climbing up and down .endless hills of enormo.’.j bould>rs and treacherous shingle. So steep and swift is the descent of this wonderful Franz Josef that it surges in- ; to the forest valley like a frozen, storm-tossed sea that has sw'ept away its barriers, and poured down upon dry land. ' .Its broken surface, ends abruptly in enormous pinnacles and waves of ice, pushing out in a terminal ridge where solid grey ice lies beneath a covering of shingle and mountain debris only a few inches deep.

ICE PINNACLES AND CREVASSES. Eagerly' w'c start the climb up the cliff face, with the stones rolling beneath our feet, and the nails in our mountaineering boots crunching down into the ice for foothold. The first pinch is fairly steep for the novice, but it is short, and a few heart thumps are of no account when ascending to the white throne of tlip king of glaciers 1 And truly no earthly palace, built by the hands of men, ever had sc marvellous an approach as that of Franz Josef! Piled high in dazzling, confused mass at one side of tho Shingle slope, beautiful beyond words, rises a barrier of ice pinnacles, towering in fantastic peaks, irregular crags and carven columns, their per pendicular sides and razor-back ridges falling away to deep crevasses and awesome . chasms. And the colour! Not hard, stainless white, as you had thought glacier ice to ibe, but a translucent blue, not turquoise, not azure, but a blending of both, in depths of frosted crystal. t The moraine gives place to hard white ice, more or less level, all veined and honeycombed beneath the surface, with blue. We stand now in the courtyard of the ice king, and it <cems as though no mortal could find a way out, or over those dizzy walls and pinnacles, across the surging, frozen waves to the. upper reaches of. the ice-world beyond. But the guide knows his job; a few deft strokes with his ice-axe, a* shower of crystal splinters, and across the ridges and hummocks he cuts a trail of steps just wide enough to‘ give foothold on the smooth, slipptary ice. (THE GLORY OF THE ‘ HEIGHTS. ,Soon too are out on the smooth ice, the cliffs and ridges of the terminal face left behind, another jagged line .if pinnacles rising a milei or so above. Now we turn to view the way we have come, and gaze far ’beyond the glittering ioe-barrier to the valley below. The clouds are frowning down above Waiho Gorge, the bush vises lark and heavy on the mountain sides. Far away is a thin skein of

silver winding through the landscape, Waiho Fiver on its way to the distant ocean. Farther up the glacier at Defiance Hut, the view opens out, and a splendid panorama is unfolded, but even here, on the lower ice-levels, there is a breadth and beauty of outlook that holds one spellbound. BEAUTIES OF THE GLACIER. Close beside us, all round us, is the. living hoauty\ of the glacier, living because it is not deathly white, but blue and bright as something possessing sentient life. . . • These tiny pools at our feet, blue as melted sapphire, this little ice cave, lit with blue moonlight, this tiny iceriver tinkling down, ovfer its smooth, frozen bed, this deep well, w r ith sound of rushing water, below'. . they are like fairy pictures, painted in colours too delicate and bright for this everyday world, yet giving to mortal eyes glimpse of an artistry supreme, transcending that of mortal brain and hand. Soon we are retracing our stops, reluctant to go," determined to come again, to advance-yet closer to that grim, fascinating sword-barrier hanging above, to make the trip to Defiance Hut, at the foot of the great black bluff jutting out into the white ice above, to stay there a night. . . Then, perchance, to wander out into the starry darkness when all the campers are asleep, to sit there alone unwatched, in «,a glory of isolitude unknown to the lower world, heart and soul uplifted to the majestic Presence, at one with “the silence that is in the starry sky, the sleep that, is among the lonely hills.”

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