WANDERINGS IN WESTLAND

Hokitika Guardian, 11 January 1930, Page 3

WANDERINGS IN WESTLAND

THIRD ARTICLE,

(Reprinted from the Alpine journal,

February 1915.)

TWO SEASONS ON THE WEST COAST OF NEW ZEALAND. ~ THE LA PEROUSE GLACIER. (By H. E. Newton.)

There have been several lectures and papers dealing with the New Zealand Alps, but all, with the exception of Dr Teiehelmann’s exhibition of slides, have dealt almost entirely with the East or Canterbury side, and the Editor has asked me to write a pa'.per on the comparatively little-known West Coast side. And the reason for this neglect is obvious. From iChristchuroh, the Hermitage, a comfortable hotel and a central starting-place, could be reached in two days, while for the last eight years a motor service has gone through in the day; while to reach the Franz Josef Glacier it took five days from Christchurch or Nelson, and if the weather was bad a.nd the numerous rivers, that had to be forded, were ‘up,’ it might be twdee as long.

The mountain chain of the South Island, from a mountaineer’s point of view, may be considered as being contained roughly between the Otira on the north, over which went the old coach road from Christchurch to ‘The Coast,’ and through which the new tunnel goes; and extends south to Lake Manipori, a distance of 250 miles as the crow flies, roughly the distance between Mt. Baneh and the Ortler, though, except at the southern end, the chain is narrower in New Zealand,

But between the two sides of this mountain chain there is a,n, extiaordinary difference. The Bast Coast side is- open sheep country, with but little timber, the West is dense forest; on the East the Hermitage gives access to the Tasman, the Hooker, the .Mueller and the Murchison Glaciers, all more or less parallel to the main divide, while on the Ylest, a. all events among the giants of t.ho chain, the valleys run at right angles to the divide. Again, from the strata the rock on the West is good and firm after the schistous formation of the lower hills is left behind: ort the East the rock is apt to be rotten. |

To stavt climbing from the West it is necessary to get to Hokitika, either (■overland from Christchurch, or l»y sea from Wellington or Nelson; there is now a. train as far as Ross, a mining township of some six hundred people, where I had by headquarters- during the six years I wa,s Vicar of the Ross Parochial District, whic.i extended some two. hundred miles down the coast between the Southern Alps and the Pacific Ocean.

From Ross a mail coach used to run once a week as far as the Franz Josef Glacier, about seventy-four miles. From Ross a good hut rough road led through the forest, amid great red or white pines and Ra trees which in February are a b aze of scarlet flowers. Generally one was driving through an avqnue of timber, with no view except the road rising and falling as it wound round the fJpurs from the hills; at times there would be a glimpse of the sea, dr the road would run for a mile or two beside one of the lakes, wuc i are one- of the great beauties 0 Westland; then the road would come out on to a flat of some ten mile. wide where several settlers had ta t.n up land and were raising sheep and cattle; somewhere on this would >e river, three of them carrying a goo deal more water than the Rhone at its entrance to the Lake of Geneva, and in those days all unbridged: m winter the rivers were dear exceptin a flood, but in summer milkywhite, often with a Very rough bottom, icy cold, and with a very fierce current, the fall on the flats being roughly 100 feet to the mile. I shall never forget my first view of the Franz Josef Glacier. I had been told I should see the glacier, but did not pay much attention. I wafc riding through an avenue of trees and suddenly turned a corner, and there was the glacier, about two miles off, without a trace of moraine on it, apparently descending rifht on to a farmstead, while on either side rose the hiljs, covered with untouched semitropical forest, in which appeared brilliant red splashes of some Rata trees in full bloom.

In 1902, with Or Teichchnann. I had crossed to the Hermitage and, returned by a new pass. In 1903 and 1904 we had been up the Fox Glacier, which is some twenty miles below the Franz Josef, and, like it, descends to within 700 ft. of aeaIfeveJ the first year with Peter graham, who is now chief guide at the Hermitage and a splendid man on both ice and rock, and the second year with his younger brother Alec, with whom I was to have four years capital climbing. These years had taught me that in a new country too muoli time was taken up in tie in cos sary swagging, and that three weeks in the hills meant three days climbing and the rest getting cariDp in and out again, and that in a district where six inches of rain a < ay is fairlv common. The Nor -Wes er, warm wind like the Fohn, gathers moisture from the Pacific and then.

on contact with the snow mountains, discharges it with tropical intensity; these storms generally last three days. In climbing from the West the approach of a storm is more easily io:iced, and also the clearing often gave a day’s advantage in starting.

My first three years we had to take a new man each year, so that it was impossible to send a man in advance to make a base camp, as the .non whom we were able to get were diggers or settlers who were simply splendid in the bush, but had no experience of glacier work. However, in 1905 wo were able to send Aloe Graham on ahead with another man. Cook’s River, one of the largest of tlio Westland rivers, receives I,he drainage of three glaciers, the Fox. the Balfour, and La Perouse; we had decided to get on to the La Perouse Glacier and cross to the Hermitage by a pass at the head of the Hooker which Mr Harper Lad reached .from the Hermitage in 1890. Cbok’s River, so, called because from the Coast it seems to receive the drainage of Mt. Cook, though as a- matter of fact Mt. Cook is entirely in Canterbury, runs for its last ten . miles through open flats with a wide’river bed, 1,1 places a mile wide, with the river in several branches, though after Nor’-West rain it would bo bank to bank, with uprooted trees swirling down it. The main branch of the river above this open flat runs for eight miles through a narrow gorge which might be compared to the Arolla valley, only there was no track and no bridges over the ‘ tributary streams and the whole mountain-side covered with forest. In , the earlv days of the coast some diggers had been up ‘fossicking’ for gold; Mr C. Douglas and Mr Hanper had been up later for the Survey Department, hu + had only reached the snout of the glacier, so it was indeed a virgin held.

On Monday, January 16, 1905, 1 left Scott’s house after a week of services among the scattered settlers, and rode up Cook’s River to some ruined diggers’ huts in a. steady drizzle. Alec Graham and Arthur Woodham, a digger, had been at work for a week cutting the track through the bush and carrying in swags. I had Loped to • meet Dr Teichelmann at the hu.t, but he had not arrived, so after waiting some time Graham and I set off with a swag apiece. At first we were able to follow the river-bed with only .occasional deviations into the bush, which is always very matted and tangled in such places. In about an hour we were opposite the Balfour: after this the going got worse, and it took us If hours to cover the next.' mile; it was then 6 p.m., so we decided to camp under Castle Rock at i tent they had pitched while clearing the track. We soon 'had a fire and our clothes up to dry. I found in a cleft of a big rock some newspapers Harper had left there in ’94, hut they were too sodden to read.' In the evening it came on to rain steadily, and all the mosquitoes in the neighbourhood came into. the tent to get out of the wet. Next morning it was still raining, so we decided that Graham should wait till Teichelmann arrived while I went, on to the next camp. I started at A3O with a heavy swag and almost at once had to climb up 700 ft. to get above a steep bluff, where the .river runs through an impassable gorge. ( had but little difficulty in following the fresh blaze line except vhoie a trial line had been made and abandoned. It took me 4£ houis to get to the camp at Tony’s Rock-, though it is only three miles as the crow flies. Tony’s Rock is an enormous erratic boulder; about 100 ft. above ground and 7CO ft. round: three sides of the base. The rock overhangs well on one side and the camp was made under it, but, like all hanging rocks, it was a regular fraud in wet weather, as the rain followed the rock down and then dropped, and soon there was a regular forest of saplings against it to carry off the worst drips. Woodham arrived later on with another swag. I had missed in the bush. The next two days were occupied in cutting the track ahead,-one man with an axe to fell the larger boughs and the other with a ‘slasher’ to clear the track sufficiently to allow the, passage of the swags. It rained most of the time and the -hush- was horribly wet and greasy, the deep m«ss making the footing precarious. A good deal of the cutting had to b" done holding on with one hand and cutting with the other; I managoc to cut my elbow and my hoot, and Graham had cut his boot l>e-foie; however, we managed to mend the boots with copper wire and strap ends. Each night we changed into dry things and put our wet things on again in the morning—horribly onpleasant until one got warm. B> this time we had git beyond i.he Lip i timber and were among the scrub, a low-growing tangled mass 'of branches all growing downhill, with branch os often six inches in diameter and very tough to cut. By this time the axe and slasher, with only a file to sharpen them, had lost their edge to a large extent. On the sixth da> ifter f had reached Tony’s Rock we had the base camp pi'ebed. "<• n-a”' ing of a 10 by 12 tent and fly an' l a smoke fly to protect the fire. That afternoon Teichelmann and Woodham arrived,' wet through with the usual rain; Teichelmann had been unable 1 to start as soon as he had expected, ' and then had been delayed by floods. 1 It had taken two men, working con-

bimiously for a fortnight, to get the base catnip in, a matter of nine miles, a distance equal to that of Evolen.t from the 1 Rhone Valley, though not so great a rise. The next three day*)

it rained, and beyond bringing in the last (eleventh) swag and Hitting a trac-k here and there along the river-bed, which was now good going, there was nothing further to do till the weather cleared. However, we had plenty of firewood that burnt well quite green, and I at all events was glad of a less strenuous time. Unfortunately, almost on the hi:-i piece of scrub, Graham cut his knee with the slasher.

The next day it cleared up a little, and three of us, leaving Graham behind to bake scones and res! his log, went up to the snout of ihe glacier and then up it for a couple of miles and found a spot for a ntgi, camp. We found an excellent spo: at the end of the N. spur from L; Perouse, where an overhanging rod made a shelter for two, anu outsit!we (pitched an oiled fly and thatchrd the end for the other two. This winonly to be a sleeping-place Pefoistarting on an expedition, hut then was plenty of ‘ribbon wood’ round it, among which there is always a greai deal of dead wood which hums fiercely and enabled us to save spirit.

We were now able to sec our surroundings well; we could see Mt. Tasman towering up on our left, at the head of the Balfour; from the Sillierhorn, the 3. shoulder of ■ Tasman, came down, the ridge separating the Balfour from La Perouse. From the Silberhorn the main divide continued over Clark’s Saddle to Mt. Dampier (Hector), of which, and entirely in Canterbury, Mt. Cook appeared a rock triangle with only the final snowoap showing; then the . divide, though it was hidden from our sight, bends W. to Mt. Hicks (David’s Dome), then over Harper’s Saddle to La Perouse, which rose in two fine rocky peaks. The mountains at the head of this'valley had received different names from the Canterbury and Westland Surveyors. I have followed gators; the alternative names are group of peaks after the early navigators; the alternatives names an given in brackets to provide a- means of identification.

The next day we went dp -to the. high camp again with some more food etc., the only excitement being that, as the glacier, unlike the Fox and the Franz Josef, was covered with stones, we followed the old moraine debris at its side, and in crossing a creek that drained a small glacier on our right one of the party in jumping was overbalanced by Ins heavy swag and fell in. Fortunately one of tho.-party was able to give him a hand before he was knocked about by the force of the water among the stones, or carried under the glacier. Then, being wet through, he volunteered to carry the last man over af a better ford, I knew what would probablv ha’men and got a photo of the upset, but alas! .1 had forgotten to change my film! "We got to- the camp about midday. Woodham w°nc back to the base camp in the afternoon, and we went out to cut a track through the knee-deep snow-grass to make sure of a dry start next morning. It was a stendy drizzle all night, so all hope of a start was abandoned; in the afternoon it cleared and we went out on to the glacier to get a closer view of the way up to the pass. I have never seen such enormous erratic boulders on a glacier as we came across just above the Camp.

(To be Continued)