WANDERINGS IN WESTLAND

Hokitika Guardian, 23 January 1930, Page 2

WANDERINGS IN WESTLAND

THE DOUGLAS-GLACIER AND ITS •neighbourhood. FIFTH ARTICLE. By JAMES MACKINTOSH BELL, A.M., Ph-D.jD'ir<§| or of the Geological Survey of New Zealand. (From ‘the Geographical Journal’ for August, 1908.) jS:'f 3. GEOGRAPHICAL 'DESCRIPTION. (a) Ilie Douglas Twain Valley.— The Douglas glacier, like all the glaciers of New Zealand, is hut the shrunken remnant of what was formerly a much more majestic feature which spread down the., ..straight valley of the Twain river, and joined the ancient Karangarua glacier, later to he described. At present,, the Douglas glacier may. be said to consist of two distinct parts—the neve ■ of the glacier, and the trunk or glacier proper, separated by a precipice of gigantic proportions. This precipice, which is iiearly 4000 feet in height, exhibits in the upper 2000 feet an icefall of splendid magnificence, while, the lower part is an almost vertical face of rock. The neve lies at the base of Mount. Sefton, one of the finest, peaks of the Southern Alps, and extends westward along th& Copland range. Its length and breadth are very roughly about 3 miles. For the most part the neve is smooth, but towards the edge of the ice-fall its. surface is broken by great crevasses, and elsewhere near the crest of the Copland ridge, and at the base of the western slope of Mount Sefton bergschrunds of magnitude appear. s %he ‘ great, precipice continues along: almost the whole length of the neve. The trunk part of the Douglas glacier rises in a great rock-girt cirque at the easternmost end of the great precipice, continues along its base, and between steep rock walls, with a total length of about ’ 6 miles. The Douglas neve may be considered as a cliff glacier on a big •scale, while the trunk portion or glacier proper, formed by the union. : of. innumerable avalanches descending over. the , great; precipice, is a typical valley glacier of the reconstructed type. "The course of the Douglas glacier proper is'not straight-, a-pronounced bend occurring, just below the great precipice. Continuous in direction upward .from the'' Twain fiver vall.ejf and that of the lower portion of the Douglas'glacier.-'ds the yalley of the Fitzgerald stream and glacier, separated from the Douglas glacier by the several pronounced lateral moraines of the latter. The frontal face of the Fitzgerald glacier lies some 3 miles from the ,edge of the Douglas glacier, and below the stream meanders in several' anastomosing channels across the gravelly stretches of Fitzgerald flat, becoming, lost ■ in the old lateral moraines of the Douglas,glacier. An imposing rock buttress, rising towards Mount Sefton and Mount {Brunner, separates Fitzgerald flat from the .upper part of the Douglas glacier trunk, while a rugged ridge of mountains, dotted with many beautiful cliff glaciers, 'separates it to the southward from the upper ice of the MeKerrow'glacier, later t 0 be described. At the lowest point on the latter ridge is Douglas pass, leading from Fitzgerald flat into the McKerrow glacierTo the westward this same ridge,.-surmounted by the fine peaks of Mount. Howitt and Mount Notable, forms the rugged broken mountain country between the Twain-Douglas valley and the upper part of the Karangarua. Unlike many of the glaciers on the western side of the, Southern Alps, 1 the much-crevas.sed ice of Fitzgerald glacier , and the Douglas glacier proper are heavily clothed in moraine. This condition is due partly to the very friable nature of the interstratified phyllites and gratiwackes through which the two glaciers flow, and which here compose the massif of the Alps, and partly, to the fact that the descent of both glaciers from the cirques at their respective - heads is more gradual, and the flow consequently slower, than, in the .case of the betterknovvn West. Coast glaciers, such as the Fox and Franz Josef. At the frontal face of the Douglas glacier is a small pond, held in by a recent, terminal moraine, through which the Twain river dashes in a considerable rapid. From our camp in Fitzgerald flat a splendid., view was obtained, the majesty of the mountains being greatly enhanced .by the depression of the snow-line, due. to the peculiar meteorological conditions characteristic of this portion of New,: Zealand. Hie picture is awe-inspiring rather than beautiful, but there is a certain wild and savagb charm about it which brings its main . features constantly back to one’s memory long after the details of the wonderful tensemble have faded. To the north-west stand out dear against the sky the rugged peaks of the Moorhouse range, - Sefton, Eric, and Maunga Ma. Behind are stately rock precipices, sprinkled at the lower levels with a scant Alpine vegetation, and' at higher levels by numerous cliff glaciers of varying sizes, rising at lofty altitudes. Around are the moraines of the Douglas glacier—-the old ones a veritable Al-' pine flower garden, the newer dark and, gloomy in their stacks of bare i

rock debris. Down the broad, straight valley is dimly visible the Twain river, bordered by a forest of matchless beauty, showing every shade of green, and brightened by the gorgeous blood-red flowers of that wonderful New Zealand tree—•the' ra.ta. The view in front, however, Iwarfs every other aspect of the picture. There are to be seen the spacious fields of neve, and the gigantic precipice of §eraced ice-fall and vertical rock-face, over which no less than thirty-seven waterfalls issue from beneath the ice. The roar the ava-lanehes constantly descending is like that of an unending cannonade. On the average over twentyfive descend in an hour, the roar of one avalanche having scarcely ceased when another has commenced. The sound echoes and re-echoes across that weird wild valley, and with such terrible intensity, that even at a mile away on 0 can scarcely hear one’s self speak when the noise is at its height. No other sound is to be heard, save the occasional shriek of the kea, or Alpine parrot, and the quaint and varied cry of the wcka. Just below the Douglas glacier the Twain river meanders along a broad grassy floor, but nearer its mouth its | course is through a rocky gorge. The Fitzgerald glacier and stream, the lower portion of the Douglas glacier proper, and the Twain river form together a valley which, running in a general east-and-west direction, somewhat diagonally across the strike of the strata, is almost exactly straight. According to one of my guides, the view from the summit of Conical hill, which sentinels the entrance of the Twain into the Karangarua, discloses the whole length of the U-shaped valley—a distance of some 15 miles—from the mouth of the stream in the dense luxuriant 1 forest to the rockgirt cirque at the head of the k itzgerald, into which the ice-falls descend from perched blocks of neve on the Moorhouse range. The whole form of the valley shows typically the effect of glacial excavation. Below the Douglas glacier many old moraines appear on either side of the Twain river. Waterfalls are common, descending into the dense forj est of the valley floor from lofty hanging valleys partially or wholly ice-filled. .

The only large tributary entering the Twain river is the Horace talker stream, flowing from the glaeiei of the same name. The Horace Walker glacier is remarkable in that .its lower course is almost exactly in the opposite direction from that of the Douglas glacier. The stream, flowing from the frontal face, turns around and joins the -Twain at a broad' angle. The Horace Walker glacier 'shows very beautifully the phenomena of! crescentic crevasses arranged at right angles to the glacier walls. (b) The Karangarua Valley.—The upper part of the valley of the Kar'ahgariia’’ is -open hitch straight, and, running in a general east-and-west direction, is almost exactly parallel with the Douglas-T\vain valley to the northward. At the most westerly point of this stretch, namely, about 15 miles from the source, “The .Cataracts,” a series-of' broken waterfalls of great beauty, occur in the river. Below “The Cataracts” the Karangarua. valley turns abruptly north for some 10' mikys, receiving in turn the Twain and the Copland rivers On the east. At the junction with the Copland the course of the river turns about west-north-west a direction which it retains to the sea—a distance of about 10 miles. The Copland, rising at the western base of Fitzgerald pass a few miles north of Mount Sefton—forms, with the lower Karangarua, the main straight valley from the island divide to the sea. The source of the Karangarua is to be found in the many streams which descend abruptly from cliff glaciers perched on the rugged mountains around Karangarua pass. From the source to the mouth of the Copland, the Karangarua consists of stretches in which the stream is flowing with an even though rapid grade, broken ]>y other stretches, in which the course is interrupted by strong rapids, cataracts, or wild gorges. Formerly a great glacier filled the valley .of the Karangarua, flowing almost as far as the present seashore, and deploying on to the narrow coastal plain of Westland as a piedmont glacier. As this glacier retreated, successive terminal moraines were formed at intervals across the TJ shaped valley where the glacial retreat was temporarily retarded, and these w'ere succeeded by spacious flats where the retardation did not take place. The pronounced rapids and falls occur w'he,re the old terminal moraines cross the valley, and are especially evident at “Tho Cataracts” above mentioned, while elsewhere the course of the river is more uniform.

Below the mouth of the Copland, the Karangarua enters the narrow densely forested coastal plain of Westland, and meanders with rapid current in many ever-clmnging channels, separated by grassy or bush-dad river flats, to the sea.

The scenery of the upper Karangarua is markedly beautiful. On either side steep, even precipitous, glacially smoothed rock slopes rise abruptly- from the thick vegetation of the valley-floor up to broken snowcovered mountains. In many places waterfalls leap hundreds of feet from loftily perched glaciers, over precipices, down into the forest beneath. The contrasts of the whole are truly wonderful. From lieneath the shade of a great tree-fern one may look down on the deep blue water of the river, bordered by its forest of variegated green, brightened by the brilliant rata flowers, and tip on to the dark rock slopes, the green and blue -much-broken ice of the cliff glaciers,

and, ever behind, the white array of snow-clad mountains. (c) The McKerrow-Landsbotough Galley.—The McKerrow glacier is 'ormed by the union of many small Hanging glaciers, which descend from small snowliclds on the Moorehouse range, in the neighbourhood of Mount Thompson and Mount Isa cell. The glacier is of the typical valley character. In its upper reaches lies a smooth broad open snowlield, while lower down it-is considerably narrower, and its much-crevassed surface is completely shrouded in rock debris, with prominent lateral moraines on cither side. The frontal face is distinctly imposing. Here rises a cliff of clear glassy ice, over 100 feet in height, from beneath which tiro waters of the Landsborough river rush with geyser-like fury. The McKerrow. glacier was formerly a much more majestic feature, and, as already remarked, formed the source of the ancient Karangarua glacier. Now it is separated from the Ivarangarua valley bv | Karangarua pass, a low saddle on its northern side about 0000 feet ia height, while, as mentioned before. Douglas pass leads on the same side of the glacier into Fitzgerald flat. Between Douglas pass and Kavangarua pass enters from the slopes of Mount Howitt, the Maori glacier—a splendid piece of very much broken ice. To the south-east of the McKerrow rise the Dwarf and Mount Burns—both line peaks—with slopes showing hanging glaciers and icefalls of fair dimensions. The length of the McKerrow glacier is. about 6 miles, and its average width ratbei. less than half a mile. Unlike the Karangarua and its several main tributaries, the Landsborough river runs parallel, or nearly so, with the stratification of the rocks of the area, and is consequently, in the main, a strike valley. As its course is also almost parallel to the island divide, it is bordered to the eastward by lofty peaks of imposing grandeur, while a fine lidge of mountains, surmounted by the serrate crest of Mount Fettos. appears close to its north-western side.

The several glaciers which we examined on tlie eastern side of the Lamlsborough resemble the MeKerrow "on a small scale—that is, they either rise in hanging glaciers with much broken ice, or they arc formed b\ the reconstruction of the ice descending in avalanches from cliff glaciers, and they, have their lower courses much shrouded in moraine. None of the tributary glaciers on the eastern side enter the main river directly, but they are connected with it by streams of varying lengths. Two prominent lateral moraines bordering these tributary glaciers and the pronounced tussock-covered terraces along the main river, are characteristic features of the upper Landsborougli. Unlike the tributary glaciers on tlie eastern side of the Landsborougli, the Fettes glacier comes directly to the edge of the main stream, which it joins in a great wall of ice, nearly 100 feet high. The Fettes glacier has a steep and sudden descent from small neve fields, lying around the mountains of the same name. Thus its movement is rapid, and its surface consequently almost free from moraine. The Fettes glacier forms one of the most beautiful features

along tlie upper Landsborougli. Behind rises the sharp snow-covered crest of Mount Fettes, and on either side of the much-broken ice, near the frontal face, is a forest of variegated green and of, scarlet rata. (d) The Copland Valley.—The Copland river has its source in a small glacier, known as the Marchant, lying nearly at the base of. Fitzgerald

pass. Like the valleys of both the Twain and the upper Karangarua, that of the Copland is open and U-shaped. In its upper reaches, splendid much-smoothed precipices border the broad valley to north and south, between which old morainicdebris is very conspicuous on either side of the stream JBorne 5 miles below the terminal face of the Marchant glacier, the Strauchan river, flowing from the glacier of the same name, joins the Copland, entering, in a series of cascades, over the huge terminal moraines of the Strauchan glacier. , At Welcome fiat, some 5 miles below the Strauchan glacier, occur, in strange contrast to the ice-cold water of the Copland, some hot springs which are depositing a brownish sinter. The scenery of the Copland, like that of the Karangarua, is of great beauty and of extraordinary variety. The trail which is to be constructed up the Copland will soon open this beautiful valley to the more venturesome of tourists, 4. FIELD FOR EXPLORATION* IN SOUTH WESTLAND.

Prior to our visit the great Douglas glacier, with its splendid ice-falls, had been seen by only four or five people, while the valley of the Laiidsborough river had previously been visited by only a few hardy explorers. In the triangular area between the lower Karangarua and the Landsboroiigh are lofty mountains, few of which have been ascended, many Alpine streams which are still unexplored, and glaciers and snowfields which are yet to be visited: while east of tlie Landsborougli is a still less-known area of rugged mountain and wild ice-filled valley. Air G. J. Roberts. Hie chief commissioner for Westland, has done much splendid exploration in South AYestlnncl, and Messrs C". E. Douglas, A. P. Harper, and E. A. Fitz Gerald have also been pioneers in this littleknown and very inaccessible portion of New Zealand. However, comparatively little is vet known of its detailed stratigraphical geology, of tlie

size, or rate of movement of its innumerable glaciers, of the: extent of its snowfields, of the height of its multiple splendid peaks, of its varied mineral wealth, of the peculiarities of its rich and luxuriant vegetation. and of the habits ol its extraordinary bird-life.

In fact, a splendid field for intelligent exploration and scientific investigation is to be found among the wild mountains of Southern A\ cstland.