GLORIOUS WESTLAND

Hokitika Guardian, 11 April 1932, Page 8

GLORIOUS WESTLAND

FRANZ JOSEF. A TRIP TO DEFIANCE HUT(By Elsie K. Morton in the Auckland Herald). The Easter season had passed, service cars and motors were carrying northward the crowd ol' holiday-makers who had l come to finish off a Westland tour with two or three days at the Franz Josel' and Fox Glaciers. Two or three days' in this region of unsurpassed beauty—a hurried scramble across the glacier, a launch trip on Mapourika or a run down to Lake Matheson—and off they rush again and talk about having "done the glaciers !’’ They leave with a confused idea of magnificent forests, slippery iee and mountains hidden in mist, for sometimes the Snow Kings proudly withdraw themselves from the gaze of mortals .for many days, and their glory is vouchsafed only to those who wait or climb upward through the shrouding curtain of the clouds into the sunshine above.

And now, after days of waiting, the skies were clear at last, the snow-crest of Mount Roon was a dazzling shield against a sky of hyacinth 'blue, and we were ready to start our trip -to Defiance Hut, three miles up the glacier.

The trip up Franz Josef to Defiance is no more to the seasoned mountaineer than an afternoon run to Milford would be to an Auckland holiday-maker,'- hah to the novice it is a unique and thrilling experience. Defiance Hut is built on the lower slopes of Cape Defiance, a bold headland jutting out into the white iceflow of Franz Josef.

We made a leisurely .start shortly before eleven o’clock, and crossing the swift and turbulent Waiho, still high after the 'Easter floods, were Soon in the dim and scented bush.

The forest was left behind, and the little track wound through a thicket of wihite-p'lumed to-toj and tall copvosma, laden with masses of lovely blue berries. Stark and rugged rose the walls of the gorge, rougher and wilder grew the scene, until we came to the ice-cliff's of the terminal moraine, towering a (hundred feet above the river that burst with thunderous roar from a ■secret cave, guarded by huge blocks of iee. High walls of grey moraine and rough mountain debris rose steep before us, with white ice glinting through as our heavy-spiked mountaineering boots kicked away the shingle and gripped the solid ice beneath.

Soon we were out on the glacier, where the going at first was smooth and easy. But not far ahead rose the gleaming, confused mass of the ice-falls, plunging down in awesome waves, razor-back ridges, pinnacles and crevasses, cutting across the glacier like a barrier of glittering swords. Impossible, it seemed, for mortals ever to find .safe passage through that tumbling, perilous mass, vet the guide pushed steadily onward, the keen, trained eye of the mountaineer seeking the best way through. Steeper and sharper grew the pinnacles and ridges, wider and deeper the crevasses. Between two of the steepest ridges, high above our heads, stretched a frail ice-bridge, arching a deep crevasse. “Now, just stand here tor a moment. —dig your alpenstock well in—while T fine, the best way through. Don t move till I come back.” Move! I stood like Lot's wife Ca.sabianca, the .Pomperiian sentry, stark, immovable, with feet and alpenstock dug deep into the ice. The blink of an eyelid would have been almost too much, a .sneeze unthinkable disaster. The guide reappeared. <‘l think this will be the best way," he remarked. ‘‘lt's a hit rough lower down.” And still puffing nonchalantly at his pipe and chipping away at his little steps, lie began to crawl up to the ice-bridge. Of course I could never do it. My heart turned as cold as my feet. I watched diini with the deadly calm with which one faces the inevitable end. 1 would either go dizzy and pitch headlong into the crevasse, or the ice-bridge would melt beneath me. Bat I didn’t, and it didn’t, and somehow, quite miraculously, I was presently astride the narrow ice-bridge, edging my way across, looking down into the yawning crevasse, and rather enjoying it. An hour later we were through the dreaded ice-fall, and /the go'ng was easy. We struck across to the right, to whore Defiance, splendidly named, strode out boldiy into the ice. Above us and below us flowed the frozen sea of tile glacier, the afternoon sun stinking lull upon the glorious peaks of the l.ieat Divide, beyond which lay the ranges that frown down upon Canteri/iny. (hi either side ol the glaciei rose the rugged walls of Waiho Gorge, and down below in the west, ridge upon ridge of forest-clad ranges, with the silver thread •!' the Waiho trailing down to the oce*«. fourteen miles away, a strip of darker n.ue against the rim of the western •ky. '

As we sat "U*re bn fHe ice a of keas came with enquiring bright eves, and | kmc lied on the edge ol a crevasse twenty feet away. Heads l<> one side, feet at an impudent angle, t|„.y made a thorough inspection, then with a small, jeering cries tlew across the erovas.se to within three or lour iVet or ns for a 'lose-np view. They posed obligingly for a photograph, then lifted their beautiful green wings to show the soft orange-red lining, and winged it gracefully across ridge, and crevasses as if to say, •‘You poor blundering creatures' This ir how we do it. ,\ final scram hie over the rough ic of tlm lateral moraine, a stiff elnnh up t | lf , "iiingly hillside, and we reached a little track leading up to a dealing iK t he bush, and to Defiance Hut, snugly

iSf*t on a narrow J* l '• "'th M" 1111 ' .Molike rising dark and liigli above. and the frozen waves of fhe gU'ir ]j|iin-rin -r down into the v) i< • be w