Читать книгу With Axe and Rope in the New Zealand Alps онлайн

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After an early lunch, and accompanied by Mr. Huddleston (the landlord of the Hermitage), and one of his men, we started off for the Tasman Glacier. The first part of the way leads down over stony flats to the termination of the Mount Cook Range, and at this point the Hooker River is crossed.

On this occasion we double-banked over on horse-back without much difficulty; but very often the Hooker River is quite impassable with horses, the torrent being confined in a narrow boulder bed of about 200 feet in width, which in flood time, during the warmer months of spring and summer, is quite filled with a roaring torrent, often bearing down with it blocks of ice from the Mueller and Hooker Glaciers above.

Turning in a north-easterly direction round the end of the range we shaped our course up the Tasman Valley, and in two hours’ time from the Hermitage arrived at the terminal face of the great glacier, which fills the whole of the valley from side to side, a width of about two miles. Here, then, the hard work was about to begin, for the horses could not proceed further, and it was necessary to carry everything from this point on our own backs.