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

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Then ensued the awful scramble down between the moraine and the mountain side with those terrible swags, but, being by this time in good trim, we arrived at the terminal face of the glacier in four hours and a quarter, a distance which occupied Mr. Green with Emil Boss and Ulrich Kaufmann thirteen hours in coming down in their final retreat.

On reaching the Hooker, we found the river running strongly and rising fast with the nor’-west rain, but after some looking about discovered a possible ford where the river anastomosed into four branches, and steadying ourselves with our ice-axes, waded through the torrent. Cold! Cold was no word for it, and the force of the current was terrible as it rushed over an uneven and treacherous bed of boulders.

But we got through safely, and soon the Hermitage, our haven of refuge, was in sight, and we struck up the shingle flats at a merry pace, reaching our destination in seven hours and a quarter from the Ball Glacier camp.

On returning from the Hermitage we thought, by crossing the Tasman River and driving down the opposite bank, to avoid driving round Lake Pukaki, and so to save thirty miles of travelling. As a rule the river is not crossable in the summer months, but on this occasion we were assured of the practicability of getting over; and leaving the track at Birch Hill Station, we drove out into the great expanse of shingle which forms the river-bed.