The Spike: or, Victoria College Review, September 1923

On Sealy Peak

On Sealy Peak

Outside the But our light showed nothing But an impenetrable white blanket of fog and when voices ceased no sound came save the bumping of stones down the precipices across the Mueller Glacier and the occasional ground-shaking rumble of an avalanche falling from the ice cliffs of Mount Sefton.

Disregarding the wise counsel of an early bed we sat up late, and at eleven o'clock someone suggested a seance, but no spirits responded—perhaps none moved in that high valley. Midnight, had passed before, having taken our blankets from their zinc-lined case we rolled into our bunks, whilst the only man for whom no bunk remained laid himself comfortably to sleep on the table. There were two parties in the hut, the first of three men and three ladies were to climb with one guide. The remaining six intended skiing on the snowfields above the hut.

We duly paid the penalty of our late bed-going. It was broad daylight when the first of us rose. In haste we breakfasted and leaving the skiing party still wrapt in their blankets, we stepped out into the crisp air of the morning. Sunlight was already streaming over the ridges above us and last night's fog had vanished. Snow lay in patches about the hut, but for an hour we walked up gentle slopes of rock, whilst the sun coming nearer the crest of the ridge on our right threw long delicate shadows on the patches of clear snow.

Guide Norman Murrell turned, smiling, and inquired who carried a watch, and it was then we discovered that we were without one. It was too late to go back now and we knew that there was ample time.

Straight ahead and nearly four thousand feet about us was the summit: of Mount Sealy. It looked ridiculously easy of ascent by a gently sloping rock arete on the left, but only half of that arete belongs to the mountain, and the Lower portion is separated from it by the bed of the Metville Glacier, a mile and a half wide.

On we went over the crisp snow which at this time of the day still bore us well. Hours later, when at each steps we sank to our knees, we longed for the crispness of the morning. The peak ahead showed nothing but a series of precipices interspersed with small patches of snow and we felt happy that it was not by that face we were to climb it.

Across the great sloping plateau of the Metville Glacier we plodded towards the rocks ahead. A glimpse behind showed the huge shape of Mount Sefton bright in the early sunlight and further back, and looking more majestic even than from the valley, Mount Cook showed delicately blue and white. It is a truism amongst mountaineers to say that to gain an idea of the relative heights of peaks they must be viewed from somewhere not too far below. From a low valley all peaks seem to tower to a vast height. From our present position we could appreciate Cook's additional two thousand feet above Sefton.

Approaching the rock mass of Sealy diagonally across the snow fields we skirted it to a point where a break occurs and a wide and fairly steep snow couloir leads to what appears to be a saddle, but is in reality the edge of a higher plateau. Just as we approached the bottom of the couloir there was an ominous hissing and a great hummock of snow came sliding down the side of the rocks of the couloir and passed in front of us. We halted and waited for a further slide, but none came. It seemed natural to suppose that snow steep enough to slip of its own accord would be scarcely likely to refrain when disturbed by us. Murrell, however, with his usual infectious confidence, began crawling out into the couloir, enjoining us to follow keeping flat on the snow with arms and legs spread out. We clambered along the lower lip of a crevasse, in whose blue depths icicles hung till we emerged on to the track of the snow slide, down which a trickle of snow still ran. Crossing it we climbed the snow outside for a hundred feet or so, then crossing it endeavoured to work up the rocks at the side of the couloir but they were smooth, wet and slippery and striking out on to the snow again we made straight for the col above us.

A great climber has observed that when an inexperienced person finds himself on steep snow his mind becomes obsessed with two ideas, first that the snow is going to slip, and second that he is going to slip with it. That slope proved to some of us the truth of his words. The snow was in that objectionable condition when to kick steps is too hard whilst to cut them is laborious. We emerged over the crest on to a great snowfield, almost surrounded by peaks. In this natural basin we must be treading upon the accumulated falls of thousands of winters.

Following the rocks though always separated from them by a deep moat-like depression in the snow, caused no doubt, by the snow in contact with them melting, we reached another slope, and plodding to the summit found ourselves on yet another snow plateau. To our left a very lengthy slope of snow stretched upward to a line of inaccessible looking rocks. The aneroid showed another thirteen hundred feet to go and probably the slope ahead comprised a thousand feet of that distance. After getting what little drink we could from pools in the rocks, we started up the slope. It soon became necessary to begin cutting and for some hour and a half or two hours we zigzagged up the face, digging our ice axes in as we hauled ourselves from step to step, for we had unroped. The rocks straight ahead were quite impracticable and we made for the left where they ran down far more gently. Every now and then patches of the surface snow above us would slip and come hissing down, but none of these miniature avalanches came our way though some were uncomfortably close. Just as the crest to our left would seem actually to be getting nearer, a glance upward would show that the leader had made another turn and was cutting away from it again. At last we scrambled on to the first of the summit rocks and although the two hundred feet of rocks above us did not just then seem an attractive proposition, yet, encouraged by the proximity of the summit, we began to work our way along the rock face above the slope we had just ascended. Only one place presented any difficulty. Here a large rock overhung the slope below and it was necessary to climb on to this and scramble up it. A minute or two more and we stepped on to the summit snow.

The highest summit of Mount Sealy is at the northern end of the summit ridge and consists of a mass of loose rocks with a top perhaps of twelve feet square. On all sides except where it connects with the rest of the ridge the sides drop away sharply. Hastening over the last of the snow we stepped on to the summit with the feelings of conquerors. Those who were skiing told us afterwards that they saw us on the summit snow seven and a half hours after we had left the hut.

Descriptions of mountain panoramas are proverbially inadequate. A catalogue of peaks means nothing to one who has not seen them and very little to one who has. Those writers who are concerned with more than the externals of mountaineering experience may succeed in translating some of their feelings, and that I think is the best that any are able to do. What lay before us now was indeed magnificent in its spaciousness and grandeur, including as it did views of great areas of plain and valley and dozens of snowy peaks. The day had remained almost perfect, only to the south-west white clouds rolled across Barron's Saddle, shutting out a possible view of the West Coast. Far in the north, gleaming in the sunlight of early afternoon, Mount Elie de Beaumont and Mount de la Beche were visible whilst between were snowy summits and rock peaks in profusion.

George Meredith was no mountaineer but he has very subtly described the colouring of distant mountains. He says "Colour was steadfast on the massive front ranks, it wavered in its remoteness and was quick and dim, as though it fell on beating wings." On the snow slopes to one side of us we could distinctly see, as tiny black dots, the figures of those who were ski-ing. On the opposite side Dobson's Valley slumbered in the sunlight six thousand feet below us, seeming so close that to toss a pebble into it appeared an easy task. Far to the south-west over the Mackenzie Plains, a patch of blue indicated Lake Ben Ohau, whilst the Mueller Glacier backed by a long line of bold peaks lay to the westward.

It is now twenty-eight years since the English climber Fitzgerald with his guide Mattias Zurbriggen, his friend Barrow, and a young New Zealander named Clark made the first ascent of Mount Sealy. They climbed it by the northern rock arete, a route unduly dangerous for any but small parties of experienced rock climbers. Previously the ascent had been attempted by Messrs. Harper, Fyfe, Graham and others, both from Birch Hill Creek and from the Mueller Glacier, but a lack of knowledge of the geography of the district and bad conditions had prevented these hardy pioneers from succeeding. It is now a second rate climb from the Mueller Hut.

Sitting upon the summit we ate our bread and cheese and tinned pineapple and drank our small allowance of cold tea and pineapple juice. By the time we had finished eating mists were beginning to swirl over the lower levels to the eastward, so hastening.back, we began the descent of the rocks. When we halted at the edge of the snow to put on the rope, the mist was eddying close below us and in a few minutes we were in it.

The form of A—— in the lead became spectral as the mist eddied round him. The air turned bitingly cold and the slope below us dropped away into invisibility. Norman Murrell, from his position of "anchor" at the rear, called occasional cheery advice to those in front to step gently and dig in deeply with their ice axes. A—— in front searched for and endeavoured to clear of Snow the morning steps. A hundred and fifty feet from the bottom of the slope we unroped and glissaded the rest of the distance in a glorious whirl and flurry of snow. The mist was already rising, and where we stood was now clear, though the peaks were still covered. Down snow slopes and over seemingly endless snowfields we plodded, following the footsteps of the morning. Whilst we were crossing the Metville Glacier the mist finally cleared and the afternoon sun shone forth, and we listened to the almost continuous thundering of avalanches. At last we began the descent of the last snow slopes towards the hut. The snow had now become so soft that at each step we sank above our knees, and slopes which in the morning could have been glissaded down at twenty miles an hour had to be laboriously overcome. At half past five we were close to the Hut, and to our surprise figures appeared. We expected to find that the skiing party had long ago departed for the Hermitage. On arriving we found that this was so, but that another party had just arrived for skiing on the morrow. To stay meant a crowded hut . The newcomer's guide cooked us a substantial tea on the kerosene stove, and we felt that if his ability as a guide equalled that as a cook his party were in most capable hands. At half past six We shouldered our packs and hurried down the track. This skirts the hillside for a mile or two and then drops into the boulder-strewn moraine of the Mueller. Darkness fell as we descended the rocks into the moraine, but luck was with us. The moon appeared over the towering wall of Mount Sefton and gave us some assistance. Holes looked like stones and stones like holes, but on We Went at a surprising rate, faster indeed than in daylight, for we were taking less care. Then at last up fifty feet of steep loose gravel and we were upon the wall of the moraine with the Hermitage lights twinkling invitingly three miles away. Those three miles seemed remarkably short and at a quarter past ten we marched into the Hermitage. Our faces were still thickly smeared with white ointment and our general appearance was disreputable. With that, however, we were unconcerned. We announced the first ascent of Sealy that season, and having celebrated the event in the ancient manner we tumbled into hot baths ere retiring to sleep a sleep deeper than that of the just.

J.T.