CHAPTER VI
THE ASCENT OF THE HOCHSTETTER DOME
Camp under De la Bêche—Twelve Hours on Snow and Ice—The Pangs of Hunger
Thursday, April 4, was a memorable day, for Annan coming up from the Hermitage with a further supply of the ever-welcome 'tucker,' we started on one of the finest mountain expeditions I have seen in our New Zealand mountains.
It was not part of our original plan to ascend the Dome; we merely intended to reach the Lendenfeld Saddle and get a glimpse of the opposite coast and the western ocean, and it was with this object in view that Johnson, Annan, and I shouldered our swags and tramped off to the foot of De la Bêche, which was made in three hours' hard walking.
Here we camped in a snug hollow between the lateral moraines of the Tasman and Rudolf Glaciers. Small shingle composed our bed, and a snow patch close by provided us with water, which we boiled in our 'Aurora' stove, as no firewood was to be found so far up the glacier.
A fine Friday morning found us at a quarter to seven on the rope, and making hard work of it amongst the crevasses of the Tasman Glacier.
