chap xxiv MOUNT HEDGEHOG 



33 1 



ice-axes. Our last orders to him were that he should begin 

 melting snow when he heard us shout. 



At first we kept up the ridge from our camp-island to the 

 wide saddle which separated us from the western buttress. 

 By crossing exactly along the top of the col we avoided a 

 gaping bergschrund, which circled round the head of the 

 glacier basin. As the only mountaineer of the party, it fell to 

 my lot to lead. Desirous of avoiding as much step-cutting 

 as possible, I kept to the top of the arete, but my companions 

 did not fancy the rocks, which were smooth and hard, so we 

 descended to the edge of the snowfield falling from the South 

 side of the ridge. We kept along this as far as the depression 

 at the foot of the western buttress, by which I proposed to 

 ascend. The fog cleared for a moment when we were on the 

 col and opened a glimpse to the north over the head of Horn 

 Sound. The sun was very near the horizon, glowing like a 

 ball of molten metal, while the icebergs in the bay caught 

 the glint of orange light and flashed it on to the surface of 

 the water. The whole scene was vignetted in a fog, whose 

 margin was lit up with a crimson glow, completing a most 

 exquisite picture. It was the only view we had. During the 

 rest of the climb we could scarcely see more than a few yards 

 around. 



When Trevor-Battye had made a rough sketch we com- 

 menced the ascent of the buttress, skirting always up the 

 margin of the snowfield, which gradually narrowed to a steep 

 couloir. Tired of kicking steps in the snow with boots which 

 were too short for me, I again took to the rocks, but a growl 

 or two from my companions sent me back to the snow, into 

 the narrow part of the couloir, where steps became harder 

 to kick and soon had to be cut. Gradually the surface of the 

 old snow changed into neve-ice and finally to blue ice. In 

 some places this was covered with as much as a foot of fresh 

 snow, which had avalanched from the steep sides of the 



