Pictures and Pleasuring in the Aorangi Region.

(Written for the “New Zealand Railways Magazine” by James Cowan.)

In this article, timely just now when many New Zealand lovers of the out-of-doors are turning their thoughts to snow sports, the writer draws upon his memories of holiday excursions about the Mt. Cook Hermitage, the attractions of easy walks and climbs and ice traverses, and the dramatic beauty of the mountain landscapes in that grand central region of our Alpine world.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when a trip to the Mt. Cook Hermitage, as a base for alpine pleasuring was a rather formidable undertaking, calling for much expenditure of time, trouble and money. It took at least three days each way from Christchurch or Dunedin, and it was only in the summer months that the visit could be made. Now the leisurely old horse-coach has given place to the comfortable and fast motor car; the ramshackle old place of stay has been replaced by a beautiful and quite luxurious hotel on a commanding site, and this holiday place is open for travellers all the year round. It is quite an easy matter now-a-days, and comparatively inexpensive, to spend a glorious week or two amidst scenes that are the completest change imaginable from the surroundings, the conditions, and the atmosphere of our working world.

The average visitor to the Hermitage finds that the maximum of enjoyment of this wonderful region lies in just “pottering around.” The high climbs are only for the extra-vigorous few. Such easy ascents as Sealey and the Ball Pass across the lower part of the Cook Range, and the various glacier excursions are quite enough to satisfy most people. True, some who do not know anything about alpine work come here quite confident of their ability to tackle even icy Aorangi. But a day's clambering on the lower hills and ice-flows usually convinces the tyro that a ten or twelve-thousand foot peak is not for him this season. He is captured, however. Once he sets foot on the mountains, samples the peculiar joy of page 20 chipping steps with an ice-axe in the clean, hard, bottle-green or blue-shadowed ice, or descending some snow-slope on the dizzy ski—even if he lands nose-down and feet up in the process—the mountains have him in their grip. He—or she—will return again and again, to live a few too short days or weeks in a landscape and an atmosphere that seem a different world from the land of towns and bustling business.

The tonic of the mountains—there is no medicine like it, alike for body and brain.