EMMELINE FREDA DU FAUR, THE PASSION FOR CLIMBING

Today, The Grandma has received wonderful news of one of her closest friends, Tonyi Tamaki, the Kiwi from Rotorua.

It's been two long years since The Grandma visited her in Auckland, coinciding with the FIFA Women's World Cup. Now it's summer in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Tonyi has decided to spend the Christmas holidays with her Catalan friends whom she has known since one day she landed in Barcelona in 2018 to play rugby in a very nearby town, cradle of this sport in Catalan lands.

The Grandma is very happy with this upcoming visit and is already preparing a series of activities to enjoy a wonderful Christmas on the European continent visiting France and Switzerland, where Joseph de Ca'th Lon awaits them.

Tonyi lives in a country where nature is present in every corner and as a great lover of mountains, she likes climbing and hiking, a hobby she shares with The Grandma and Claire Fontaine, as well as ornithology and scuba diving.

Precisely, on a day like today in 1910, Emmeline Freda Du Faur, the Australian mountaineer, was credited as the first woman to climb Aoraki/Mount Cook, the New Zealand's tallest mountain.

More information: Wild

Emmeline Freda Du Faur (16 September 1882-13 September 1935) was an Australian mountaineer, credited as the first woman to climb New Zealand's tallest mountain, Aoraki/Mount Cook. 

Du Faur was a leading amateur climber of her day. She was the first female high mountaineer known to be active in New Zealand, although she never lived there.

Du Faur was born in Croydon, Sydney, on 16 September 1882. She was the daughter of Frederick Eccleston Du Faur (1832-1915), a public servant who, after retirement, became a stock, station, and land agent, and patron of the arts, and his second wife, Blanche Mary Elizabeth Woolley (1845–1906), daughter of Professor John Woolley and sister of Emmeline M. D. Woolley.

Du Faur was educated at Sydney Church of England Girls Grammar School. She probably developed her passion for mountaineering when she lived with her family near the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. As a young woman, she explored the area and taught herself to rock climb. She did not finish nursing training due to her sensitive and highly-strung nature. Thanks to an inheritance from her aunt Emmeline, she had an independent income that enabled her to travel and climb.

Du Faur summered in New Zealand. In late 1906, she saw photographs of Aoraki/Mount Cook at the New Zealand International Exhibition in Christchurch. This prompted her to travel to the Hermitage hotel at Mount Cook Village, where she became determined to climb to the snow-capped summit, managing to do so four years later.

In 1908, a second trip to Aoraki/Mount Cook led to Du Faur's introduction to a New Zealand guide, Peter Graham. Graham agreed to teach Du Faur ropework and add snow and ice climbing to her skill on rocks. Du Faur found this freedom an enjoyable escape from the constraints and frustrations of family and society.

In 1909, Du Faur returned to undertake several climbs of increasing difficulty, the first of which was a significant ascent of Mount Sealy on 19 December 1909. Though these climbs were intended to be just Graham and Du Faur, social norms of propriety at the time did not look kindly on an overnight climbing expedition composed solely of an unmarried woman and a male guide. Thus, a chaperone was enlisted, and Du Faur committed to wearing a skirt to just below the knee over knickerbockers and long puttees while she climbed. Still, she received criticism from both men and women for her choices in athleticism and dress.

Following her notoriety, she would dispense with a chaperone but retain her customary climbing attire. It pleased her that her attire afforded an element of femininity to upset critics and challenge existing stereotypes of physically active women.

In 1910, Du Faur spent three months at the Dupain Institute of Physical Education in Sydney training with Muriel "Minnie" Cadogan (1885-1929), who became her life partner. After the training, Du Faur returned to Aoraki/Mount Cook in November 1910.

On 3 December 1910, Du Faur became the first woman to climb to the summit of Aoraki/Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest peak at 3,760 metres. Her guides included Peter and Alex (Alec) Graham, and together they ascended in a record six hours.

On the return trip from the summit, Du Faur was photographed in front of a boulder to commemorate the historic climb. The boulder, now called Freda's Rock is located approximately 200 metres into the Hooker Valley Track at Mount Cook National Park.

Du Faur made many other noteworthy climbs. In the same season as her Aoraki/Mount Cook ascent in 1910, she climbed Mounts De la Beche (2,979 metres) and Green (2,828 metres), and was the first person to climb Chudleigh (2,944 metres).

In the next climbing season, she scaled a virgin peak now named Du Faur Peak (2,330 metres) after her. She also made the first ascents of Nazomi (2,925 metres) and Mount Dampier (3,420 metres), and the second ascents of Mount Tasman (3,497 metres) and Mount Lendenfeld (3,192 metres).

In her final season, she made the first ascents of Mount Pibrac (2,567 metres) and Mount Cadogan (2,398 metres)), both of which she named. Perhaps her most notable climb was in January 1913 with Peter Graham and David (Darby) Thomson, when they made the first grand traverse of all three peaks of Aoraki/Mount Cook. This grand travers' is now regarded as a classic climb of New Zealand's Southern Alps and continues to be associated with Du Faur's name.

On 10 February 1913, the same climbing party made the first traverse of Mount Sefton (3,149 metres). Du Faur stopped climbing the next month.

Du Faur and her partner, Muriel Cadogan, moved to England in 1914, spending time in Bournemouth. Though they had intended to climb the European Alps, Canada, and the Himalayas, World War I put an end to their plans. The following year, Du Faur published her book The Conquest of Mount Cook in London. It proved important for its record of her mountaineering feats and her approach to climbing.

In June 1929, Cadogan died. Du Faur returned to Australia, where she lived in Dee Why, Sydney. At first, she lived with her brother's family and later in her own cottage. Her main interest was bushwalking in Dee Why and Collaroy. She suffered from depression at the loss of Cadogan, and on 13 September 1935, she fatally poisoned herself by inhaling a quantity of coal gas.

She had been, in 1908, the principal beneficiary of her aunt Emmeline's will and her own will, benefiting Jean Lord, was contested by relatives who disputed her sanity. The Coroner, after examining Du Faur's notebook and several letters, denied the claim, finding her the opposite of insane.

Du Faur was privately interred in the Church of England cemetery at Manly, Sydney.

More information: Stories Of Her

I was the first unmarried woman to climb 
in New Zealand and in consequence, 
I received all the hard knocks, 
until one day when I awoke more or less famous 
in the mountaineering world, 
after which I could and I’d do exactly 
as seemed to me best… I gained the summit… 
feeling very little, very lonely and much inclined to cry.

Emmeline Freda du Faur 

ENJOY AORAKI NATIONAL PARK, THE SOUTHERN ALPS

Today, The Winsors have finished their Easter holiday and they have joined Tonyi Tamaki and The Grandma to visit Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park by a four-wheel drive. They have been resting in a beautiful hut on the skirts of Mount Cook where they have practised an A2 Cambridge Test on line.

 

More information: Flo-Joe

 

Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park is in the South Island of New Zealand, near the town of Twizel. Aoraki/Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain, and Aoraki/Mount Cook Village lie within the park. The area was gazetted as a national park in October 1953 and consists of reserves that were established as early as 1887 to protect the area's significant vegetation and landscape.

Even though most of the park is alpine terrain, it is easily accessible. The only road access into Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park is via State Highway 80, which starts near Twizel, at 65 kilometres distance the closest town to the park, and leads directly to Mount Cook Village, where the road ends.

The village is situated within the park, however, it consists only of a hotel and motels, as well as housing and amenities for the staff of the hotel and motels and other support personnel. The park stretches for about 60 kilometres along the southwest-northeast direction of the Southern Alps, covering 722 km2 on the southeastern side of the main spine of the Alps.  

The valleys of the Tasman, Hooker, and Godley glaciers are the only entrances into this alpine territory that lie below 1,000 m.

Glaciers cover 40% of the park area, notably the Tasman Glacier in the Tasman Valley east of Aoraki/Mount Cook. Eight of the twelve largest glaciers in New Zealand lie within Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, all of which terminate at proglacial lakes formed in recent decades due to a sustained period of shrinking.

In the area surrounding Aoraki/Mount Cook, the Tasman Glacier, Hooker Glacier, Murchison Glacier, and Mueller Glacier all terminate in lakes, while further north in the park, the Godley Glacier, Classen Glacier, Grey Glacier and Maud Glacier also end in proglacial lakes. Tasman Lake and Hooker Lake are easily accessible via walking tracks and are the only two of these lakes that have official names. At an area of 7 km², Tasman Lake is the largest of the proglacial lakes and hosts boat trips for tourists.

Of New Zealand's 20 peaks over 3,000 metres, all except Mount Aspiring/Tititea lie in the park. These include New Zealand's highest mountain, Aoraki/Mount Cook, at 3,724 metres.

Other prominent peaks include Mt Tasman, Mt Hicks, Mt Sefton and Mt Elie de Beaumont. The mountains of the Southern Alps in general are young, less than ten million years old, and are still building.

Uplift in the region of the national park is at the rate of 5–10 mm per year. It's estimated that approximately 25 km of uplift has occurred, however the rate of uplift has been countered by erosion. The park borders Westland Tai Poutini National Park along the Main Divide. Together they form part of Te Wahipounamu South Westland World Heritage Site, recognised for its outstanding natural values.

More than 400 species of plants make up the vegetation in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, which include more than 100 introduced plant species such as the colourful Russell lupin, the wild cherry and wilding pines.

 

More information: Department of Conservation-Te Papa Atawhai

Under normal circumstances, forest grows to about 1,300 m, however, most parts of the park are either at higher altitudes above the tree line or in the proglacial valleys such as the Hooker Valley and Tasman Valley, where the rocky soil of the valley floors and moraine walls do not support forest growth. As a result, the only pockets of forest and native bush in the park are along the southern edge of the Hooker Valley and the lower slopes of Sealy Range.

The plant life in the majority of the park consists mostly of alpine plants. Between 1,300 m and 1,900 m and in the valleys, the vegetation is predominately snow tussock grassland, as well as golden speargrass, large mountain daisies/tikumu, and Mount Cook lily, the largest buttercup in the world.

All of these plants flower in the warmer months from November to February, early in the season in the valley floors, and late at higher altitudes. At the highest rocks of Aoraki/Mount Cook, around 14 species of lichen have been found.

There are about 35 to 40 species of birds in the park and include the kea, the only alpine parrot, and the well-camouflaged pipit. The tiny rock wren/pïwauwau, a threatened species, is the only permanent resident high on the mountains. 

It is unrelated to the rock wren of North America. Small insectivores such as the riflemen/tïtitipounamu and the New Zealand fantails/pïwakawaka live in the low forest and scrub, along with small numbers of two larger birds, the wood pigeon and morepork. Introduced species such as finches and sparrows live throughout the bush near Mount Cook Village. The black stilt or kakī, rarest wading bird in the world, lives in the braided riverbed of the Tasman.

The park is home to many invertebrates, including large dragonflies, crickets, grasshoppers, 223 recorded moth species and 7 native butterflies. A black alpine weta, also known as the Mount Cook flea is found above the snowline.

Mount Cook Village is the start of several walks ranging from easy walking tracks such as the popular Hooker Valley Track to tramping tracks like the steep track to the Sealy Tarns. Some of these tracks also offer guided walking tours, and the nearby Tasman Lake hosts boat trips for tourists. The park contains close to twenty huts, mostly in alpine terrain.

The spectacular peaks of the Aoraki/Mount Cook region have attracted climbers from all over the world for the last 100 years. The dramatic nature of these mountains provides a rare challenge. The combination of heavy glaciation, tremendous vertical scale and unpredictable weather means that they are not readily won. To climb successfully here requires skill, fitness, patience, and a great respect for the mountains. Mountaineering on the Aoraki/Mount Cook massif is a hazardous activity.

At the end of the most recent ice age, around 13,000 years ago, the Mueller Glacier, Hooker Glacier, and Tasman Glacier were all tributaries to a much larger glacier covering all of Hooker Valley and Tasman Valley in hundreds of metres of ice and reaching as far as the extent of today's Lake Pukaki, up to 40 km south of Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park.

As the glacier retreated, it filled the hollowed out valleys with rocks and gravel, leaving behind the flat-bottomed valleys seen today.

 

 More information: New Zealand

Keep close to Nature's heart... 

and break clear away, once in awhile, 

and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. 

Wash your spirit clean. 

John Muir

ENJOY AORAKI NATIONAL PARK, THE SOUTHERN ALPS

Claire Fontaine at Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park

Today, Joseph de Ca'th Lon has climbed Mount Cook. It's not an easy proposal but Joseph is an experimented climber and he has enjoyed all the road to the top.  

Claire Fontaine and Tonyi Tamaki have joined Joseph in this adventure meanwhile Tina Picotes and The Grandma have been visiting the rest of Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park by a four-wheel drive and they have been resting in a beautiful hut on the skirts of Mount Cook.

Meanwhile the three friends have been climbing up, The Grandma has studied two new lessons of her First Certificate Language Practice manual (Grammar 25 & 26).

More information: Phrasal Verbs I

 

Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park is in the South Island of New Zealand, near the town of Twizel. Aoraki/Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain, and Aoraki/Mount Cook Village lie within the park. The area was gazetted as a national park in October 1953 and consists of reserves that were established as early as 1887 to protect the area's significant vegetation and landscape.

Even though most of the park is alpine terrain, it is easily accessible. The only road access into Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park is via State Highway 80, which starts near Twizel, at 65 kilometres distance the closest town to the park, and leads directly to Mount Cook Village, where the road ends.

The village is situated within the park, however, it consists only of a hotel and motels, as well as housing and amenities for the staff of the hotel and motels and other support personnel. The park stretches for about 60 kilometres along the southwest-northeast direction of the Southern Alps, covering 722 km2 on the southeastern side of the main spine of the Alps.  

Joseph de Ca'th Lon at Tasman Glacier

The valleys of the Tasman, Hooker, and Godley glaciers are the only entrances into this alpine territory that lie below 1,000 m.

Glaciers cover 40% of the park area, notably the Tasman Glacier in the Tasman Valley east of Aoraki/Mount Cook. Eight of the twelve largest glaciers in New Zealand lie within Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, all of which terminate at proglacial lakes formed in recent decades due to a sustained period of shrinking.

In the area surrounding Aoraki/Mount Cook, the Tasman Glacier, Hooker Glacier, Murchison Glacier, and Mueller Glacier all terminate in lakes, while further north in the park, the Godley Glacier, Classen Glacier, Grey Glacier and Maud Glacier also end in proglacial lakes. Tasman Lake and Hooker Lake are easily accessible via walking tracks and are the only two of these lakes that have official names. At an area of 7 km², Tasman Lake is the largest of the proglacial lakes and hosts boat trips for tourists.

Of New Zealand's 20 peaks over 3,000 metres, all except Mount Aspiring/Tititea lie in the park. These include New Zealand's highest mountain, Aoraki/Mount Cook, at 3,724 metres.

 More information: New Zealand

Other prominent peaks include Mt Tasman, Mt Hicks, Mt Sefton and Mt Elie de Beaumont. The mountains of the Southern Alps in general are young, less than ten million years old, and are still building.

Uplift in the region of the national park is at the rate of 5–10 mm per year. It's estimated that approximately 25 km of uplift has occurred, however the rate of uplift has been countered by erosion. The park borders Westland Tai Poutini National Park along the Main Divide. Together they form part of Te Wahipounamu South Westland World Heritage Site, recognised for its outstanding natural values.

The Grandma & Tina with Edmund Hillary

More than 400 species of plants make up the vegetation in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, which include more than 100 introduced plant species such as the colourful Russell lupin, the wild cherry and wilding pines.

Under normal circumstances, forest grows to about 1,300 m, however, most parts of the park are either at higher altitudes above the tree line or in the proglacial valleys such as the Hooker Valley and Tasman Valley, where the rocky soil of the valley floors and moraine walls do not support forest growth. As a result, the only pockets of forest and native bush in the park are along the southern edge of the Hooker Valley and the lower slopes of Sealy Range.

The plant life in the majority of the park consists mostly of alpine plants. Between 1,300 m and 1,900 m and in the valleys, the vegetation is predominately snow tussock grassland, as well as golden speargrass, large mountain daisies/tikumu, and Mount Cook lily, the largest buttercup in the world.

All of these plants flower in the warmer months from November to February, early in the season in the valley floors, and late at higher altitudes. At the highest rocks of Aoraki/Mount Cook, around 14 species of lichen have been found.

There are about 35 to 40 species of birds in the park and include the kea, the only alpine parrot, and the well-camouflaged pipit. The tiny rock wren/pïwauwau, a threatened species, is the only permanent resident high on the mountains. 

It is unrelated to the rock wren of North America. Small insectivores such as the riflemen/tïtitipounamu and the New Zealand fantails/pïwakawaka live in the low forest and scrub, along with small numbers of two larger birds, the wood pigeon and morepork. Introduced species such as finches and sparrows live throughout the bush near Mount Cook Village. The black stilt or kakī, rarest wading bird in the world, lives in the braided riverbed of the Tasman.

Tonyi Tamaki at Aoraki-Mount Cook National Park

The park is home to many invertebrates, including large dragonflies, crickets, grasshoppers, 223 recorded moth species and 7 native butterflies. A black alpine weta, also known as the Mount Cook flea is found above the snowline.

Mount Cook Village is the start of several walks ranging from easy walking tracks such as the popular Hooker Valley Track to tramping tracks like the steep track to the Sealy Tarns. Some of these tracks also offer guided walking tours, and the nearby Tasman Lake hosts boat trips for tourists. The park contains close to twenty huts, mostly in alpine terrain.

The spectacular peaks of the Aoraki/Mount Cook region have attracted climbers from all over the world for the last 100 years. The dramatic nature of these mountains provides a rare challenge. The combination of heavy glaciation, tremendous vertical scale and unpredictable weather means that they are not readily won. To climb successfully here requires skill, fitness, patience, and a great respect for the mountains. Mountaineering on the Aoraki/Mount Cook massif is a hazardous activity.

At the end of the most recent ice age, around 13,000 years ago, the Mueller Glacier, Hooker Glacier, and Tasman Glacier were all tributaries to a much larger glacier covering all of Hooker Valley and Tasman Valley in hundreds of metres of ice and reaching as far as the extent of today's Lake Pukaki, up to 40 km south of Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park.

As the glacier retreated, it filled the hollowed out valleys with rocks and gravel, leaving behind the flat-bottomed valleys seen today.

More information: Department of Conservation-Te Papa Atawhai

Keep close to Nature's heart... 

and break clear away, once in awhile, 

and climb a mountain or spend 

a week in the woods. 

Wash your spirit clean. 

John Muir