Once more we started for the crest.  After another weary climb we reached the top.  The snow lay thinly on blue ice at the ridge, and we had to cut steps over the last fifty yards.  The same precipice lay below, and my eyes searched vainly for a way down.  The hot sun had loosened the snow, which was now in a treacherous condition, and we had to pick our way carefully.  Looking back, we could see that a fog was rolling up behind us and meeting in the valleys a fog that was coming up from the east.  The creeping grey clouds were a plain warning that we must get down to lower levels before becoming enveloped.

The ridge was studded with peaks, which prevented us getting a clear view either to the right or to the left.  The situation in this respect seemed no better at other points within our reach, and I had to decide that our course lay back the way we had come.  The afternoon was wearing on and the fog was rolling up ominously from the west.  It was of the utmost importance for us to get down into the next valley before dark.  We were now up 4500 ft. and the night temperature at that elevation would be very low.  We had no tent and no sleeping-bags, and our clothes had endured much rough usage and had weathered many storms during the last ten months.  In the distance, down the valley below us, we could see tussock-grass close to the shore, and if we could get down it might be possible to dig out a hole in one of the lower snow-banks, line it with dry grass, and make ourselves fairly comfortable for the night.  Back we went, and after a detour we reached the top of another ridge in the fading light.  After a glance over the top I turned to the anxious faces of the two men behind me and said, “Come on, boys.”  Within a minute they stood beside me on the ice-ridge.  The surface fell away at a sharp incline in front of us, but it merged into a snow-slope.  We could not see the bottom clearly owing to mist and bad light, and the possibility of the slope ending in a sheer fall occurred to us; but the fog that was creeping up behind allowed no time for hesitation.  We descended slowly at first, cutting steps in the snow; then the surface became softer, indicating that the gradient was less severe.  There could be no turning back now, so we unroped and slid in the fashion of youthful days.  When we stopped on a snow-bank at the foot of the slope we found that we had descended at least 900 ft. in two or three minutes.  We looked back and saw the grey fingers of the fog appearing on the ridge, as though reaching after the intruders into untrodden wilds.  But we had escaped.