Switzerland and Savoy
1893
Begin at Kandersteg—Benighted on the Zinal glacier—Glacier tables and baths—Wild beasts in the hut—The Col Durand—Guide in a crevasse—Ascent of the Dent Blanche—A climber exhausted—Ascent of the Weisshorn—A thunderstorm—Death of Mr. Lucas and Mr. Seiler. The Furggen Joch—Italy and the Italian side of Mont Blanc—The hut on the Aiguille Grise—The traverse of Mont Blanc—Anxiety as to weather—The observatory on the summit—Ascent of Aiguille du Dru. Ascent of the Aiguille Verte—Frost-bitten guide—Peculiar dangers of a fine season.
When Albert Smith made the ascent of Mont Blanc in 1851, he did not seem to enjoy himself much; he was thoroughly exhausted and done up, as well he might be, with sixteen guides, and £20 worth of provisions. If he did not have a good time our fathers did, in hearing his lecture, or in reading his dear little book. They listened with the greatest interest to his serio-comic groans. A hundred bottles of wine, sixty-seven fowls, joints of meat in proportion, and ten cheeses carried up the mountain ought to have led to trouble somewhere. On the other hand I enjoyed myself so much in the ascent of Mont Blanc that I fear I have nothing left to entertain others. My climbing friend was with me and two guides, also friends of former years; we had no certificate and no cannon. Nor was there any pretty Julie down below to give me a cornelian heart and talk about “une alliance.”
But I will begin at the beginning, and travel first from Cambridge to Kandersteg, from the land of fen and bog to the land of fine air and bright mountains—the Bernese Oberland. At Kandersteg my friend was staying in Egger’s most comfortable inn, and there we made a plan of campaign. We were fortunate in crossing the Gemmi to obtain a fine view of the mountains we were about to attack. We slept at Sierre in the Rhone Valley, and in the morning went up the Val D’Anniviers, one of the finest valleys in the Alps, a beautiful journey to Zinal, where we met our trusty guides—Alois Kalbermatten and Xaver Imseng. We must needs try and reach the hut high up the glacier that same night, and consequently got benighted, and arrived very late at the Mountet Cabane, rather cross and tired. While the daylight lasted I saw on the glacier hundreds of glacier-tables, like a crop of gigantic mushrooms. The hot weather this year may have made these more apparent, for on all the glaciers I walked over they seemed more conspicuous than usual. A stone, as big as a teacup or a cottage, when it lies upon the glacier, protects the ice beneath from the sun, so that in time the ice melting all round leaves the stone perched on a pedestal of ice. The icy pyramid gradually yields on the sunny side, and allows the stone to tilt and fall always in the same direction. On the Gorner Glacier I saw a stone supported by two separate pyramids, but this is unusual. If the stone which lies upon the glacier be thin enough, it may be so warmed through by the sun that it makes a hole for itself in the ice, and is buried in a pit full of water. So may dirt make a bath in the glacier, or if it be in large quantity, may leave a cone of solid ice all dirt covered, looking like a large ant heap.
The deep pits full of water are started in the manner indicated, but the sun-warmed surface water is continually being replaced by the ice-cold water below, and the warmed water deepens the pit in the ice, until a large bath is formed, often two or three feet deep, with steep sides, and no warning ledge or ridge around, so that a careless walker might go in, and in the dusk they are very difficult to avoid.
We had a dark experience on the glacier, and had to leave it for the icy-hearted moraine for fear of accidents, thankful to find shelter after some hours of weary stumbling along, when there was light enough to see our dangers but barely enough to permit us to avoid them. When in the welcome shelter of the hut, we shared with fleas and rats that rough abode—whether the rats in the straw had guides to this place is a curious problem; the fleas in the rugs were unusually fierce and hungry. There was a rat in the hut before its building was completed; when I called M. Constans’ attention to his first visitor, he remarked in surprise “Déjà!” but it no doubt migrated from the old Mountet Cabane near by to the Constantia, as the present place is called in honour of the architect.
All next day the weather was too bad to climb, and we had to give up our traverse of the Rothhorn this season, having been beaten in the same way last year after coming over the Triftjoch. We went to Zermatt over the Col Durand, which led us to an ice slope of some steepness up which steps had to be cut, and then over snow. As we neared the top of the pass, with no suggestion of any crack in the smooth white surface of snow, we walked along all roped together; quite suddenly our leading guide disappeared down a crevasse. I was last on the rope and saw nothing but his hat; however, he was soon out again by wrigglings on to his back, shook himself free of snow, and appeared to mind it about as much as a Newfoundland dog minds water. But it was a good lesson in the use of the rope, which alone can make such an ordinary journey safe. My first care in reaching Zermatt was to have my boots well nailed. English nails are no good, though Flack’s boots stood me well. My next thought was to present the local chemist with a prescription which puzzled him for the moment—Mr. Pulex Irritans—Rx: Pulvis usque ad mortem pulicibus ferocibus quantum sufficit. My friend said this dog Latin was appropriate, for dogs and fleas were inseparable. I was soon supplied with a tin of Keating.
The weather was too good for dawdling, and we proceeded to attack the Dent Blanche. Taking provisions and rugs to the Schönbühl rock, our men cut bits of dry trees with their ice axes before we left the woods below us to cross the glacier, and thus provided fuel to cook the excellent supper we enjoyed before we slept. There were two other parties on the rocks that night—the Stockje hut being in ruins. We crept into a hole and had a good night there, in a natural cave which was warm and dry. When in the small hours of the morning we were drinking our chocolate, a cry suddenly arose from one of the other parties that their rope was missing. We stirred the fires and searched with lanterns, and it was all very picturesque, but did not lead to discovery—the rope was lost. So only two parties started off early and began to climb, and reached the summit after a hot fatiguing ascent up ice, snow, and rock. The younger man of this other party climbed in a boating sweater, appeared to feel the heat exceedingly, and went to sleep whenever there was a halt. Before the descent was over he was decidedly ill, but fortunately not utterly collapsed until after the more dangerous ice slopes had been descended; his “legs” were then quite gone and he had to be supported by the guides before he reached the sleeping place, where we left him wrapped in my shawl with his friend faithfully beside him to pass the night.
The unlucky man whose rope had been lost was a Britisher not easily beaten. He sent his guides back on their tracks, and by daylight the rope had been found, where it had been carelessly dropped, upon the glacier; so that, though rather delayed, his ascent was made successfully, and the traveller returned by another route to Ferpècle. We, after having decided that the sick man was safe enough and fast asleep, found our way with difficulty in the dark, except for lanterns, across the glacier, whereon we wandered nearly three hours, and Xaver refreshed himself by falling into a big water bath. Finally we had to stay at Staffel Alp instead of at our hotel at Zermatt. But we here enjoyed a sound refreshing sleep all night, and walked down cheerfully in the sunlight of the early morning.
As the Weisshorn was to be our next peak we took train one afternoon to Randa and climbed up the Schalliberg some hours to the rocks below the ruined hut. This was a warm sleeping place, though rather exposed, where we slept well beneath the stars, woke up quite fresh, and enjoyed the climb immensely. On the rock arête at about 12,000 feet up, and while the dawn was lighting the peaks around, a dense black cloud appeared over Italy slowly moving towards the Matterhorn; lightning came flashing out of it every few seconds. It was a strange sight to witness this storm-cloud bursting over a distant land, while all about us the sky was clear and the stars were seen fading before the rising sun. A climber has related his experience in a thunderstorm which stopped him on the Dent Blanche, when the electric current made his goggles hiss upon his head. The hissing of the ice axe is generally near enough for an unpleasant sensation, and is not a rare occurrence, but the snow glasses being affected makes a more powerful appeal to the imagination. We had a good day on the Weisshorn (14,804 feet), and rested at the gîte on the rocks as we descended, then later had a refreshing tea at Randa, where we heard the first sad news of the loss of life that morning upon the Täschhorn just opposite us. A party of four, two gentlemen and two guides, trying to traverse the Täschhorn from Saas Fée to Randa, got benighted in the descent. By light of a lantern they got to a point of comparative safety where all four lay down to sleep, but only three woke up; Mr. Lucas had wandered off in the night and fallen over a precipice, where his body was found in the morning.
At Zermatt, though the hotels seem crowded, there are not many climbers, they go up higher or appear only for a day and off again. The place is full of people—omnibuses run over you in the streets—and you may be there some time before you notice that Mdlle. Biner has now started a cabin near the Monte Rosa and shaves you as well as ever, advertising herself as a coiffeuse. She is dressed in black, mourning for her brother, the guide killed this year with young Seiler on the Matterhorn. Just up the street is a tailleuse, a useful person sometimes after climbing rocks, and when your wardrobe is scanty.
Leaving Zermatt we spent one night at the Schwarzsee Hotel, close to the Matterhorn, intending to cross over into Italy by the Furgg-joch—this pass skirts the Matterhorn; we climbed to the top in about two and a half hours; starting from our inn at 4, we arrived at Valtournanche about 10 A.M. Then taking a carriage after a long rest and refreshment, our driver just made us miss the train at Châtillon, when the Italian sun was at its hottest; we had a siesta and dined there, and so in the evening to Aosta, where we slept the night. We took places in the diligence to Courmayeur next morning, and saw Mont Blanc before us in a few hours. The Aiguille Blanche de Péteret is well seen from the road, a sad reminder to all Cambridge men of Dr. Frank Balfour, who perished on that mountain in 1882. It has been climbed by Sir Seymour King, and again this year by Dr. Güssfeldt with Emile Rey as guide. Six hundred francs is said to have been paid as fee for guidance.
We were up early for an eight hours’ climb, with a final rock scramble to the Italian Quintino Sella club hut on the Aiguille Grise (11,812 feet). Here we had good food and sleep; our men went out for an hour and cut steps up a steep ice slope, ready for the ascent of Mont Blanc in the morning. As this ice slope appeared to be dangerous from falling stones, we began early, and were greatly helped by the steps already cut; if any stones came down we were not aware of them, though out of sight is not out of mind in these steep places.
The weather when we began our climb in the dusk before the day broke was very threatening, and later on a light fall of snow and hail gave us anxiety, as we clambered up the steep rocks, lest we should be driven back to our hut, the difficulty and danger of such a repulse increasing every hour until it was necessary to go on and make the ascent whatever befell us.
We passed on the higher rocks an enormous rusty ice axe of an ancient pattern, which doubtless has a story; we left it on the spot for others to wonder at. We made the ascent in about eight hours, including halts, and I stood on the highest point in these Alps—the great snow summit of Mont Blanc—15,780 feet. But let us not be proud, the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest, is nearly twice as high.
On the curve of snow at the highest point a huge timber skeleton of a building is erected; heavy beams as thick as my body, strongly fixed together, make a truncated pyramid with a rectangular base, which looks as if it might stand the storms, or get buried in snow. At present the wind whistles through, and it presents no surface to the blast. M. Vallot, who is building this for an observatory, has had to plant the foundations in ice, finding no rock after thirty feet excavation. Whether the ice will move, or piled up snow will displace the structure, remains to be proved. Snow collects always more on the north (French) aspect of the summit, and this tendency to collect may be increased by the obstruction. The workmen stated at Chamounix that plum stones were found at a depth of twenty feet, and if this be true it is exceedingly interesting and important as showing that these stones, which must have been dropped on the summit by travellers, had maintained their verticalness, and had not been carried down towards the glaciers below. There the hut stands at present with a small tricolour flag floating alongside. My vulgar wish to climb the timbers was unexpressed and unfulfilled. We were shut in completely by dark fog. Cold wind and the dangers of storm drove us down to just below the top on the Chamounix side, where there is a hut built as an observatory. This shelter we feared at first to leave; wind and darkness kept us there, no tracks were visible, nor anything to guide us but the snow all round. The wind was not the dangerous (south) Föhn wind, and presently, after a cold blast, we were able for a moment to see our direction; then by the advice of our guides we hurried down over the Grand Plateau, scuttling and sliding to the Grands Mulets, and safety, in two hours and ten minutes. After a cup of tea and a rest we continued our journey over the beautiful glacier des Bossons in bright sunshine. We reached Couttet’s capital hotel in Chamounix at six o’clock, thus traversing Mont Blanc from Italy into France in fourteen hours, including halts by the way. This is a far finer expedition than up and down from Chamounix, but is not so popular, and the traveller, bringing with him foreign guides into the place, is not saluted by a salvo of artillery.
Next day we were at Montanvert admiring the Mer de Glace, and during thunderstorms of many hours we made our arrangements to climb the Aiguille du Dru. Sleeping out under a rock, where we had passed a stormy night last year, we began in fine weather our steep ascent mostly of rocks, with plenty of opportunities for adventures on the way. There is one place in climbing the rocks where a rope is hung over a precipice, and by gently swinging on this rope a long step or giant stride is made across to a foothold beyond. It is only one of the many positions in mountaineering where imagination shows you what a slight distance there is between what you are and what you may become. In the descent a frightful avalanche of stones fell down just as we cleared the rocks, but it was not near enough to shake our nerves.
On the 28th of August I slept at the Couvercle to climb the Aiguille Verte. This sleeping place is a good one where an enormous rock overhangs the little platform on which the sleeper stretches, and it is grandly situated above the famous Jardin in the Glacier de Talèfre. Being roused before midnight in threatening weather, we hesitated before attacking such a mountain as the Aiguille Verte with a high wind and storm-clouds in prospect; meantime we had some hot chocolate, and only set off with some misgivings at one in the morning. The wind moderated as the day broke, we got over the bergschrund, and made a successful ascent in about nine hours. The summit of the Verte is of snow, commanding a fine view of Mont Blanc and the peaks around. We noted with feelings of annoyance that the majestic snow curve upon the head of the Monarch is broken by the erection of Vallot’s wooden building, which looks from here like a projection of dark rocks. Time may revenge himself, and play skittles with the timbers.
When I parted from my guides, whose conduct was worthy of all praise, and came down to Chamounix, I saw there a most piteous sight, that of a fine young fellow with both feet frost-bitten. All the toes of both feet were black, and large blisters appeared on the reddened skin of the foot above the blackened toes. He was a guide named Maquignaz, and forty-eight hours before my visit had been exposed during one night on the Italian side of Mont Blanc; he was with Mr. F. and another guide, a cousin of the same name. The others of the party put their feet into their knapsacks, and took such like precautions, and so escaped. On examining this poor fellow’s boots I discovered that, though sound enough in the soles, they had the tongues fastened only halfway up the upper leathers, and with no gaiters or other wrapping except his trousers, he must have got his feet wet. The latest accounts I heard were not hopeful as to saving the big toes. Without the great toes he cannot climb again and his occupation will be gone; the loss of the little toes is not so serious. The reflection after such a sad sight is forced upon one, that though over sixty deaths are said to have occurred on Mont Blanc, history takes small account of the travellers who have lost portions of their bodies upon the mountains and had their after lives wrecked by their maimed condition.
The delay caused by an endeavour to help this unfortunate man, decided me to journey to Geneva with my friend rather than travel alone over the Tête Noire. It was late next night before I reached Zermatt again and joined my wife, who had reached the Riffelberg from Paris ten days previously. We found most comfortable quarters at the Riffel Alp lower down, in an enormous hotel, where two hundred and seventy people dined every day, including an archbishop and forty-five clergymen.
The weather this year has been good for climbers, though there have been peculiar dangers associated with the sunshine; and as every season has its own peculiar dangers, so this year the weather was almost too good. The sun tamed the severity of giant peaks, and made the descents dangerous from avalanches.
The great rocks have been bared of ice and snow and tempted attacks, while earth-fast and frost-bound stones were loosened from the heights above and made the mountains dangerous. The steep couloirs of the Aiguille Verte were decidedly dangerous from falling stones, and though I do not pretend to have any hair-erecting story to tell, it will be understood that we made our way up and down on the rocks, as much as possible avoiding the tracks of the stones. The traverses across the couloirs were as rapid as caution could permit, and only made when absolutely necessary. Great stones occasionally hurtling down as if shot from a catapult, with enough force to dash the brains out or hurl to destruction the poor climber balanced in his ice step. Thus upon the Aiguille Noire a man was killed by a blow on the head, and many had narrow escapes. On all great mountains where ice, snow, and rock have all to be climbed over, it must be difficult to find weather which will suit so as to find everything in perfect order, but for the true enjoyment of a climb both the man and the mountain must be in fine condition. The weather of the day I have described on Mont Blanc, though it gave us some uneasiness, was just perfect for avoidance of fatigue and mountain sickness. Absence of sun and presence of wind enabled the climbers to feel fairly vigorous, though at such a height. In other conditions of hot, still weather, the strain might have been severe.
These days are now delightful memories for me, and if my remarks just written do not rise above what Scott called the “ordinary bow-wow,” at least they are “high notes” in one sense, and may find an echo in the hearts of those who love the mountains.