The Alps

by Arnold Lunn

The Glockner has the distinction of being the only great mountain first climbed by a Bishop. Its conquest was the work of a jovial ecclesiastic, by name and style Franz Altgraf von Salm-Reifferscheid Krantheim, Bishop of Gurk, hereinafter termed—quite simply—Salm. Bishop Salm had no motive but the fun of a climb. He was not a scientist, and he was not interested in the temperature at which water boiled above the snow line, provided only that it boiled sufficiently quickly to provide him with hot drinks and shaving water. He was a most luxurious climber, and before starting for the Glockner he had a magnificent hut built to accommodate the party, and a chef conveyed from the episcopal palace to feed them. They were weather-bound for three days in these very comfortable quarters; but the chef proved equal to the demands on his talent. An enthusiastic climber compared the dinners to those which he had enjoyed when staying with the Bishop at Gurk. There were eleven amateurs and nineteen guides and porters in the party. Their first attempt was foiled by bad weather. On August 25, 1799, they reached the summit, erected a cross, and disposed of several bottles of wine. They then discovered that their triumph was a trifle premature. The Glockner consists of two summits separated by a narrow ridge. They had climbed the lower; the real summit was still 112 feet above them. Next year the mistake was rectified; but, though the Bishop was one of the party, he did not himself reach the highest point till a few years later.

Four years after the Glockner had been climbed, the giant of Tirol and the Eastern Alps was overcome. The conquest of the Ortler was due to a romantic fancy of Archduke John. Just as Charles VII of France deputed his Chamberlain to climb Mont Aiguille, so the Archduke (who, by the way, was the son of the Emperor Leopold II, and brother of Francis II, last of the Holy Roman emperors) deputed Gebhard, a member of his suite, to climb the Ortler. Gebhard made several attempts without success. Finally, a chamois hunter of the Passeierthal, by name Joseph Pichler, introduced himself to Gebhard, and made the ascent from Trafoi on September 28, 1804. Next year Gebhard himself reached the summit, and took a reading of the height by a barometer. The result showed that the Ortler was higher than the Glockner—a discovery which caused great joy. Its actual height is, as a matter of fact, 12,802 feet. But the ascent of the Ortler was long in achieving the popularity that it deserved. Whereas the Glockner was climbed about seventy times before 1860, the Ortler was only climbed twice between Gebhard’s ascent and the ascent by the Brothers Buxton and Mr. Tuckett, in 1864. Archduke John, who inspired the first ascent, made an unsuccessful attempt (this time in person) on the Gross Venediger, another great Tyrolese peak. He was defeated, and the mountain was not finally vanquished till 1841.

The scene now changes to the Oberland. Nothing much had been accomplished in the Oberland before the opening years of the nineteenth century. A few passes, the Petersgrat, Oberaarjoch, Tschingel, and Gauli, had been crossed; but the only snow peaks whose ascent was undoubtedly accomplished were the Handgendgletscherhorn (10,806 feet) and a peak whose identification is difficult. These were climbed in 1788 by a man called Müller, who was engaged in surveying for Weiss. His map was a very brilliant achievement, considering the date at which it appeared. The expenses had been defrayed by a rich merchant of Aarau, Johann Rudolph Meyer, whose sons were destined to play an important part in Alpine exploration. J. R. Meyer had climbed the Titlis, and one of his sons made one of the first glacier pass expeditions in the Oberland, crossing the Tschingel in 1790.

J. R. Meyer’s two sons, Johann Rudolph the second and Hieronymus, were responsible for some of the finest pioneer work in the story of mountaineering. In 1811 they made the first crossing of the Beich pass, the Lötschenlücke, and the first ascent of the Jungfrau. As was inevitable, their story was disbelieved. To dispel all doubt, another expedition was undertaken in the following year. On this expedition the leaders were Rudolph and Gottlieb Meyer, sons of J. R. Meyer the second (the conqueror of the Jungfrau), and grandsons of J. R. Meyer the first. The two Meyers separated after crossing the Oberaarjoch. Gottlieb crossed the Grünhornlücke, and bivouacked near the site of the present Concordia Inn. Rudolph made his classical attempt on the Finsteraarhorn, and rejoined Gottlieb. Next day Gottlieb made the second ascent of the Jungfrau and Rudolph forced the first indisputable crossing of the Strahlegg pass from the Unteraar glacier to Grindelwald.

To return to Rudolph’s famous attempt on the Finsteraarhorn. Rudolph, as we have seen, separated from his brother Gottlieb near the Oberaarjoch. Rudolph, who was only twenty-one at the time, took with him two Valaisian hunters, by name Alois Volker and Joseph Bortis, a Melchthal “porter,” Arnold Abbühl, and a Hasle man. Abbühl was not a porter as we understand the word, but a knecht, or servant, of a small inn. He played the leading part in this climb. The party bivouacked on the depression known as the Rothhornsattel, and left it next morning when the sun had already struck the higher summits, probably about 5 a.m. They descended to the Studerfirn, and shortly before reaching the Ober Studerjoch started to climb the great eastern face of the Finsteraarhorn. After six hours, they reached the crest of the ridge. Meyer could go no further, and remained where he was; while the guides proceeded and, according to the accounts which have come down to us, reached the summit.

Captain Farrar has summed up all the available evidence in The Alpine Journal for August 1913. The first climber who attempted to repeat the ascent was the well-known scientist Hugi. He was led by the same Arnold Abbühl, who, as already stated, took a prominent part in Meyer’s expedition. Abbühl, however, not only failed to identify the highest peak from the Rothhornsattel, but, on being pressed, admitted that he had never reached the summit at all. In 1830, Hugi published these facts and Meyer, indignant at the implied challenge to his veracity, promised to produce further testimony. But there the matter dropped. Captain Farrar summarises the situation with convincing thoroughness.

“What was the situation in 1812? We have an enthusiastic ingenuous youth attempting an ascent the like of which in point of difficulty had at that time never been, nor was for nearly fifty years after, attempted. He reaches a point on the arête without any great difficulty; and there he remains, too tired to proceed. About this portion of the ascent, there is, save as to the precise point gained, no question; and it is of this portion alone Meyer is a first-hand witness. Three of his guides go on, and return to him after many hours with the statement that they had reached the summit, or that is what he understands. I shall examine later this point. But is it not perfectly natural that Meyer should accept their statement, that he should swallow with avidity their claim to have reached the goal of all his labours? He had, as I shall show later, no reason to doubt them; and, doubtless, he remained firm in his belief until Hugi’s book appeared many years after. At once, he is up in arms at Hugi’s questioning, as he thinks, his own statements and his guides’ claims. He pens his reply quoted above, promises to publish his MS. and hopes to produce testimony in support. Then comes Hugi’s reply, and Meyer realises that his own personal share in the expedition is not questioned; but he sees that he may after all have been misled by, or have misunderstood, his guides, and he is faced with the reported emphatic denial of his leading guide, who was at that time still living, and could have been referred to. It may be said that he wrote to Abbühl for the ‘testimony,’ and failed to elicit a satisfactory reply. Thrown into hopeless doubt, all the stronger because his belief in his guide’s statement had been firmly implanted in his mind all these nineteen years, is it to be wondered at that he lets the matter drop? He finds himself unable to get any testimony, and realises that the publication of his MS. will not supply any more reliable evidence. One can easily picture the disenchanted man putting the whole matter aside in sheer despair of ever arriving at the truth.”

We have no space to follow Captain Farrar’s arguments. They do not seem to leave a shadow of doubt. At the same time, Captain Farrar acquits the party of any deliberate intention to deceive, and admits that their ascent of the secondary summit of the Finsteraarhorn was a very fine performance. It is noteworthy that many of the great peaks have been attempted, and some actually climbed for the first time, by an unnecessarily difficult route. The Matterhorn was assailed for years by the difficult Italian arête, before the easy Swiss route was discovered. The south-east route, which Meyer’s party attempted, still remains under certain conditions, a difficult rock climb, which may not unfitly be compared in part with the Italian ridge of the Matterhorn. The ordinary west ridge presents no real difficulties.

The first complete ascent of the Finsteraarhorn was made on August 10, 1829, by Hugi’s two guides, Jakob Leuthold and Joh. Wahren. Hugi remained behind, 200 feet below the summit. The Hugisattel still commemorates a pioneer of this great peak.

So much for the Meyers. They deserve a high place in the history of exploration. “It has often seemed to me,” writes Captain Farrar, “that the craft of mountaineering, and even more the art of mountaineering description, distinctly retrograded for over fifty years after these great expeditions of the Meyers. It is not until the early ’sixties that rocks of equal difficulty are again attacked. Even then—witness Almer’s opinion as to the inaccessibility of the Matterhorn—men had not yet learned the axiom, which Alexander Burgener was the first, certainly by practice rather than by explicit enunciation, to lay down, viz. that the practicability of rocks is only decided by actual contact. Meyer’s guides had a glimmering of this. It is again not until the ’sixties that Meyer’s calm yet vivid descriptions of actualities are surpassed by those brilliant articles of Stephen, of Moore, of Tuckett, and by Whymper’s great ‘Scrambles’ that are the glory of English mountaineering.”