ASCENT OF THE AIGUILLE DU DRU
“Decies repetita placebit”
Disadvantages of narratives of personal adventure—Expeditions on the Aiguille du Dru in 1874—The ridge between the Aiguilles du Dru and Verte—“Défendu de passer par là”—Distance lends enchantment—Other climbers attack the peak—View of the mountain from the Col de Balme—We try the northern side, and fail more signally than usual—Showing that mountain fever is of the recurrent type—We take seats below, but have no opportunity of going up higher—The campaign opens—We go under canvas—A spasmodic start, and another failure—A change of tactics and a new leader—Our sixteenth attempt—Sports and pastimes at Chamouni—The art of cray-fishing—The apparel oft proclaims the man—A canine acquaintance—A new ally—The turning point of the expedition—A rehearsal for the final performance—A difficult descent—A blank in the narrative—A carriage misadventure—A penultimate failure—We start with two guides and finish with one—The rocks of the Dru—Maurer joins the party—Our nineteenth attempt—A narrow escape in the gully—The arête at last—The final scramble—Our foe is vanquished and decorated—The return journey—Benighted—A moonlight descent—We are graciously received—On “fair” mountaineering—The prestige of new peaks—Chamouni becomes festive—“Heut’ Abend grosses Feuerwerkfest”—Chamouni dances and shows hospitality—The scene closes in.
It is to some extent an unfortunate circumstance that in a personal narrative of adventure the result is practically known from the very beginning. The only uncertainty that can exist is the actual pattern on [pg 170]which the links of the chain are united together, for the climax is from the outset a foregone conclusion. The descriptive account will inevitably conduct the reader along a more or less mazy path to an assured goal. There is certainly one other variety, but that takes the less satisfactory form of an obituary notice. Even in a thoroughly well-acted play a perceptible shudder runs through the audience when two actors select each a chair, draw them down to the footlights, and one announces “’Tis now some fourteen years ago.” The expression in its pristine dramatic simplicity may still be heard in transpontine theatres, but modern realism insists usually on a paraphrase. The audience cannot but feel, however thrilling the story to be told, that at any rate the two players have survived the adventures they have to narrate, and on the whole a good many wish they hadn’t. There sit the heroes, and exert themselves as they will their recital is apt to fall somewhat flat. In like manner I will not attempt to conceal the fact that the ultimate result of our numerous attempts on the peak which forms the subject of this chapter was that we got up it, and the fact may also be divulged that we came down again, and in safety. Indeed, it seems difficult now to realise the length of time during which our ultimate success oscillated in the balance—at one time appearing hopeless, at another problematical, at times almost certain, and then again apparently out of our reach.
Expeditions on the Aig. du Dru
In 1874, with two guides, of whom Alexander Burgener was one, we started for the Montanvert with the intention of making for the ridge between the Aiguille du Dru and the Aiguille Verte, with the object of further investigating the route which Messrs. Pendlebury, Kennedy and Marshall had essayed on an occasion already described, when the bad condition of the rocks frustrated their hopes. The mountain was probably in a very different state on this occasion, and we experienced no very great difficulty in discovering a fairly easy route up the rocks. The chief trouble consisted in the fact that the rock gully by which the ascent is chiefly made was extensively plastered over with ice, a condition in which we nearly always found it. The last part of the climb up to the ridge affords a most splendid scramble. The face is so steep on either side that the climber comes quite suddenly to a position whence he overlooks the northern slope, if slope it may be called, and looks down on to the Glacier du Nant Blanc. Seen in grey shadow, or half shrouded in shifting mists and coloured only with half-tints, the precipice is magnificent; huge sheets of clear ice coat its flanks, and the almost unbroken descent of rock affords as striking a spectacle as the mountaineer fond of wild desolation can well picture.
If you would see this slope aright,
Look at it by the pale grey light.
On the left the mass of the Aiguille du Dru cuts off the view of the fertile regions; far away on the right the huge tapering towers of rock form a massive foreground stretching away to the base of the Aiguille Verte. The spectator too seems strangely shut off, so that, gazing around, on either side he can see but a narrow extent of the mountain. We looked down and did not like what we saw; we looked up and liked it less. The day was fine and the mountain in good condition. I can recall now that our eyes must have wandered over the very route that ultimately proved to be the right one, and yet to none of us that afternoon did it appear in the least degree possible. Unquestionably the crags of the Aiguille du Dru looked formidable enough from this point of view, and we could not but think that nature must have provided some easier mode of access to the summit than this face seemed to afford. We climbed along the ridge till we were almost against the face of the mountain, but then we had to turn our gaze so directly upwards that matters looked still worse. Then we faced about and climbed in the other direction. The rocks seemed to grow bigger and bigger the more we looked at them. What the guides actually thought I do not quite know, but at the moment my own impression was that it would be impossible to ascend more than two or three hundred feet: so we turned and came back. Even while we yet descended the thought came that this [pg 173]face of the mountain was perhaps not so utterly hopeless as it had appeared a few minutes previously, and in my own mind I decided that, should we fail in discovering some much more promising line from another point of view, we would at least return to the ridge often enough to familiarise ourselves with this aspect of the mountain, with the idea that such familiarity if it did not succeed in breeding contempt might at least give birth to a more sanguine frame of mind. The farther we got from our point of view the more hopeful did the mental impression seem to become, and by the time we reached Chamouni we had all separately arrived at the conclusion—somewhat selfish perhaps, but justifiable under the circumstances—that if asked what we thought of the possibility of ascending by the face we had tried, we would give honestly the opinion we had formed while on the ridge, and not the opinion at which we had arrived subsequently.
Other climbers attack the peak