Above the Snow Line: Mountaineering Sketches Between 1870 and 1880

by C. T. Dent

Not till nearly five o’clock did we regain our abandoned store of provisions; the sight of the little white packets, and especially of a certain can of tinned meat, seen at a considerable distance below, incited us to great exertions, for since ten in the morning we had partaken of nothing but a sandwich crushed out of all recognisable shape. Ignoring the probability of being benighted on the rocks, we caroused merrily on seltzer water and the contents of the tin can. It seemed almost a pity to quit for good these familiar rocks on which we had spent such a glorious time, and the sun was sinking low behind the Brévent range, and the rocks were all darkened in the grey shadows, before the guides could persuade us to pack up and resume our journey. Very little time was lost in descending when we had once started, but before we had reached a certain little sloping ledge [pg 221]furnished with a collection of little pointed stones, and known as the breakfast place, the darkness had overtaken us. The glacier lay only a few feet below, when the mist which had been long threatening swept up and closed in around us. The crevasses at the head of the glacier were so complicated, and the snow bridges so fragile, that we thought it wiser not to go on at once, but to wait till the snow should have had time to harden. So we sat down under an overhanging rock, and made believe that we enjoyed the fun. Hartley wedged a stone under his waist, as if he were the hind wheel of a waggon going uphill, and imitated the inaction and attitude of a person going to sleep. The guides retired to a little distance and, as is their wont when inactive, fell to a warm discussion over the dimensions of the different chamois they had shot, each of course outvying the other in turn. The game has this merit at least, when there is plenty of spare time at disposal, that if the players only begin low enough down in the animal scale it is practically unlimited.

Benighted

Before long the situation ceased to be amusing, as we found that we had managed to get wet through in the gully, and that the slowly falling temperature was exceedingly unpleasant. I converted a cowhide knapsack into a temporary foot-warmer, much to the detriment of such articles of food as were still stored in its recesses, and tucked a boot under each arm to keep the leather from hardening. Then we fell [pg 222]to discussing what we would have next day for breakfast, and for some two hours found a certain amount of solace in disputing over the merits of divers dainty dishes. Even this fertile subject failed at length to give adequate satisfaction. The ledge became colder and colder, and new spiky little points appeared to develop every moment. The argument of the sportsmen grew fainter, and we became slowly chilled through. For a while the mind became more active, but less logical, and fanciful visions crowded thickly through it. On such occasions it is seldom possible to fix the thoughts on events immediately past. To my drowsy gaze the mist seemed to take the form of our native fogs, while the condition of the ledge suggested obtrusively a newly macadamised road. Almost at will I could transport myself in imagination to the metropolis I had so recently left, or back again to the wild little ledge on which we were stranded. Following up the train of sensations, it was easy to conceive how reason might fail altogether, and how gradually, as the senses became numbed one by one, delirium might supervene from cold and exposure—as has often happened to arctic travellers. The thoughts flew off far afield, and pictured the exact contrast of the immediate surroundings. I saw a brilliantly lighted street with long rows of flaming lamps. The windows of the clubhouses shone out as great red and orange squares and oblongs. Carriages dashed by, cabs oscillated down [pg 223]the roads. Elegantly attired youths about to commence their wakeful period (why are men who only know the seamy side of life called “men of the world”? Is it so bad a world, my masters?) were strolling off to places of entertainment. A feeble, ragged creature crept along in the shadows. A worn, bright-eyed girl, just free from work which had begun at early dawn, dragged her aching limbs homewards, but stopped a moment to glance with envy at a mamma and two fair daughters crossing the pavement to their carriage; light, life, bustle, crowding everywhere. Faster and faster follow the shifting scenes till the visions jostle and become confused——A crack, a distant sound of a falling shower of stones, a hiss as they fall on to the snow slopes below. The eyes open, but the mind only half awakes, and almost immediately dreams again, with changed visions of comfortable rooms, in which the flickering light of a coal fire now throws up, now half conceals the close-drawn curtains, or the familiar form of books and pictures; visions of some formless individual with slippered feet disposed at judicious distance from the blazing coals, of soft carpets and deep arm-chairs moulded by long use into the precise intaglio adapted to the human frame; visions of a warm flood of subdued light, of things steaming gently with curling wreaths of vapour. All these passed in order before the mind, called up by the incantation of discomfort out of the cauldron of [pg 224]misery, like unto the regal display manifested to that impulsive and somewhat over-married individual, Macbeth.

Shifting scenes

But before long it was most difficult to picture these pleasant sights so vividly as to become altogether oblivious of an exceedingly chilly personality, and ultimately human nature triumphed, and the ego in a rather frozen state became again paramount. I had begun to calculate the number of hours we might have to remain where we were, and the probable state in which we should be next morning, when of a sudden the mist lifted, and disclosed the glacier just below feebly lit up by the rising moon. We sprang instantly to our feet, almost as instantaneously returning to our former positions by reason of the exceeding stiffness and cramp begotten of the cold. The guides, leaving their discussion at a point where the last speaker had, in imagination, shot a chamois about the size of an elephant, descended to inspect the ice. The snow bridges were pronounced secure, and we were soon across the crevasses, but found to our disgust that we had rather overdone the waiting. The slope was hard frozen, and in the dim light it was found necessary to cut steps nearly the whole way down the glacier. For five hours and a half were we thus engaged, and did not reach our camp till 2.30 A.M. Never did the tent look so comfortable as on that morning. If, as was [pg 225]remarked of Mrs. Gamp’s apartment in Kingsgate Street, High Holborn, to the contented mind a cottage is a palace, so to the weary frame may a tent be a luxurious hotel. We rushed over the loose rocks by the snout of the glacier, and ran helter-skelter for our bivouac. From the circumstance that the invariable struggle for the best pillow was usually brief, and that one of the party was discovered next morning wrong end foremost in his sleeping bag with his boots still on his feet, I am disposed to think that we were not long in dropping off to sleep; but the unstudied attitudes of the party suggested rather four revellers returning from a Greenwich dinner in a four-wheeled cab over a cobbled road than a company of sober mountaineers. By seven o’clock, however, the predominant thought of breakfast so asserted itself that we woke up and looked out.

The camp breaks up

The first object that met our gaze was a large sheet of paper, affixed to the rock just in front of the tent, and bearing the simple inscription “Hooray!” This led us to surmise that our success was already known below; for the author of the legend had returned to Chamouni the previous evening, after having seen us on the summit. To each man was apportioned the burden he should bear of the camp equipage. Such a collection of pots and pans and other paraphernalia had we amassed gradually during our stay, that our appearance as we crossed the glacier [pg 226]suggested rather that of certain inhabitants of Lagado mentioned in Gulliver’s voyage to Laputa. By nine o’clock we had deposited our burdens at the Montanvert and, disregarding the principles of the sages above referred to, ventured to corrode our lungs by articulating our wants to the landlord. This worthy received us with more than his usual affability, for the tidings of our success had in truth already reached the inn. A bottle of conical form was produced, the cork drawn with a monstrous explosion, and some very indifferent fluid poured out as a token of congratulation. In spite of, perhaps in consequence of, these early libations, we skipped down the well-worn and somewhat unsavoury path with great nimbleness, and in an hour or so found ourselves on the level path leading along the valley to Chamouni by the English church. There, I am pleased to record, the first man to congratulate us was our old friend M. Gabriel Loppé, without whose kindly sympathy and constant encouragement I doubt if we should have ever persevered to our successful end. It mattered little to us that but few of the Chamouni guides gave us credit for having really ascended the peak, for most of them maintained that we had merely reached a point on the south-east face of the lower summit; indeed, to those not so familiar with the details of the mountain as we were, it might well seem hard to realise that the crag jutting out on the right, as seen from Chamouni, is really the actual summit.

Such is the record of the most fascinating rock climb with which I am acquainted. From beginning to end it is interesting. There is no wearisome tramping over loose moraine and no great extent of snow-field to traverse. The rocks are wondrously firm and big, and peculiarly unlike those on other mountains, even on many of the aiguilles about Chamouni.

Mountaineering morality

An odd code of mountaineering morality has gradually sprung into existence, and ideas as to what is fair and sportsmanlike in mountain climbing are somewhat peculiar. People speak somewhat vaguely of “artificial aid,” and are wont to criticise in very severe language the employment of such assistance, at the same time finding it rather hard, if driven into a corner, to define what they mean by the term. It would seem that artificial aid may signify the driving of iron pegs into rocks when nature has provided insufficient hand or foot-hold. Such a proceeding is considered highly improper. To cut a step in ice is right, but to chisel out a step on rock is in the highest degree unjustifiable. Again, a ladder may be used without critical animadversion to bridge a crevasse, but its employment over a rock cleft is tabooed. A certain amount of mountaineering equipment is not only considered proper, but those who go on the mountains without it are spoken of with great asperity, and called very hard names; but the equipment must not include anything beyond hobnails, rope, axes, and possibly a ladder for [pg 228]a crevasse; any other contrivance is sniffed at contemptuously as artificial aid. Rockets and such like are usually only mentioned in order to be condemned; while grapnels, chains, and crampons are held to be the inventions of the fiend. Why these unwritten laws should exist in such an imaginary code it is hard to see. Perhaps we must not consider too curiously on the matter. For my own part, if it could be proved that by no possible means could a given bad passage be traversed without some such aid, nor turned by another route, I should not hesitate to adopt any mechanical means to the desired end. As a matter of fact, in the Alps scarcely any such places exist for those who have taken the trouble to learn how to climb, and there are none on the Aiguille du Dru. We used our ladder often enough in exploring the mountain, but when we actually ascended it we employed it in one place only, saving thereby at least an hour of invaluable time. Indeed, subsequent explorers have found such to be the case; and Mr. W. E. Davidson, in a recent ascent of the mountain, was able to find his way without invoking the assistance of either ladder or fixed ropes. In a marvellously short space of time, too, did he get up and down the peak on which we had spent hours without number. Still, this is the fate of all mountains. The mountaineers who make the third ascent are, usually, able to sweep away the blushing honours that the first [pg 229]climbers might fondly hope they had invested the mountain with. A word, a stroke of the pen, will do it. The peaks do not yield gradually from their high estate, but fall, like Lucifer, from summit to ultimate destination, and are suddenly converted from “the most difficult mountain in the Alps” to “Oh yes; a fine peak, but not a patch upon Mount So-and-so.” It is but with the mountains as with other matters of this life, save in this respect, that once deposed they never can hope to reign again supreme. Statements concerning our fellow-creatures when of a depreciatory, and still more when of a scandal-flavoured, nature, are always believed by nine people out of ten to be, if not absolutely true, at any rate well-founded enough for repetition. A different estimate of the standard of veracity to be met with in this world is assumed when the remarks are favourable. Even so may it be, in some instances, with the mountains. The prestige that clings to a maiden peak is like the bark on a wand: peel it off, and it cannot be replaced; the bough withers, and is cast to one side, its character permanently altered.