MICHEL-AUGUSTE CROZ (1865)
The guide Michel Croz had thus been engaged in both of these expeditions in Dauphiné, and I naturally looked to him for assistance. Mr. Mathews (to whom I applied for information) gave him a high character, and concluded his reply to me by saying “he was only happy when upward of ten thousand feet high.”
I know what my friend meant. Croz was happiest when he was employing his powers to the utmost. Places where you and I would “toil and sweat, and yet be freezing cold,” were bagatelles to him, and it was only when he got above the range of ordinary mortals, and was required to employ his magnificent strength and to draw upon his unsurpassed knowledge of ice and snow, that he could be said to be really and truly happy.
Of all the guides with whom I traveled, Michel Croz was the man who was most after my own heart. He did not work like a blunt razor and take to his toil unkindly. He did not need urging or to be told a second time to do anything. You had but to say what was to be done and how it was to be done, and the work was done if it was possible. Such men are not common, and when they are known they are valued. Michel was not widely known, but those who did know him came again and again. The inscription placed upon his tomb truthfully records that he was “beloved by his comrades and esteemed by travelers.”
At the time that I was planning my journey, my friends Messrs. A. W. Moore and Horace Walker were also drawing up their programme, and, as we found that our wishes were very similar, we agreed to unite our respective parties. My friends had happily secured Christian Almer of Grindelwald as their guide. The combination of Croz and Almer was a perfect one. Both men were in the prime of life, both were endued with strength and activity far beyond the average, and the courage and the knowledge of each were alike undoubted. The temper of Almer it was impossible to ruffle: he was ever obliging and enduring—a bold but a safe man. That which he lacked in fire, in dash, was supplied by Croz, who, in his turn, was kept in place by Almer. It is pleasant to remember how they worked together, and how each one confided to you that he liked the other so much because he worked so well; but it is sad, very sad, to those who have known the men, to know that they can never work together again.
We met at St. Michel on the Mont Cenis road at mid-day on June 20, 1864, and proceeded in the afternoon over the Col de Valloires to the village of the same name. The summit of this pretty little pass is about thirty-five hundred feet above St. Michel, and from it we had a fair view of the Aiguilles d’Arve, a group of three peaks of singular form, which it was our especial object to investigate. They had been seen by ourselves and others from numerous distant points, and always looked very high and very inaccessible; but we had been unable to obtain any information about them, except the few words in Joanne’s Itinéraire du Dauphiné. Having made out from the summit of the Col de Valloires that they could be approached from the valley of Valloires, we hastened down to find a place where we could pass the night, as near as possible to the entrance of the little valley leading up to them.
By nightfall we arrived at the entrance to this little valley (Vallon des Aiguilles d’Arve), and found some buildings placed just where they were wanted. The proprietress received us with civility, and placed a large barn at our disposal, on the condition that no lights were struck or pipes smoked therein; and when her terms were agreed to, she took us into her own châlet, made up a huge fire, heated a gallon of milk and treated us with genuine hospitality.
In the morning we found that the Vallon des Aiguilles d’Arve led away nearly due west from the valley of Valloires and that the village of Bonnenuit was placed (in the latter valley) almost exactly opposite to the junction of the two.