Croz and Biener did not return until past 5 A.M. on June 17, and we then set out at once for Zermatt, intending to cross the Col d’Hérens. But we did not proceed far before the attractions of the Dent Blanche were felt to be irresistible, and we turned aside up the steep lateral glacier which descends along its south-western face.
The Dent Blanche is a mountain little known except to the climbing fraternity. It was, and is, reputed to be one of the most difficult mountains in the Alps. Many attempts were made to scale it before its ascent was accomplished. Even Leslie Stephen himself, fleetest of foot of the whole Alpine brotherhood, once upon a time returned discomfited from it.
LESLIE STEPHEN
It was not climbed until 1862, but in that year Mr. T. S. Kennedy, with Mr. Wigram and the guides Jean B. Croz and Kronig, managed to conquer it.
They had a hard fight, though, before they gained the victory: a furious wind and driving snow, added to the natural difficulties, nearly turned the scale against them.
Mr. Kennedy described his expedition in a very interesting paper in the Alpine Journal. His account bore the impress of truth, but unbelievers said that it was impossible to have told (in weather such as was then experienced) whether the summit had actually been attained, and sometimes roundly asserted that the mountain, as the saying is, yet remained virgin.
I did not share these doubts, although they influenced me to make the ascent. I thought it might be possible to find an easier route than that taken by Mr. Kennedy, and that if we succeeded in discovering one we should be able at once to refute his traducers and to vaunt our superior wisdom. Actuated by these elevated motives, I halted my little army at the foot of the glacier, and inquired, “Which is best for us to do?—to ascend the Dent Blanche, or to cross to Zermatt?” They answered, with befitting solemnity, “We think Dent Blanche is best.”
From the châlets of Abricolla the southwest face of the Dent Blanche is regarded almost exactly in profile. From thence it is seen that the angle of the face scarcely exceeds thirty degrees, and after observing this I concluded that the face would, in all probability, give an easier path to the summit than the crest of the very jagged ridge which was followed by Mr. Kennedy.