THE BERGSCHRUND ON THE DENT BLANCHE IN 1865
We zigzagged up the glacier along the foot of the face, and looked for a way on to it. We looked for some time in vain, for a mighty bergschrund effectually prevented approach, and, like a fortress’ moat, protected the wall from assault. We went up and up, until, I suppose, we were not more than a thousand feet below the point marked 3912 metres: then a bridge was discovered, and we dropped down on hands and knees to cross it.
A bergschrund, it has been said, is a schrund and something more than a schrund. A schrund is simply a big crevasse: a bergschrund is frequently, but not always, a big crevasse. The term is applied to the last of the crevasses one finds, in ascending, before quitting the glacier and taking to the rocks which bound it. It is the mountains’ schrund. Sometimes it is very large, but early in the season (that is to say, in the month of June or before) bergschrunds are usually snowed up or well bridged over, and do not give much trouble. Later in the year, say in August, they are frequently very great hindrances, and occasionally are completely impassable.
We crossed the bergschrund of the Dent Blanche, I suppose, at a height of about twelve thousand feet above the level of the sea. Our work may be said to have commenced at that point. The face, although not steep in its general inclination, was so cut up by little ridges and cliffs, and so seamed with incipient couloirs, that it had all the difficulty of a much more precipitous slope. The difficulties were never great, but they were numerous, and made a very respectable total when put together. We passed the bergschrund soon after nine in the morning, and during the next eleven hours halted only five and forty minutes. The whole of the remainder of the time was occupied in ascending and descending the twenty-four hundred feet which compose this south-western face; and inasmuch as one thousand feet per hour (taking the mean of ascent and descent) is an ordinary rate of progression, it is tolerably certain that the Dent Blanche is a mountain of exceptional difficulty.
The hindrances opposed to us by the mountain itself were, however, as nothing compared with the atmospheric obstructions. It is true there was plenty of—“Are you fast, Almer?” “Yes.” “Go ahead, Biener.” Biener, made secure, cried, “Come on, sir,” and Monsieur endeavoured. “No, no,” said Almer, “not there—here” pointing with his bàton to the right place to clutch. Then ’twas Croz’s turn, and we all drew in the rope as the great man followed. “Forward” once more—and so on.
Five hundred feet of this kind of work had been accomplished when we were saluted (not entirely unexpectedly) by the first gust of a hurricane which was raging above. The day was a lovely one for dwellers in the valleys, but we had long ago noted some light, gossamer clouds that were hovering round our summit, being drawn out in a suspicious manner into long, silky threads. Croz, indeed, prophesied before we had crossed the schrund that we should be beaten by the wind, and had advised that we should return. But I had retorted, “No, my good Croz, you said just now, ‘Dent Blanche is best:’ we must go up the Dent Blanche.”
I have a very lively and disagreeable recollection of this wind. Upon the outskirts of the disturbed region it was only felt occasionally. It then seemed to make rushes at one particular man, and when it had discomfited him, it whisked itself away to some far-off spot, only to return presently in greater force than before.
My old enemy, the Matterhorn, seen across the basin of the Z’Muttgletscher, looked totally unassailable. “Do you think,” the men asked, “that you or any one else will ever get up that mountain?” And when, undismayed by their ridicule, I stoutly answered, “Yes, but not upon that side,” they burst into derisive chuckles. I must confess that my hopes sank, for nothing can look, or be, more completely inaccessible than the Matterhorn on its northern and north-west sides.