Ski-runs in the High Alps

by F. F. Roget

The phenomenon is as follows: Masses of air of varying density and temperature are pushed up the Alps and are dropped down, as it were, upon the other side. Or else, as this morning on the Petersgrat, it is a layer of hot dry air formed aloft that forces its way down, in corkscrew fashion, on a given spot, through the nether air.

With us the phenomenon lasted an hour and was as a water spout in the middle of a still ocean. The universal quietude of the elements impressed itself again upon the spot on which we stood, doubting, like Thomas, but ready to believe, if a sign would but be given. By 8.30 the sun gilded gloriously the whole Pennine range, towards which our eyes were eagerly turned.

As we reached the sky-line, that distant host of old friends greeted us beyond the morning shadows, but what held us most was the wonderful pyramid of the Bietschhorn. The sharp-shouldered giant, sprinkled with snow from head to foot, through which showed his jet-black armour, stood forth before us, as within reach of the hand, strangely resembling the view of the Weisshorn from above Randa, but how much grander in his winter cloak with jewel-like crystals!

This second day was to be a day spent in idling down glacier slopes and in lounging above the forest zone of the Loetschenthal. We knew now that we could count on the sun till its proper time for setting in the evening. We knew that on his decline and fall the moon would take his place, as the night policeman succeeds the day policeman upon the common beat. The winter God was full of gentleman-like consideration. The rules of meteorology might have been purely astronomical and mathematical for any chances we might see of their being upset by the weather fiend.

The snow was hard and crusted as we entered upon the southern slopes of the Petersgrat. After forty minutes running, or thereabouts, the guides advised us to take off our ski while we descended the steep bits on the Telli glacier. The fact is that those men were not quite sure of their ground. I asked the party to proceed in close formation and to move with studied care till we should reach the bottom of the Telli glacier, considering that it would be wiser to cope with any difficulties it might put in our way than to ski down the Faffleralp, as to whose condition in winter I had not the faintest indication. The ordinary summer route might prove dangerous from avalanches. On the Telli glacier, the hardness and comparative thinness of the snow layer cemented to the ice, allowed of crevasses and depressions being easily recognised. It would be a piece of summer mountaineering in midwinter, and to this, for safety’s sake, there would be no valid objection.

I kept my people close in, to the eastern edge of the glacier, so as to pass under the buttress on which were supported the masses of snow over which I would not ski. The descent of the deep gully proved the right solution to our difficulty and procured for us for some twenty minutes the distinct pleasure of being thoroughly occupied with a serious job.

A run over some extremely broken ground, then some cuts and capers in a wood led us to a chalet, where we decided to have a feed and a rest.

“This confession,” says Arnold Lunn, “lays us open to the scorn of those who imagine that mountaineering is a kind of game, the object of which is to spend the minimum of time on a peak consistent with reaching its summit. Our party fortunately belonged to the leisurely school that combines a fondness for wise passiveness with a strong dislike to reach one’s destination before sunset.

“Thus understood, mountaineering on ski is the purest of all sports. The competitive and record-breaking elements are entirely eliminated. Those who go up to the hills on ski are then actuated by the most elemental motives, the desire to explore the mountains in the most beautiful of all their aspects, and to enjoy the most inspired motion known to man.

“To me the ideal form of ski-ing is cross-country mountaineering. One thus approaches nearest to the methods of the pioneers to whom mountaineering meant the exploration of great ranges, not the exhausting of all possible climbs from one small centre. Nothing is more delightful than to penetrate into the remote Alpine valleys in the winter months. The parasite population that thrives in summer on the tourist industry has disappeared. One meets the genuine peasant, ‘the rough athletic labourer wrestling with nature for his immediate wants.’