The fourth day of this raid was employed in an easy and very fast run down to Orsières, then on a vehicle to Bourg St. Pierre, whence four hours on ski bring the runner to the Hospice du Grand St. Bernard, the gates of which are open night and day to all-comers. A long night in a most comfortable bed, after a most substantial meal, and followed by a plentiful breakfast next day, made sufficient amends for the nights spent in the Cabane d’Orny.
In summer the hospitality extended by the St. Bernard monks to passing tourists—one may not spend more than two nights under their roof—is somewhat perfunctory, because they are oppressed by numbers. In winter, on the contrary, they are left to themselves. Time and solitude are somewhat heavy and passers-by of some education are the more welcome.
Within a lap of the hospice we were spied by the famous dogs. They barked and made but a poor pretence at coming towards us. They were terribly handicapped in the snow, which we lightly brushed with the flat of our ski. No wonder they floundered: the floury snow was about 6 feet deep. Their fore and hind quarters went under, and then hove again into sight, while they swung out of one hole into the next, as nutshells rising and falling with the waves.
This situation threw some fresh light upon their legendary life-saving occupation. The tables were turned. We were much better prepared to save them from suffocation than they to lend us a helping paw. In fact, one huge beast’s efforts to get on board my ski somewhat perplexed me.
We had struck out our own line, in coming up, across the surges of the snow. The farther from any path, the happier the ski-runner. But we saw enough of the winter track to understand the usefulness of the dogs. The track is about 2 feet wide. It cuts in and out of the summer road, and consists simply of the narrow footpath which pedestrians and the monks have trodden hard. They manage to keep it open from summer to spring by directing upon it the little traffic there is. The snow hardens after each fall when walked on and raises the pathway by so much, building up by degrees a kind of elevated viaduct on which to remain is the condition of safe progress. Step out to the right or to the left by one inch, you drop down several feet into the drifts.
What this might mean, in the fog or during a blizzard, to those weary, ill-shod, ill-clad, under-fed Italian labourers who still choose that mode of transit to save their railway fare under the Simplon, we could easily imagine. The dogs, on the other hand, would keep upon the track and scent in what snow-covered spot the poor trespasser had missed his footing and strayed. The remainder would be spade and shovel work for the charitable monks.
Easter being early that year, Lent was drawing to an end. The house was wrapped in silence. The bells being hushed, a rattle croaked along the passages instead. But Lenten hospitality may be lavish and fishes must swim at all times, as the capital trout from the Dora Baltea experienced, that was floated on the best of wines down to a worthy home of rest. On the next morning we met a procession; they were calves being driven up from Italy. They looked sickly against the pure sunlit snow, but they capered and frolicked, and booed with joy. Well might they do so as long as the bells were silent. But after!
Years before this, the monks had been driven to the use of boards for getting about. They invented a rude ski wanting in the essential feature of modern planks, free action for the heel. With them the heel was fastened down to the boards. They sprinted and punted about with the help of a long stout pole, achieving quite a style of their own. With their long robes waving, and swinging their gaffs from side to side, now to steer, and now to propel their unsteady craft, with arms alternately raised and lowered, they cut very picturesque figures against a terribly bleak background, with their dogs pounding after them, till we lost sight of them behind the corner like a flock of mountain choughs.
My next day saw me across the Col de Fenêtre (2,773 metres = 8,855 feet), along the whole Val Ferret, back to Orsières, a most magnificent, perfectly easy and reposeful trip. From point to point, that is, from Orsières up the Val d’Entremont to the Col du Grand St. Bernard, and through the Col de Fenêtre, down the Val Ferret, back to Orsières, the ski-ing is first-rate, these valleys running on parallel lines, downwards, from south to north. The crossing from one col to the other, upon south-facing slopes, is the only unpleasant piece of ski-ing, though quite safe and easy.
A fatal accident befell here a party of runners a few years after. They intended running up the Val Ferret to the hospice when they committed a serious mistake. As the map shows, the summer path winds corkscrew fashion from the bed of the valley to the lakes of Ferret. Now, when a ski-runner is seen upon a steep winding path, or ploughing his way up the sides of it, it often means that he has not reconnoitred the skiers’ route on his map. Those young men cut into a snow bulge, the snow ran out through the slit and overwhelmed one of them.