The journey from Bourg St. Pierre to Zermatt was performed from Monday, January 9, 1911, to Saturday night, the 14th. It might have been done in half the time, but such was not the purpose of the expedition.
At Bourg St. Pierre we met with one of those quite trifling but somewhat unpleasant incidents with which mountaineers may be harried in those remote Swiss villages where winter sportsmen are quite a novel apparition. We fell upon a nest of those obsolete and retired guides who fill the emptiness of their lives with nothing and find in the idle habits they have acquired an excuse for passing adverse comments upon the new mountaineering. We could not but go about collecting victuals from the village shops, and did our packing in the public rooms of the hostelry known under the name of Déjeuner de Napoléon. This started the tongues of those who would talk. Buonaparte, indeed, seems to have bequeathed to those big-mouthed villagers, whom he astonished by breakfasting like any other mortal, a distinct capacity for bluff.
Three old guides sat, hours before midday, with a glass of kirsch huddled between their thumbs, eyeing our goings and comings and scanning all our doings. Then they consulted each other and began bragging of the wonderful exploits they had performed in their day. Having thus employed half an hour in impressing us, they proceeded to call our attention—simply by making much of it within our hearing—to the enormous risk we were about to incur by entrusting ourselves to such inexperienced men as those young madcaps whom we had brought along with us, and who had no share in the vast knowledge and weight of authority that had by degrees been amassed in Bourg St. Pierre.
When they thought they had successfully filled us with suspicion towards our men, they asked Maurice Crettex, in my presence, whether he had fully recovered from an accident he had met in the summer when running a cart-load of hay into a barn. The hay was toppling over and he had been badly squeezed between the wall and the cart while holding up the unsteady mass with his pitchfork. Little did they know that I was fully aware of that and had purposely wished to be Crettex’ first employer since the accident.
All their sly dodges having failed, their vindictive jealousy and self-conceit, when we had left, ran into another channel, and of this a few words will be heard at the end of our chapter. The jolly old villain of Kippel was sterling gold as compared with that ugly crew.
First Day.—Fine warm weather, foehn wind. From Bourg St. Pierre to the Chalets d’Amont (2,192 m.), the ski-runner’s track falls in with the summer route; but instead of climbing the chimney over which stands a cross, the ski-runner keeps on to the south, and enters on the left the gorge through which escapes the water of the Valsorey glacier. This glacier is thus reached, then the Grand Plan, whence one discovers the hut standing on the Sex du Meiten. Starting from Bourg St. Pierre at 11 o’clock, it was quite easy to reach the hut by sunset.
I noticed that the guides were provided with sealskins, light bamboos, and laupars. There can be no question about the utility of sealskins on long Alpine expeditions; but a light, short bamboo is certainly not the right weapon for a guide, and laupars, with a few nails driven in, certainly are most unsuited for glacier work. In other respects the men were perfectly equipped. There were three ice-axes in the party, two ropes, and everybody was provided with climbing-irons.
Second Day.—A violent wind during the night, then snow till midday, when the north wind gained the upper hand, clearing the sky after 2 o’clock. Beautiful sunset, clear night, 18 degrees Centigrade under zero.
Third Day.—Weather beautiful; quite half a foot of fresh dry snow on the old wind-driven snow.