Bedtime came with the sharp night chill that follows the setting of the sun. There were plenty of blankets, now dry and comparatively clean, to keep us warm, and we slept well; only occasionally awakening at the sound of the wind as it whistled through the chinks and shrieked past the walls of the refuge. Next morning, at 5 a.m., we started to dress, that is, to put on our boots. This took some time as the uppers were frozen stiff and had to be nursed against our chests until they were sufficiently pliable. Breakfast was not a success, at least in so far as cooking operations were concerned. During the night, snow dust had been blown into the spirit-burner which, inside the draughty hut, had no chance to burn itself dry. In the end we made shift with raw bacon fat, bread and jam, and munched snow in lieu of drinking coffee or tea. At 6.30, having folded up the blankets and cleared up generally, we put on the rope and climbing irons and moved off.
A deep-trodden track in the snow, the trail of fashion, led up easy slopes on to the crest of the border-line ridge. Always keeping to the ridge and walking at a good, steady pace, we continued our uneventful journey. No miseries of mountain sickness such as so often attacked the early climbers of Mont Blanc, and to which many still seem to succumb, disturbed the monotony; no blood gushed forth from our ears, nor did we even suffer from lack of breath. Before 8 a.m. we stood on the summit (15,781 ft.). The little refuge erected here a year or two previously was all but buried beneath the snow; part of the roof and a chimney alone remained visible.[8] The day was perfect, cloudless and exceptionally clear. There is, amongst its neighbouring mountains, none to challenge the superiority of Mont Blanc. From its summit one looks down upon Europe, hill and plain. The sea of ice-clad peaks surrounding it are so much lower or so far off that they appear immeasurably below one. Whilst engaging in the delightful pastime of recognising old mountain friends in the distant ranges, we brought the spirit cooker into action and prepared a belated brew of tea. The match with which we lighted our cigarettes needed no shielding, and its faint blue smoke drifted lazily skywards, so still was the air as we sat and basked in the warm morning sunshine. Such was our first kindly reception by Mont Blanc. Since then I have stood four times on the summit; twice surrounded by cold, clammy mists, once chilled to the marrow by a fierce north-west wind, and once to be driven down fighting for foothold in the teeth of a snowstorm such as is seldom experienced in the Alps.
Our stay on the summit lasted but an hour, for the major portion of the day’s work, namely the descent via Mont Maudit and Mont Blanc de Tacul, lay in front of us. With France on our left and the great precipices of the Brenva falling away to Italy on the right, we descended the hard-frozen snow of the broad ridge. Passing a little outcrop of rock, now plastered up with wind-driven snow, we arrived at the top of a rather steep ice slope—the Mur de la Côte. One of the worst accidents in the history of mountaineering occurred not far from here in September, 1870. Eleven people were caught by a snowstorm. Instead of fighting their way out of its clutches, they sat down to wait until it passed. All were frozen to death. In a snowstorm on the mountains, as in war, safety lies in action. It is far better to do something, even if it be the wrong thing, than do nothing but sit and wait.
With our sharp, long-pointed climbing irons, the Mur de la Côte was descended without the cutting of more than a few steps. Below it, easy snow slopes led down to the Col de la Brenva, the broad depression between Mont Blanc and Mont Maudit. Beyond this, a succession of trackless snow fields and slopes, sometimes almost level, at other times fairly steep but never steep enough to demand the use of the axe, provided such easy going that we were able to devote much of our attention to the beauty of the surroundings. A pathway fit for the gods, this wonderful border-line ridge whence the eye may travel beyond the snow-free mountains of Savoy to the rolling blue hills of the Jura, or up the tremendous ramparts of the Brenva face and along the magnificent sweep of the Peuteret ridge to the heavily corniced summit of Mont Blanc de Courmayeur. We paid but a brief visit to Mont Maudit (14,669 ft.), a little rock pinnacle just emerging from the snow; and, after a glance over the great precipices above the Brenva Glacier, we turned down the snowy ridge which falls away to Chamonix, to seek a means of descent into the depression between Mont Maudit and Mont Blanc de Tacul. At first the ridge was a slender snowy crest on which the snow was in splendid condition, but later the rocks emerged. As these were good and never difficult, we were once again, while climbing, able to devote much of our attention to the view. Mont Blanc showed up to wonderful advantage, an enormous snowy dome, the brilliance of its wide flanks almost entirely unrelieved by the darkness of rock. Far below lay the valley of Chamonix, its detail filtered softly through the grey-blue haze of a fine summer’s day. Beyond the Buet and the lesser mountains of Savoy, the gaze roved over a purple mistiness shrouding the Lake of Geneva, to the sombre wooded curves of the Jura. On our right were the tapering spires of the Chamonix Aiguilles and the wider snows of Mont Blanc de Tacul, our next objective.
After descending the ridge for some considerable length, a fairly broad, snowy saddle, the Col Maudit, was reached. To the right a rather steep, but to all appearances short, ice slope fell away towards crevassed snow slopes, down which we felt sure of finding a convenient way. After once more donning climbing irons—for they had been taken off on gaining the summit of Mont Maudit—Max took charge of my knapsack, while I set to work to cut the necessary steps down the slope. The ice rapidly steepened but merged into snow, too hard to kick steps in, but ready to yield a secure step for two, or at the most three, blows of the axe. Noticing that the slope did not run out directly into the snowfields below, we suspected the presence of an intervening bergschrund of more than ordinary proportions. Our surmise proved only too true. Within a quarter of an hour of leaving the Col Maudit, we foregathered in a large step hewn out just above the upper lip of a great bergschrund which gaped to right and left with never a sign of a snow bridge within reach. The lower lip was at least fifteen feet below where we stood, but as the schrund seemed to be at its narrowest here, it was obviously the most suitable place to effect a passage. Three ways of doing this suggested themselves: to jump down the fifteen feet, to cut out a belay in the snow and rope down, or to use one of our axes as a belay. On reconsideration, the second and third courses were discarded; the one because it was getting late in the day and the time necessary to hew out a suitable belay would be considerable; the other because it would mean the sacrifice of an axe. So we decided to jump. Leaving my axe and climbing irons with Max, I screwed up my courage and leapt wildly out into space, to strike with my feet into the deep, soft snow below the bergschrund with such force that I was almost submerged, and snow found its way into my clothing in a most disconcerting fashion. Then came Max’s turn. He first threw down the axes, climbing irons and other paraphernalia. Then, while I trained the camera on him, he jumped and landed with such a thud that he likewise was almost buried in the powdery snow. After a rest and a meal to soothe shattered nerves, we gathered up our belongings and commenced stamping down towards Mont Blanc de Tacul. Crevasses and ice cliffs enforced a zig-zag course and deep snow made the work toilsome, but we forged steadily ahead, leaving a deeply-furrowed trail in our wake. Passing beyond the depression between Mont Maudit and our objective, we finally mounted up gentle snow slopes and a few simple rocks to the summit of Mont Blanc de Tacul (13,941 ft.), and thus gained our third mountain-top for the day. The view from here was one of the most striking of the marvellous series of changing panoramas which marked this trip. The great rocky buttresses and escarpments of the precipitous south face of Mont Maudit, seamed with appallingly steep ice-filled gullies, the shimmering ice cliffs of the Brenva face of Mont Blanc, and the bold yet almost unearthly graceful outline of the Peuteret ridge formed a peerless picture of nobility and majesty.
Descending Mont Maudit.
“... a slender snowy crest.”
