For the next thirty-nine years the gaunt ramparts of the southern flank of Mont Blanc effectively repelled all further assault. It seemed almost as if the great white mountain had found fresh strength in the defeats suffered through the hard-won victories of Eccles and Gruber. It was not that Mont Blanc, during this long interval, remained a victor through lack of would-be conquerors. All who came were firmly repulsed. The more fortunate escaped whole in life and limb; from others the death-toll was ruthlessly exacted.[11]
The spell was finally broken in 1919. On August 20, Messrs. Oliver and Courtauld, with Adolfe and Henri Rey[12] and Adolf Aufdenblatten, bivouacked in the Col du Fresnay. The following day they traversed round the Pic Eccles, close below its summit, and gained the Col Supérieur du Fresnay, whence they followed the continuation of the Innominata ridge until, driven over to the left by the vertical, smooth rocks of its great final buttress, they were forced to climb the rocks of the south flank of the uppermost Brouillard ridge. This they gained at a point between the Pic Luigi Amadeo and Mont Blanc de Courmayeur, but rather nearer the latter. In little over eight hours after leaving their bivouac, they arrived on the summit of Mont Blanc, having thus opened a third route from the south.
Early in August, 1921, the fourth successful ascent was effected by the famous Italian mountaineers Si. G. F. and G. B. Gugliermina and Francisco Ravelli—names for ever entwined with the history of Mont Blanc—and a porter from Courmayeur. They followed in its essentials the route of Messrs. Oliver and Courtauld. Their first bivouac was in the rocks of the Innominata below the Col du Fresnay, their second at the foot of the final great buttress of the Innominata ridge, while, on the descent, a third night was spent in the Vallot hut.
Towards the end of July, 1921, I found myself in Zermatt, without a climbing companion—a lamentable state of affairs, due to trouble in Ireland preventing Forster from joining me as had been arranged. When Oliver and Courtauld arrived with the two Aufdenblattens after a successful traverse of the Dom from Saas, I was therefore more than pleased by their kind invitation to join their party. Theoretically, of course, I had no right to accept this, because I was out of training and had done nothing beyond walking half-way up to the Schwarzsee.
Getting into training seems to be a spectre which looms large in the minds of most climbers of to-day. Often I feel impelled to think that, at all events from the physical point of view and as far as more youthful climbers are concerned, this fantastic mental conception must be, to a great extent, the result of auto-suggestion. In spite of a sedentary occupation, wholly unrelieved by any active form of sport, I am always ready to start climbing by climbing, and not by indulging in a ramble. In this instance, moreover, the immediate programme in view was not too ambitious, our aim being merely to get, somehow or other, to Breuil. The Col Tournanche was chosen as a pass for the sake of its novelty, none of us having previously crossed it. Arrived in Breuil, Oliver and Courtauld went on to Courmayeur, whilst I returned to Zermatt to bring my luggage round to Courmayeur by rail. A few days later, we were together on the Aiguille de Tronchey, with a keen eye to possibilities of a new route up the Grandes Jorasses. The great south ridge of the latter, however, showed no breach in its formidable defences, but the Peuteret ridge of Mont Blanc appeared to be in such a first-rate condition that, could it but be gained from the Brouillard and Fresnay side, it would almost certainly “go.” Talking matters over on our return to Courmayeur, we decided to repeat Eccles’s route. The ascent of the Peuteret ridge via the Aiguille Blanche de Peuteret was ruled out on account of the dangerous condition of the Brenva Glacier and of the Aiguille Blanche itself—a condition due to the huge fall of rock and ice in November, 1920.
On the following day, from a point in the road near the second refuge on the Italian side of the Petit St. Bernard, I carefully examined the south flank of Mont Blanc. The descent from the Col Supérieur du Fresnay on to the upper basin of the Fresnay Glacier seemed feasible, but the bergschrund below Eccles’s great couloir leading up to the Peuteret ridge appeared most formidable. The rocks showing through both to the left and the right of the Peuteret ridge, however, seemed to be as free from snow and ice as they were ever likely to be, while the ridge itself appeared to carry good snow.
On August 7, we left Courmayeur with four porters and two carriages bearing our kit, Oliver, Courtauld, and myself as far as the Alpe du Fresnay, shortly after leaving which we encountered our first difficulty in the shape of the unfordable torrent descending from the Fresnay Glacier. By means of two felled trees discovered in a wood near by, we improvised a somewhat unstable bridge which most of us preferred to cross on all fours. Alfred Aufdenblatten boldly essayed to walk across, but not knowing the secret of keeping his eyes fixed on the bridge instead of on the water, lost his balance and only saved himself by a wild jump which barely landed him on the far bank. Towards nightfall we gained the new Gamba hut, situated on the Innominata ridge a little above the Aiguille du Châtelet.[13]
Next morning we left shortly after daybreak, ascending over the débris-strewn slopes towards the moraine on the left bank of the Brouillard Glacier and took to this glacier at an altitude of about 9,500 feet, at the point where the moraine ends and the rocks steepen up towards the Innominata. The work in front of us now changed completely in character. Ropes and climbing irons were put on; Adolf and Courtauld took the lead; Oliver, Alfred, and I formed the second party; while the porters, roped together two by two, brought up the rear-guard of our little army.
Our labours began at once. Huge crevasses, the upper lips of which were often disconcertingly high above the lower, soon forced us out towards the middle of the glacier, where constant step-cutting was the rule. Progressing very rapidly, Adolf cut small steps, upon which we improved, so as to make things easier for the heavily-burdened porters. After much twisting and turning and some pretty ice work, we reached a small plateau where the Brouillard Glacier makes an heroic but rather unavailing effort to be level, prior to indulging in a mad tumble over a noisy “Heisse Platte.”[14] Here a half-hour halt was called for breakfast. We could now see right up to the head of the glacier, and Oliver pointed out to me the line of their ascent of 1919.
The choice of either of two ways up to the Col du Fresnay now lay before us. We could follow the glacier, keeping more or less in the middle, or else traverse high up to the right across steep ice slopes leading down from the ridge of the Innominata. The latter route bore unmistakable evidence of having been recently swept by falling stones; débris on the glacier, however, testified even more generously to the fact that ice also falls, and, in addition, we could detect an abundance of bridgeless crevasses. We therefore chose honest step-cutting across the steep ice slopes. All set to work with a will, and progress was rapid. Dangers and difficulties ceased at a point somewhat below, and to the west of, the Col du Fresnay, where the glacier once more interrupts its headlong course to the valley by indulging in a small snowfield of moderate incline. No difficulty was offered by the final bergschrund below the col, into which we stepped at 10 a.m., nearly five hours after leaving the hut.