1894
Wet weather at Kandersteg—Fly-fishing there—The fisherman’s fear of a precipice—Birrenhorn ascent—Ascent of the Blümlis-Alphorn—Chateau at Vizille—La Bérarde in the Dauphiné—Accident to a guide’s tongue—Traverse of the Pointe des Ecrins—Guide’s hand benumbed—Wild and impressive scenery—Ascent of the Grande Aiguille—A frost-bitten porter—My ascent of the Meije with a broken rib—The heel spikes of the district.
The Alps of Dauphiné, which may be said to lie in France between the Mont Blanc range and the Mediterranean Sea, would be best approached by Paris, Lyons, and Grenoble, but as my climbing friend, A. B., was at Kandersteg, I went there to meet him and a guide, and to stretch my legs on the Swiss mountains. On the first day after my arrival we inspected, with a view to attack the steep south face of the Birrenhorn, and surmounted the only difficulty of the climb, a steep chimney where a rope is useful to avoid risk. We planned to complete the ascent on the first fine day. On this little mountain I found the most perfect snake’s cast I ever saw, which I gave to Professor Newton. Its head end was in the hole where its owner got rid of it. The films over the eyes were present, and by blowing into the mouth I could inflate the cast to a lively resemblance of the creature it had covered.
MAP OF THE HIGHEST MOUNTAINS IN THE DAUPHINÉ.
Walker & Bontall sc.
The weather in the Bernese Oberland was very bad, every day it rained in the valleys and snowed on the peaks; on any expedition one was sure to get wet, and mountains of any magnitude were impossible. With a Surgeon-Major on leave from India I took a turn at fly-fishing, not in the glacier water of the Kander, but in a pretty stream with pools, where the trout, though small, would rise to a fly. His Himalayan experience made the Surgeon-Major anxious to stock the glacier torrents of Switzerland with Mahsir, a fish more powerful than the salmon, whose first wild rush on tasting the hook gives such a fierce joy to the sportsman.
My companion, who was a strong walker, described to me his horrible sensations at the sight of a precipice. He told me that his father, though he had shot game in the Himalayas, could never overcome this fear. If the idea of space was absent my friend could climb well, but I gathered that horizontal as well as vertical distance was concerned, because he could not comfortably eat his lunch on a flat platform of an acre of grassland when there were miles of country far distant below and beyond. Mountain climbing for him was out of the question, his condition was almost that of one suffering from agoraphobia or la peur des espaces.
We engaged Joseph Truffer as guide, and as soon as he joined us we completed the Birrenhorn expedition. It was a satisfaction to me to find that he did not climb the couloir easily or at the first attempt, but we had a good scramble on an interesting arête rather like the Portjengrat, in which there is a rock hole or window to crawl through. We went home by a long route up by way of the Ober-Oeschinen Alp, and got thoroughly wet as usual.