I got to the Inn in time to change for the table d’hôte, not in the least fatigued, only blaming myself for the painful ordeal I had passed through. While changing my garments in the small bedroom we occupied together, my companion could plainly hear across the room the grating of my fractured rib. So soon as exertion ceased I was entirely well, and had a good dinner and night’s rest.
No traveller who goes for mountain expeditions to the Dauphiné district will leave without feeling a debt of gratitude (mixed with envy) to his own countrymen who have climbed and walked all over this wonderful country. The maps and climber’s guide by Mr. Coolidge are marvels of convenience and accuracy, and must be carried by everyone who wishes to learn his way about these very difficult regions. Mr. Whymper ought to be as proud of the conquest of the Pointe des Ecrins as of the Matterhorn.
My friend had a good climb on the Pic Bourcet, but of course I did not attempt this, returning to England by easy stages, halting at Aix-les-Bains and at Paris. In London I found laughing at “Charley’s Aunt” a serious matter for my damaged rib, though I thoroughly enjoyed this absurd farce, as I enjoyed every day of my vacation, and there was no day I would not willingly live over again.
Switzerland and Savoy
1893
Begin at Kandersteg—Benighted on the Zinal glacier—Glacier tables and baths—Wild beasts in the hut—The Col Durand—Guide in a crevasse—Ascent of the Dent Blanche—A climber exhausted—Ascent of the Weisshorn—A thunderstorm—Death of Mr. Lucas and Mr. Seiler. The Furggen Joch—Italy and the Italian side of Mont Blanc—The hut on the Aiguille Grise—The traverse of Mont Blanc—Anxiety as to weather—The observatory on the summit—Ascent of Aiguille du Dru. Ascent of the Aiguille Verte—Frost-bitten guide—Peculiar dangers of a fine season.
When Albert Smith made the ascent of Mont Blanc in 1851, he did not seem to enjoy himself much; he was thoroughly exhausted and done up, as well he might be, with sixteen guides, and £20 worth of provisions. If he did not have a good time our fathers did, in hearing his lecture, or in reading his dear little book. They listened with the greatest interest to his serio-comic groans. A hundred bottles of wine, sixty-seven fowls, joints of meat in proportion, and ten cheeses carried up the mountain ought to have led to trouble somewhere. On the other hand I enjoyed myself so much in the ascent of Mont Blanc that I fear I have nothing left to entertain others. My climbing friend was with me and two guides, also friends of former years; we had no certificate and no cannon. Nor was there any pretty Julie down below to give me a cornelian heart and talk about “une alliance.”
But I will begin at the beginning, and travel first from Cambridge to Kandersteg, from the land of fen and bog to the land of fine air and bright mountains—the Bernese Oberland. At Kandersteg my friend was staying in Egger’s most comfortable inn, and there we made a plan of campaign. We were fortunate in crossing the Gemmi to obtain a fine view of the mountains we were about to attack. We slept at Sierre in the Rhone Valley, and in the morning went up the Val D’Anniviers, one of the finest valleys in the Alps, a beautiful journey to Zinal, where we met our trusty guides—Alois Kalbermatten and Xaver Imseng. We must needs try and reach the hut high up the glacier that same night, and consequently got benighted, and arrived very late at the Mountet Cabane, rather cross and tired. While the daylight lasted I saw on the glacier hundreds of glacier-tables, like a crop of gigantic mushrooms. The hot weather this year may have made these more apparent, for on all the glaciers I walked over they seemed more conspicuous than usual. A stone, as big as a teacup or a cottage, when it lies upon the glacier, protects the ice beneath from the sun, so that in time the ice melting all round leaves the stone perched on a pedestal of ice. The icy pyramid gradually yields on the sunny side, and allows the stone to tilt and fall always in the same direction. On the Gorner Glacier I saw a stone supported by two separate pyramids, but this is unusual. If the stone which lies upon the glacier be thin enough, it may be so warmed through by the sun that it makes a hole for itself in the ice, and is buried in a pit full of water. So may dirt make a bath in the glacier, or if it be in large quantity, may leave a cone of solid ice all dirt covered, looking like a large ant heap.
The deep pits full of water are started in the manner indicated, but the sun-warmed surface water is continually being replaced by the ice-cold water below, and the warmed water deepens the pit in the ice, until a large bath is formed, often two or three feet deep, with steep sides, and no warning ledge or ridge around, so that a careless walker might go in, and in the dusk they are very difficult to avoid.