According to Mr. Sowerby, in his Forest Cantons, the larches always choose the crystalline rocks, while the pines prefer the limestone.
Starting from the Hotel at half-past one in the morning, we had a roasting hot day on that beautiful snow-peak, the Doldenhorn. With Hari as guide, we followed a large swinging oil-lamp, instead of the usual lantern, and toiled up through jungle, to find the snow all fresh and soft; lovely to look upon, but wearisome to travel up; a long ice-slope at the top gave rest to all except our leader, who had to cut steps to the final corniced ridge; there we held him with the rope in leaning over to judge whether we might safely sit down upon the summit.
On our departure from Kandersteg, a lady and her husband joined us in a delightful walk over the Petersgrat. We rested a night at the Selden châlets in the hay, giving the lady the only bed of the place, and, starting the next morning early, had an easy day over that beautiful glacier pass, arriving at Ried in the Lötschen Thal in a broiling sun. Nothing more was then known of those two poor fellows who went for their last climb a few weeks before, left the little inn and never returned.
My companion had come with me to ascend the Bietschhorn, and we found it a first-rate climb, requiring continual care because of the rotten state of the rock arête. Every stone has to be tested before the weight is allowed to rest upon it, and the movements over the ridge must be lovingly and embracingly made without jerk or hurry. In Alpine slang the mountain is badly in need of repair. We were on the summit during an earthquake, of which we felt nothing, though at Zermatt there was considerable alarm, and a climber on the Rothhorn is reported to have had to sit tight as though on a bucking horse!
Next day we walked down to the Rhone valley, and came to Zermatt with our guides, Alois Kalbermatten and Peter Perren. Here again Mr. M. was actively at work with Melchior, and as he came down from Monte Rosa, he told me how pleased he was to have made an anniversary ascent of a mountain he had climbed forty years ago!
We made for the highest point of Monte Rosa by starting from the hut by lantern-light, and going up the glacier as if to cross the Lys Joch, then taking a rock arête to the summit, we descended by the usual snowy route to the Gorner glacier, and so back to Zermatt. My feet had been very cold on the glacier; the mass of nails carried, unless the soles of the boots be very thick, chills the feet as the iron gets cold upon the ice, and in this respect there is more to say for Mummery spikes, which carry the feet slightly off the ice. F. Andenmatten, of Zermatt, made such a successful improvement in clumping my boots, that he obtained an order for another pair on the spot, and I believe him to be an artist of the first rank for climbing boots.
On our next climb, in crossing the Furggen Joch to reach the Italian hut above the Col du Lion, on the Italian side of the Matterhorn, we had an awkward adventure. Perren was helping a porter, who carried up wood for us, over the bergschrund, and was leaning forwards to reach him with his axe, when down came a stone from above—“a bolt from the blue” and struck poor Perren on the head. The blood ran over his face and gave him a ghastly look. The blow did not result in ordinary shock, it only excited him so that he would not sit down to have his hurt dressed, but shouted out a noisy account of the accident. Fortunately I had an antiseptic dressing and bandage in my rücksack, and though he had a nasty torn wound of the scalp, I decided to proceed at least as far as the hut, though it was five hours’ hard climb, and I felt doubtful as to whether he would be fit to traverse the Matterhorn in the morning.
The main object of our expedition was to climb over the top of the mountain from Italy and down the Swiss side to Zermatt. However, when day broke he wished to proceed, and assured me that he could manage the climbing. Rather than risk the success of the expedition, I offered to come down with him, and pay him the same price, but he would not hear of it, and the other guide being quite confident, with some misgiving I went over the mountain with the wounded man. My fear was of brandy combined with a hot sun, and images arose before me of a strong man delirious on the awful precipices of this south side of the Matterhorn. It was very soon apparent that my guide’s powers were fully equal to his work, for our party went strongly and at a fair pace. We had breakfast and rested half an hour on the classic rocks of the Tyndallgrat, and reached the summit in less than five hours from the start, the second time we have stood together on that snowy ridge which crowns the majestic mountain. “Long Biner,” a Zermatt guide, who came up with a party from the other side, here told us of the death of Emile Rey, and we were filled with wonder that the famous climber should have ended his career by a fatal slip when all his serious work was done on the Aiguille du Géant—a mountain which he knew so well.
Returning to the Monte Rosa Hotel for a rest, I was fortunate in falling in with Captain Abney, who kindly photographed for me the naked feet of my guides in the act of climbing a rock. It has often been noticed that a guide can go face forward, and whole-footed up a slope, while the amateur following, and coming to the steep part, has to go on his toes or turn sideways. It seems possible that the angle made by the foot with the leg may be more acute in the guide who has climbed from infancy, and though it is probably very much a matter of balance, I wished to compare photographs of amateurs’ feet when put into similar action. The guides wear thick leather boots loosely laced at the top, so that it is difficult to see the play of the ankle.