Hours of Exercise in the Alps

by John Tyndall

The vast mass of snow collected on the plateau of the Col du Géant, and compressed to ice by its own weight, reaches the throat of the valley, which stretches from the rocks called Le Rognon to the promontory of the Aiguille Noire. Through this defile it is forced, falling steeply, and forming one of the grandest ice-cascades in the Alps. At the summit it is broken into transverse chasms of enormous width and depth; the ridges between these break across again, and form those castellated masses to which the name of séracs has been applied. In descending the cascade the ice is crushed and riven; ruined towers, which have tumbled from the summit, cumber the slope, and smooth vertical precipices of ice rise in succession out of the ruins. At the base of the fall the fragments are again squeezed together, but the confusion is still great, the glacier being tossed into billowy shapes, scooped into caverns, and cut into gorges by torrents which expand here and there into deep green lakes.

Across this portion of the glacier we proceeded westward, purposing to attempt the ascent at the Rognon side.[30] Perils and difficulties soon began to thicken round us. The confusion of ice-pinnacles, crags, and chasms was very bewildering. Plates of ice jutted from the glacier like enormous fins, up the sides of which we had to rise by steps, and along the edges of which we had to walk. Often, while perched upon these eminences, we were flanked right and left by crevasses, the depth of which might be inferred from their impenetrable gloom. At some places forces of extreme complexity had acted on the mass; the ridges were broken into columns, and some of these were twisted half round; while the chasms were cut up into shafts which resembled gigantic honeycombs. Our work was very difficult, sometimes disheartening: nevertheless, our inspiration was, that what man has done man may do, and we accordingly persevered. My fellow-traveller was silent for a time: the brandy had its effect upon him, and he confessed it; but I thought that a contact with the cold ice would soon cause this to disappear, after which I resolved not to influence his judgment in the least.

Looking now to the right, I suddenly became aware that, high above us, a multitude of unstable crags and leaning columns of ice covered the precipitous incline. We had reached a position where protecting cliffs rose to our right, while in front of us was a space more open than any we had yet passed. The reason was that the ice avalanches had chosen it for their principal path. We had stepped upon this space when a peal above us brought us to a stand. Crash! crash! crash! nearer and nearer, the sound becoming more continuous and confused, as the descending masses broke into smaller blocks. Onward they came! boulders half a ton and more in weight, leaping down with a kind of maniacal fury, as if their sole mission was to crush the séracs to powder. Some of them on striking the ice rebounded like elastic balls, described parabolas through the air, again smote the ice, and scattered its dust like clouds in the atmosphere. Deflected by their collision with the glacier, some blocks were carried past us within a few yards of the spot where we stood. I had never before witnessed an exhibition of force at all comparable to this, and its proximity rendered that fearful which at a little distance would have been sublime.

My companion held his breath, and then exclaimed, ‘C’est terrible! il faut retourner.’ In fact, while the avalanche continued we could not at all calculate upon our safety. When we heard the first peal we had instinctively retreated to the shelter of the ice bastions; but what if one of these missiles struck the tower beside us! would it be able to withstand the shock? We knew not. In reply to the proposal of my companion, I simply said, ‘By all means, if you desire it; but let us wait a little.’ I felt that fear was just as bad a counsellor as rashness, and thought it but fair to wait until my companion’s terror had subsided. We waited accordingly, and he seemed to gather courage and assurance. I scanned the heights and saw that a little more effort in an upward direction would place us in a much less perilous position, as far as the avalanches were concerned. I pointed this out to my companion, and we went forward. Once indeed, for a minute or two, I felt anxious. We had to cross in the shadow of a tower of ice, of a loose and threatening character, which quite overhung our track. The freshly broken masses at its base, and at some distance below it, showed that it must have partially given way some hours before. ‘Don’t speak or make any noise,’ said my companion; and, although rather sceptical as to the influence of speech in such a case, I held my tongue and escaped from the dangerous vicinity as fast as my legs and alpenstock could carry me.

Unbroken spaces, covered with snow, now began to spread between the crevasses; these latter, however, became larger, and were generally placed end to end en échelon. When, therefore, we arrived at the edge of a chasm, by walking along it we usually soon reached a point where a second one joined on it. The extremities of the chasms ran parallel to each other for some distance, one being separated from the other, throughout this distance, by a wall of incipient ice, coped at the top by snow. At other places, however, the lower portion of the partition between the fissures had melted away, leaving the chasm spanned by a bridge of snow, the capacity of which to bear us was often a matter of delicate experiment. Over these bridges we stepped as lightly as possible: ‘Allez doucement ici,’ was the perpetual admonition of my companion, ‘et il faut toujours sonder.’

In many cases, indeed, we could not at all guess at the state of matters underneath the covering of snow. We had picked up a few hints upon this subject, but neither of us was at this time sufficiently experienced to make practical use of them. The ‘sounding’ too was rather weary work, as, to make it of any value, the bâton must be driven into the snow with considerable force. Further up in the névé the fissures became less frequent, but some of them were of great depth and width. On those silent heights there is something peculiarly solemn in the aspect of the crevasses, yawning gloomily day and night, as if with a never-satisfied hunger. We stumbled on the skeleton of a chamois, which had probably met its death by falling into a chasm, and been disgorged lower down. But a thousand chamois between these cavernous jaws would not make a mouthful. I scarcely knew which to choose—these pitfalls of the névé, or the avalanches. The latter are terrible, but they are grand, outspoken things; the ice crags proclaim from their heights, ‘Do not trust us; we are momentary and merciless.’ They wear the aspect of hostility undisguised; but these chasms of the névé are typified by the treachery of the moral world, hiding themselves under shining coverlets of snow, and compassing their ends by dissimulation.

After some time we alighted on the trace of those who had crossed the day before. The danger was over when we made the discovery, but it saved us some exploring amid the crevasses which still remained. We at length got quite clear of the fissures and mounted zigzag to the summit of the col. Clouds drove up against us from the valley of Courmayeur, but they made no way over the col. At the summit they encountered a stratum of drier air, mixing with which they were reduced, as fast as they came, to a state of invisible vapour. Upon the very top of the col I spread my plaid, and with the appetites of hungry eagles we attacked our chicken and mutton. I examined the snow and made some experiments on sound; but little Balmat’s feet were so cold that he feared being frostbitten, and at his entreaty we started on our descent again as soon as possible.

To the top of the séracs we retraced the course by which we had ascended, but here we lost the track, for there was no snow to retain it. A new lesson was before us. We kept nearer to the centre of the glacier than when we ascended, thereby avoiding the avalanches, but getting into ice more riven and dislocated. We were often utterly at a loss how to proceed. My companion made several attempts to regain the morning’s track, preferring to risk the avalanches rather than be blocked and ditched up in an ice-prison from which we saw no means of escape. Wherever we turned peril stared us in the face; but the recurrence of danger had rendered us callous to it, and this indifference gave a mechanical surety to the step in places where such surety was the only means of avoiding destruction. Once or twice, while standing on the summit of a peak of ice, and looking at the pits and chasms beneath me, at the distance through which we had hewn our way, and at the work still to be accomplished, I experienced an incipient flush of terror. But this was immediately drowned in action. Indeed the case was so bad, the necessity for exertion so paramount, that the will acquired an energy which crushed out terror. We proceeded, however, with the most steady watchfulness. When we arrived at a difficulty which seemed insuperable, we calmly inspected it, looking at it on all sides; and though we had often to retrace our steps amid cliffs and chasms, still formidable obstacles repeatedly disappeared before our cool and searching examination. We made no haste, we took no rest, but ever tended downwards. With all our instincts of self-preservation awake, we crossed places which, without the spur of necessity to drive us, we should have deemed impassable.

Once, having walked for some distance along the edge of a high wedge of ice, we had to descend its left face in order to cross a crevasse. The ice was of that loose granular character which causes it to resemble an aggregate of little polyhedrons jointed together more than a coherent solid. I was not aware that the substance was so utterly disintegrated as it proved to be. To aid me in planting my foot securely on the edge of the crevasse, I laid hold of a projecting corner of the ice. It crumbled to pieces in my hand; I tottered for a moment in the effort to regain my balance, my footing gave way, and I went into the chasm. I heard my companion scream, ‘O! mon Dieu, il est perdu!’ but a ledge about two feet wide jutted from the side of the crevasse; and this received me, my fall not amounting to more than three or four feet. A block of ice which partially jammed up the chasm concealed me from Balmat. I called to him, and he responded by another exclamation, ‘O! mon Dieu, comme j’ai peur!’ He helped me up, and, looking anxiously in my face, demanded ‘N’avez-vous pas peur?’ Afterwards the difficulties lessened by degrees, and we began to gladden ourselves by mutual expressions of ‘content’ with what we had accomplished. We at length reached the base of the séracs; ordinary crevasses were trivial in comparison with those from which we had escaped, so we hastened along the glacier, without halting, to the Tacul.

Here a paltry accident caused me more damage than all the dangers of the day. I was passing a rock, the snow beside it seemed firm, and I placed my bâton upon it, leaning trustfully upon the staff. Through the warmth of the rock, or some other cause, the snow had been rendered hollow underneath; it yielded, I fell forward, and although a cat-like capacity of helping myself in such cases saved me from serious hurt, it did not prevent my knee from being urged with all my weight against an edge of granite. I rested for half an hour in our grotto at the Tacul, and afterwards struggled lamely along the Mer de Glace home to the Montanvert. Bloodshot eyes, burnt cheeks, and blistered lips were the result of the journey, but these soon disappeared, and fresh strength was gained for further action.