CHAPTER VIII
SOME NARROW ESCAPES AND FATAL ACCIDENTS
PROBABLY not half the narrow escapes experienced by climbers are ever described, even in the pages of the various publications of English and foreign Alpine Clubs, though when an accident by the breaking of a snow-cornice is just avoided, the incident is so terribly impressive that several accounts have found their way into print. Scarcely anything more startling than a certain occurrence on a ridge of the Mönch, which happened to the late Mr Moore and his two guides, Melchior and Jacob Anderegg, has ever been related. The party had succeeded in making the ascent of the Mönch from the Wengern Alp, it being only the third occasion when this long and difficult climb was accomplished, each of their predecessors spending three days and three nights on the expedition.
Having gained the summit, the party proceeded to go down by the usual route towards the Trugberg. This follows a very narrow arête. “On the left hand,” says Mr Moore in The Alpine Journal, “is an absolute precipice; on the right a slope, which might be called precipitous, falls to the Aletsch Glacier. The quantity of snow on the ridge was enormous, and the sun had begun to tell upon it. We knew too much to attempt to approach the upper edge, and kept at a distance of some 12 feet below it on the Aletsch side; lower down we dared not go, owing to the steepness of the slope and the danger of starting an avalanche. With Melchior in front it is unnecessary to say that we moved with the greatest caution. No man is more alive than he to the danger arising from a snow-cornice. He sounded with his axe at every step, and we went steadily along, anxious, but with every reason to believe that we were giving the cornice a wide berth. Suddenly came a startling cry from Melchior. At the same instant I felt myself stagger, and, instinctively swinging ever so slightly to the right, found myself the next moment sitting astride on the ridge. With a thundering roar the cornice on our left for a distance of some 200 yards went crashing down to the depths below, sending up clouds of snow-dust which completely concealed my companions from me. It was only by the absence of all strain on the rope that I knew—though at the moment I scarcely realised the fact—that they were, like myself, safe. As the dust cleared off, Melchior, also sitting astride of the ridge, turned towards me, his face white as the snow which covered us. That it was no personal fear which had blanched our leader’s sunburnt cheeks his first words, when he could find utterance, showed. ‘God be thanked!’ said he; ‘I never thought to see either of you there.’ We had, in fact, escaped destruction by a hand’s-breadth. As I believe, our right feet had been on the ridge, our left on the cornice; we had thus just sufficient firm standing-ground to enable us to make that instinctive movement to the right which had landed us á cheval, for Jacob had fallen in the same position as Melchior and myself. Few words were said; but words poorly express the emotions at such a moment. Melchior’s axe had been carried down with the cornice as it fell, but had fortunately lodged on the face of the precipice 50 feet below. It was too precious to leave behind, so we let him down by the rope, and descending in a cat-like way peculiar to first-class guides when not hampered by Herrshaft, he regained it without difficulty.
“Our further descent was uneventful.”