“A party of five gentlemen and four Zermatt guides left Zermatt on 24th February for the Bétemp Hut, with the intention of ascending the Signalkuppe and the Zumstein, via the Grenz Glacier and the Capanna Margherita.
“The 25th was spent in ski practice in the neighbourhood of the hut. On the 26th the whole party, with the exception of one guide who had brought a defective pair of skis, left the hut at 3.30 A.M. in weather marked by no adverse conditions of any kind. The Grenz Glacier was reached somewhat west of the point marked 3344 mètres on the Siegfried map. The party unroped, proceeded upwards on their skis towards the point marked 3496 mètres, the surface of the glacier, covered with deep snow, showing no crevasses nor the indications of any. About midway between 3300 mètres and the point 3344 mètres the caravan found itself on a gentle slope, when a muffled crack was heard, and Herr Koenig, Herr Flender, and one of the guides, Hermann Perren, were seen to sink almost simultaneously into a concealed crevasse about 6 feet in width, which ran in a direction parallel with the glacier, carrying with them a mass of snow about 65 feet in length and over 14 feet in thickness. Obviously, no amount of probing would have indicated the presence of the crevasse, and thus by an unfortunate coincidence the three men were standing at the same time over the hidden abyss without knowing it. One of the other guides was instantly lowered into the crevasse by the only available rope (the other being on Herr Flender’s back), which proved to be just too short to reach Hermann Perren, who had fallen about 90 feet, and was standing upright against the side of the crevasse, held fast in a mass of snow which had left his head and one arm free. Two of the party hurried down to fetch another rope from the Bétemps Hut. In the meanwhile Perren had managed, after a struggle of two and a half hours, almost to set himself free, and was eventually drawn out safely, practically uninjured, save a slightly frost-bitten hand. The dead body of Herr Flender, found with his neck broken, partially covered with some 2 feet of hard snow, was then extricated, but in spite of persistent efforts the body of Herr Koenig was not recovered until the next day, when he was found lying face downwards under a mass of compact snow over 10 feet thick. Death in his case was instantaneous, caused by suffocation, the body bearing no signs whatever of external injury. Herr Koenig was laid to rest in the English cemetery at Zermatt, while the body of Herr Flender was conveyed by his relatives to its last resting-place at Düsseldorf. This is, we think, the first fatal accident which has occurred to a party of climbers on skis bound on a serious climbing expedition. The party on this occasion cannot with justice be accused of recklessness, for the apparent neglect of the usual precaution of putting on the rope on a snow-covered glacier will not be misunderstood by those accustomed to the use of skis, who will readily understand that the rope is practically impossible, and even dangerous, for a party on skis.
“A remarkable feature of the accident was the thickness of the mass of snow which gave way under the three men, and demonstrates the extreme insecurity of winter snow on a crevassed glacier. It is possible that the three men were perhaps too close to each other at the time of the accident.
“It is evident that winter climbers who wish to use skis must carry their lives in their own hands, and perhaps the safer plan for future expeditions of this kind will be to make the ascent roped in the usual way on snow racquettes carrying the skis on the back. On the descent the risk of breaking through the snow covering during the rapid progress on skis would of course be very much less than on the ascent.”
One of the most fruitful causes of accidents on mountains is the underrating of difficulties by ignorant persons who, having been hauled up and let down precipices by a couple of sturdy guides in fine weather, proceed to inform their friends and acquaintances that “Nowadays the Matterhorn is mere child’s play, don’t cher know.”
A sorry tale is told by the famous climber, Mr Cecil Slingsby, who, himself accustomed to undertake the hardest climbs without guides, would be the first to discourage imitation in any unfit to follow in his steps.
Writing of Skagastöldstind, in Norway, of which he made the first ascent, and which is still considered the most difficult of the fashionable climbs in that country, he says in The Alpine Journal:
“In 1880 a young tourist, son of a rich banker, whom I will call Nils, desirous of emulating our exploits, attempted the mountain, and with the assistance of two good climbers, who shoved and hauled him up the rocks, succeeded in reaching the summit. Unfortunately, he afterwards wrote a pamphlet of sixty-six pages about the mountain, in which he underrated its difficulties. This pamphlet, I unhesitatingly assert, has been the main cause of a terrible tragedy which took place on Skagastöldstind. It was in this manner. At one of the series of huts built by the tourist club a young man, named Tönsberg, who had been partially deranged, was staying with his wife, and was deriving much benefit from the mountain air. Here he read this pamphlet, and inferred that though Skagastöldstind was undoubtedly a very fine mountain, yet the difficulties of its ascent had been much exaggerated, and that any one might make it. Upon this he set off with a lad seventeen years of age, at 9.30 P.M., in vile weather; walked through the night (in the middle of summer it is never dark), and reached a saetor (or châlet) at 3 A.M.; here they found Peter, one of Nils’ guides, who refused to have anything more to do with the mountain. At last, by means of bribes, and by promising to turn back at once if the mountain should prove impracticable, Peter was persuaded to go forward; and at 6 o’clock they sallied out into the wet. Wind and snow soon assailed them, but Tönsberg would persist in his rash work. At 11 they reached the actual base of the peak, 4100 feet below the top. The lad was frost-bitten and could go no further; neither could Peter. They tried to tie the man with ropes, but he was too strong for them, and used his alpenstock against them, and it was no good. Soon afterwards he left them in the mist, and in twenty strides was out of sight. A month or five weeks after this his remains were found in a deep chasm between a glacier and the rocks, amidst crags at least 2000 feet higher up on the mountain. I may add that the valley Midt Maradal, out of which Skagastöldstind rises, is so difficult to approach, that though it contains rich pasturage at its lower end—a mine of wealth in Norway—its owner, a man of forty-five years, who has overlooked it hundreds of times and lives within three miles of it as the crow flies, had never been in it when I saw him last, and has asked me several times to guide him into it.”
Referring to an expedition from Mouvoison, which began, as do most climbs, over grass slopes, Mr Clinton Dent remarks in Above the Snow Line:
“One ascent over a grass slope is very much like another, and description in detail would be as wearisome as the slopes themselves often prove. Yet it is worthy of notice that there is an art to be acquired even in climbing grass slopes. We had more than one opportunity on the present occasion of seeing that persons look supremely ridiculous if they stumble about, and we noticed also that, like a bowler when he has delivered a long hop to the off for the third time in one over, the stumbler invariably inspects the nails in his boots, a proceeding which deceives no one. It is quite easy to judge of a man’s real mountaineering capacity by the way in which he attacks a steep grass slope. The unskilful person, who fancies himself perfectly at home among the intricacies of an ice-fall, will often candidly admit that he never can walk with well-balanced equilibrium on grass, a form of vegetable which it might be thought in many instances of self-sufficient mountaineers, would naturally suit them. There is often real danger in such places, and not infrequently the wise man will demand the use of the rope, especially when there are any tired members among the party. There is no better way of learning how to preserve a proper balance on a slope than by practising on declivities of moderate steepness, and it is astonishing to find how often those who think they have little to learn, or, still worse, that there is nothing to learn, will find themselves in difficulties on a mountain-side, and forced to realise that they have got themselves into a rather humiliating position. We may have seen, before now, all of us, distinguished cragsmen to whom an ascent of the Weisshorn or Matterhorn was but a mere stroll, utterly pounded in botanical expeditions after Edelweiss, and compelled to regain a position of security by very ungraceful sprawls, or, worse still, have to resort to the unpardonable alternative of asking for assistance.”