CHAPTER IX
A NIGHT ADVENTURE ON THE DENT BLANCHE
MR CECIL SLINGSBY has kindly allowed me to extract the following admirable account of a guideless ascent with two friends of the Dent Blanche. It will be noticed that during a very cold night they “avoided” their “brandy-flask like poison.” When a climber is exhausted and help is near a flask of brandy is invaluable, but when a party has to spend a bitterly cold night in the open, it is madness to touch spirits at all. The effect of a stimulant is to quicken the action of the heart and drive the blood with increased rapidity to the surface. Here it is continually cooled, and before long the heart finds it has to work double hard to keep up the circulation. Therefore to take brandy in order to resist the cold for hours together is like stirring up a cup of hot fluid, whereby fresh surfaces are continually brought in contact with the air and cooled with far greater rapidity than if left quiet. The best companion a climber can have during a night out above the snow-line is a small spirit-lamp. With this he can amuse and fortify himself at intervals, melting snow and making tea or soup, which will be of real help in enabling the party to pass without injury through the ordeal. Doctors and climbers of experience will, I know, bear out what I say. The truth of it was once more shown not very long ago under the following circumstances:
