“We rested at the Staffel Alp, where we had some most refreshing tea, and reached Zermatt in the evening.”
CHAPTER X
ALONE ON THE DENT BLANCHE
I AM indebted to Mr Harold Spender, the author of a fine description of the accident in 1899 on the Dent Blanche, for permission to reprint the greater portion of it, and also to the proprietors of McClure’s Magazine and of The Strand Magazine, in which publications it first appeared. The safe return of one of the party is alluded to in The Alpine Journal as one of the most wonderful escapes in the whole annals of mountaineering.
“Mr F. W. Hill, whose narrative in The Alpine Journal necessarily forms the best evidence as to the incidents, says that it was Glynne Jones who wanted to climb the Dent Blanche by its western arête—a notably difficult undertaking, and one that has probably only twice been achieved.
“Glynne Jones had discussed the possibilities of the undertaking with his own guide, Elias Furrer, of Stalden, and they had come to the conclusion that the conditions were never likely to be more favourable than in this August of 1899. Glynne Jones, therefore, asked Mr Hill to accompany them, and to bring along with him his own guide, Jean Vuignier, of Evolena. Both guides knew their climbers very well; for Furrer had been with Glynne Jones on and off for five years, and Vuignier had climbed at Zermatt with Hill the year before. But Mr Hill, who had promised to take his wife to Zermatt over the Col d’Herens, refused to go. Glynne Jones accordingly secured a second guide in Clemens Zurbriggen, of Saas-Fée, a young member of a great climbing clan. Vuignier, however, was so disappointed at his employer’s refusal, that Mr Hill, finding that his wife made no objection, finally consented to join the party. Thus, with the addition of Mr Hill and his guide, the expedition numbered five members. They left Arolla on Sunday morning, 27th August, with a porter carrying blankets. They intended to sleep on the rocks below the arête. Arriving at the Bricolla châlets, a few shepherds’ huts high up the mountain, at four in the afternoon, they changed their minds, sent the blankets down to Arolla, and slept in the huts.
“They started at three o’clock in the morning in two parties, the first consisting of Furrer, Zurbriggen, and Jones, roped in that order, and the second of Vuignier and Hill. They crossed the glacier and reached the ridge in good time. ‘It was soon very evident,’ says Mr Hill in his narrative, ‘that the climbing was going to be difficult, as the rocks were steep slabs, broken and easy occasionally, but, on the whole, far too smooth.’ Rock-climbers do not particularly care how steep a rock may be so long as it is broken up into fissures which will give hold to the feet and hands. In the steepest mountains of the Dolomite region, for instance, the rocks are thus broken, and therefore mountains can be climbed easily which, from their bases, look absolutely inaccessible.
“As they progressed up and along the ridge the climbing became more and more difficult. They had to go slowly and with extreme caution, and often they were in doubt as to the best way to proceed. Sometimes, indeed, there seemed no possible route. In these places Furrer, who seems to have been accepted as the leader of the party, would detach himself from the rope and go forward to find a passage.
“On entering upon this part of the climb the two parties had joined ropes, and were now advancing as one, and roped in this order—Furrer, Zurbriggen, Glynne Jones, Vuignier, and Hill.
“It is evident that between nine o’clock and ten climbing had become exceedingly arduous. ‘In two or three places,’ says Mr Hill, ‘the only possible way was over an overhanging rock up which the leader had to be pushed and the others helped from above and below.’ This gives us a graphic picture of the nature of the climb. Nothing is more fatiguing than to climb over a rock which is in the least degree overhanging. Mr Hill tells me that Furrer showed him his finger-tips at breakfast-time—9 A.M.—and that they were severely cut.
“Yet no one must imagine for an instant that the party was in the least degree puzzled or vexed. There is nothing so exhilarating as the conflict with danger, and it generally happens in climbing a mountain that the party is merriest at the most difficult places. Mr Hill, indeed, tells us that they were in the ‘highest spirits.’ ‘Climbing carefully,’ he says, ‘but in the highest spirits, we made good progress, for at ten o’clock it was agreed we were within an hour of the summit.’ It was at this point and time that the accident occurred.