A far more serious occurrence, however, took place on the north side of the Rothhorn in 1894, involving the loss of a life, the rest of the party escaping in a miraculous manner.
I take my account of the disaster from The Alpine Journal.
“On 20th September an accident occurred on the Zinal Rothhorn, in which Joseph Marie Biner, a well-known Zermatt guide, lost his life. The other members of the party were Dr Peter Horrocks and Peter Perren, both of whom are to be congratulated on their very narrow escape. The party had already effected the ascent of the mountain, and were descending towards Zermatt. On reaching the well-known Blatte overlooking the Durand Glacier, the usual precautions were observed. Biner, who was leading, crossed the awkward slab, and planted himself firmly on the opposite side. Perren, who was last, was standing behind and holding on to a fair-sized rock, round which he was paying out the rope; while Dr Horrocks crossed the slab, and Biner gradually pulled in the slack. Suddenly, the rock in which Perren placed such confidence came out, and bounded down the mountain side. Perren slid rapidly down the steep rocks; Dr Horrocks, who had no foot-hold and very little hand-hold, was jerked from his position, turning a somersault, and becoming momentarily stunned from his head striking against the rock. The strain on the rope was too great for Biner to withstand, and he was dragged down too. The whole party half tumbled, half slid, down the very steep smooth rocks for 30 feet or 40 feet, when the rope between Dr Horrocks and Perren caught behind a projecting rock, and brought them both to a standstill. Perren found himself landed in a small patch of soft snow some 15 feet below the rock, which had so fortunately engaged the rope, while Dr Horrocks, some 7 feet higher up, though at first suspended with his back to the steep rocks, was very soon able to get more or less foot-hold. Poor Biner had the extra length of his own rope still to fall, and, when the strain came, the rope broke, according to one account, half-way between him and Dr Horrocks; according to another, rather nearer to the latter. Biner fell down on to the Durand Glacier, some 2000 feet below, whence his mutilated body was recovered by a search party which crossed the Trift Pass, carried the body down to Zinal, and so by road and train brought it to Zermatt, where the funeral took place. Dr Horrocks and Perren were rescued from their dangerous position some ten or twelve minutes after the accident occurred, by the guides Emile Gentinetta and Edouard Julen, who were following down the mountain with another party.”
To return to ourselves. We steadily progressed down the cold and snowy face, with rope kept taut and paid out slowly as, one by one, we moved lower. I need not follow our climb, which was without incident, and while it was still daylight, we reached the snow ridge, on the stones just below, which in ascending it is usual to pause for breakfast. We were particularly anxious to be off the stony rocks below and to gain the little glacier and pass over the moraine before dark, but this we could not manage, so in spite of our lantern we wandered about on those odious rocks for hours before we found the gully by which alone it is possible to get off them. Our various attempts entailed the descent of slippery chimneys leading to the top of black precipices, with nothing to be done but scramble up again, merely to embark in other chimneys with precisely similar consequences. I got so sick of the whole thing that I would gladly have dozed under a rock and awaited daylight. The guides, however, stuck to the business, and after a positive nightmare of gullies they at last hit off the right and only one. I have seldom felt greater satisfaction than when I stepped off those detestable rocks on to the snow, shimmering beneath our feet in the starlight. We had now only to cross the glacier and make our way down an exceedingly steep but well-defined foot-path over the sharply-crested moraine. Once we had left this behind us we had nothing more than grass-slopes between us and the Trift Inn. As soon as we reached this final stage in our day’s work, we selected the most comfortable-looking hollow, and hanging the lantern to an axe stuck upright in the ground, we prepared, at a somewhat unorthodox hour and within only thirty minutes of the hotel, to enjoy a well-earned meal.
CHAPTER XIII
BENIGHTED ON A SNOW PEAK
IN a most interesting account of a mountain adventure which, by the courtesy of the writer, Sir H. Seymour King, I am enabled to reprint from The Alpine Journal, we are once more reminded that a party of thoroughly competent and robust mountaineers can come without evil after-effects out of a night of great hardship which would have undoubtedly proved fatal to ill-equipped and inexperienced amateurs and guides, such as those accompanying Mr Burckhardt, who perished from exposure on the Matterhorn.[8]
After describing a previous ascent, Sir H. Seymour King goes on to say:
“A few days later we went to Mürren, with the intention of carrying out a long-cherished plan of mine and testing the possibility of ascending the Silberhorn from the Roththal. Previous ascents had proved so lengthy, necessitating, I think, in nearly every case, the passing of a night on the rocks or the glacier, that I thought it would be highly desirable if some shorter route could be discovered. I had an idea that the route by the western arête would prove to be the one sought for. Unfortunately, we were delayed in making an attempt by bad weather until the 23rd of September, which is undoubtedly too late in the year for so difficult an expedition.
“I left the Hôtel Silberhorn with Ambrose Supersax and Louis Zurbrücken as guides, and a porter, at ten o’clock on the morning of the 23rd of September, and followed for some distance the usual path to the Jungfrau Hut; at length, leaving the Roththal path on the right, we struck off into a goat track, which leads by narrow ledges round the shoulder of the great bluffs forming the northern boundary of the Roththal. In this way gaining the face of the alp fronting Mürren, we made our way to the base of the ‘Strahlplatten,’ where we had determined to encamp for the night.
“The nights were already lengthening out, and where we were it was not light before six, and it was not possible to move earlier than five; punctually at that hour we started. We took only one knapsack with us, leaving the rest of the things with the porter, whom we instructed to stay where he was until he saw whether we were going to return the same way or not, as we thought it was quite possible we might have to pass another night at the same place. We therefore arranged with him that when we got to a certain point on the ridge, if we intended to return, we would wave our hats; but if we made no sign, he might pack up his things and go home, as in that case he might understand that we had determined either to descend from the Silberhorn across the glacier to the Wengern Alp, or else make our way over the Jungfrau, and pass the night in the Bergli Hut.