The driving roads over Alpine passes are in places exposed to avalanches in winter. At the worst spots galleries of stone are built, through which the sleighs can pass in perfect safety, and if an avalanche fell while they were inside it would pass harmlessly over their heads. On the Albula Pass, in Switzerland, as soon as the avalanches come down, tunnels are cut in the snow through them, and are in constant use till early summer.
Occasionally houses or churches are built in the very path of an avalanche. A V-shaped wall, called an avalanche-breaker, is put behind, and this cuts the snowy stream in two parts, which passes on harmlessly on either side of the building. Sometimes avalanche-breakers of snow, hardened into ice by throwing water over them, are constructed behind barns which have been put in exposed places.
In order that an avalanche may get up speed enough to commence its swift career, the slope the snow rests on where it starts must be at an angle of from 30° to 35° at least.
CHAPTER IV
THE GUIDES OF THE ALPS: WHAT THEY ARE AND WHAT THEY DO
There is no profession drawing its members from the peasant class which requires a combination of so many high and rare qualities as that of a mountain guide. Happily, the dwellers in hill countries seem usually more noble in mind and robust of frame than the inhabitants of plains, and all who know them well must admit that among Alpine guides are to be found men whose intelligence and character would rank high in any class of life.
I have usually noticed that the abilities and duties of a guide are little understood by the non-climber, who often imagines that a guide's sole business is to know the way and to carry the various useless articles which the beginner in mountaineering insists on taking with him.
Edouard Cupelin of Chamonix.
The Guide with whom Mrs Aubrey Le Blond commenced her climbing.