The following exciting account is taken from an article by Herr Lorria, which appeared in The St Moritz Post for 28th January 1888. The injuries received were so terrible that, I believe, Herr Lorria never entirely ceased to feel their effects.
The party consisted of two Austrian gentlemen, Herren Lammer and Lorria, without guides, who, in 1887, had made Zermatt their headquarters for some climbs. They had difficulty in deciding which ascent to begin with, especially as the weather had recently been bad, and the peaks were not in first-class condition. Herr Lorria writes:
"I fancied the Pointe de Zinal as the object of our tour; but Lammer, who had never been on the Matterhorn, wished to climb this mountain by the western flank—a route which had only once before been attacked, namely by Mr Penhall. We had with us the drawing of Penhall's route, published in The Alpine Journal.
"After skirting a jutting cliff, we reached the couloir at its narrowest point. It was clear that we had followed the route laid down in The Alpine Journal; and although Mr Penhall says that the rocks here are very easy, I cannot at all agree with him.
"We could not simply cross over the couloir, for, on the opposite side, the rocks looked horrible: it was only possible to cross it some forty or fifty mètres higher. We climbed down into the couloir: the ice was furrowed by avalanches. We were obliged to cut steps as we mounted upwards in a sloping direction. In a quarter of an hour we were on the other side of the couloir. The impression which the couloir made upon me is best shown by the words which I at the moment addressed to Lammer: 'We are now completely cut off.' We saw clearly that it was only the early hour, before the sun was yet upon the couloir, which protected us from danger. Once more upon the rocks, we kept our course as much as possible parallel to the N.W. arête. We clambered along, first over rocks covered with ice, then over glassy ledges, always sloping downwards. Our progress was slow indeed; the formation of the rock surface was ever becoming more unfavourable, and the covering of ice was a fearful hindrance.
"Such difficult rocks I had rarely seen before; the wrinkled ledges of the Dent Blanche were easy compared to them. At 1 P.M., we were standing on a level with the "Grand Tower"; the summit lay close before us, but as far as we could see, the rocks were completely coated with a treacherous layer of ice. Immediately before us was a precipitous ice couloir. All attempts to advance were fruitless, even our crampons were of no avail. Driven back! If this, in all cases, is a heavy blow for the mountain climber, we had here, in addition, the danger which we knew so well, and which was every moment increasing. It was one o'clock in the afternoon; the rays of the sun already struck the western wall of the mountain; stone after stone, loosened from its icy fetters, whistled past us. Back! As fast as possible back! Lammer pulled off his shoes and I stuffed them into the knapsack, holding also our two ice-axes. As I clambered down the first I was often obliged to trust to the rope. The ledges, which had given us trouble in the ascent, were now fearfully difficult. Across a short ice slope, in which we had cut steps in the ascent, Lammer was obliged, as time pressed, to get along without his shoes. The difficulties increased; every moment the danger became greater; and already whole avalanches of stones rattled down. The situation was indeed critical. At last, after immense difficulty, we reached the edge of the couloir at the place we had left it in the ascent. But we could find no spot protected from the stones; they literally came down upon us like hail. Which was the more serious danger, the threatening avalanches in the couloir or the pelting of the stones which swept down from every side? On the far side of the couloir there was safety, as all the stones must in the end reach the couloir, which divides the whole face of the mountain into two parts. It was now five o'clock in the afternoon; the burning rays of the sun came down upon us, and countless stones whirled through the air. We remembered the saying of Dr Güssfeldt, in his magnificent description of the passage of the Col du Lion, that only at midnight is tranquility restored. We resolved, then, to risk the short stretch across the couloir. Lammer pulled on his shoes; I was the first to leave the rocks. The snow which covered the ice was suspiciously soft, but we had no need to cut steps. In the avalanche track before us on the right a mighty avalanche is thundering down; stones leap into the couloir, and give rise to new avalanches.
"Suddenly my consciousness is extinguished, and I do not recover it till twenty-one days later. I can, therefore, only tell what Lammer saw. Gently from above an avalanche of snow came sliding down upon us; it carried Lammer away in spite of his efforts, and it projected me with my head against a rock. Lammer was blinded by the powdery snow, and thought that his last hour was come. The thunder of the roaring avalanche was fearful; we were dashed over rocks, laid bare in the avalanche track, and leaped over two immense bergschrunds. At every change of the slope we flew into the air, and then were plunged again into the snow, and often dashed against one another. For a long time it seemed to Lammer as if all were over, countless thoughts went thronging through his brain, until at last the avalanche had expended its force, and we were left lying on the Tiefenmatten Glacier. Our fall was estimated at from 550 to 800 English feet.
"I lay unconscious, quite buried in the snow; the rope had gone twice round my neck and bound it fast. Lammer, who quickly recovered consciousness, pulled me out of the snow, cut the rope, and gave me a good shake. I then awoke, but being delirious, I resisted with all my might my friend's endeavours to pull me out of the track of the avalanche. However, he succeeded in getting me on to a stone (I was, of course, unable to walk), and gave me his coat; and having thus done all that was possible for me, he began to creep downwards on hands and knees. He could not stand, having a badly sprained ankle; except for that he escaped with merely a few bruises and scratches. At length Lammer arrived at the Stockje hut, but to his intense disappointment there was nobody there. He did not pause to give vent to his annoyance, however, but continued his way down. Twice he felt nearly unable to proceed, and would have abandoned himself to his fate had not the thought of me kept him up and urged him on. At three o'clock in the morning he reached the Staffel Alp, but none of the people there were willing to venture on the glacier. He now gave up all hope that I could be saved, though he nevertheless sent a messenger to Herr Seiler, who reached Zermatt at about 4.15 A.M.
"In half an hour's time a relief party set out from Zermatt. When the party reached the Staffel Alp, Lammer was unconscious, but most fortunately he had written on a piece of paper the information that I was lying at the foot of Penhall's couloir. They found me about half-past eight o'clock. I had taken off all my clothes in my delirium, and had slipped off the rock on which Lammer had left me. One of my feet was broken and both were frozen into the snow, and had to be cut out with an axe.
"At 8 P.M. I was brought back to Zermatt, and for twenty days I lay unconscious at the Monte Rosa Hotel hovering between life and death."