"We were soon safe upon a fine open plateau of the névé, where we threaded our way among a few snow crevasses requiring caution, and then prepared for a comfortable halt in an apparently safe place.
"The provision knapsacks were emptied and used as seats; bottles of red wine were stuck upright in the snow; a goodly leg of cold mutton on its sheet of paper formed the centre, garnished with hard eggs and bread and cheese, round which we ranged ourselves in a circle. High festival was held under the deep blue heavens, and now and then, as we looked up at the wonderful wall of rocks which we had descended, we congratulated ourselves on the victory. M. Seiler's oranges supplied the rare luxury of a dessert, and we were just in the full enjoyment of the delicacy when a booming sound, like the discharge of a gun far over our heads, made us all at once glance upwards to the top of the Trifthorn. Close to its craggy summit hung a cloud of dust, like dirty smoke, and in few seconds another and a larger one burst forth several hundred feet lower. A glance through the telescope showed that a fall of rocks had commenced, and the fragments were leaping down from ledge to ledge in a series of cascades. The uproar became tremendous; thousands of fragments making every variety of noise according to their size, and producing the effect of a fire of musketry and artillery combined, thundered downwards from so great a height that we waited anxiously for some considerable time to see them reach the snow-field below. As nearly as we could estimate the distance, we were 500 yards from the base of the rocks, so we thought that, come what might, we were in a tolerably secure position. At last we saw many of the blocks plunge into the snow after taking their last fearful leap; presently much larger fragments followed; the noise grew fiercer and fiercer, and huge blocks began to fall so near to us that we jumped to our feet, preparing to dodge them to the best of our ability. 'Look out!' cried someone, and we opened out right and left at the approach of a monster, evidently weighing many hundredweights, which was coming right at us like a huge shell fired from a mortar. It fell with a heavy thud not more than 20 feet from us, scattering lumps of snow into the circle."
Years afterwards a very sad accident occurred at this spot, a lady being struck and killed by a falling stone. In this case the fatality was unquestionably due to the start having been made at too late an hour. An inn in the Trift Valley makes it easy to reach the pass soon after dawn.
THE PERILS OF THE MOMING PASS.
In 1864 many peaks remained unsealed, and passes untraversed in the Zermatt district, though now almost every inch of every mountain has felt the foot of man. Yet even now few passes have been made there so difficult and dangerous (if Mr Whymper's route be exactly followed) as that of the Moming, from Zinal to Zermatt. Mr Whymper gives a most graphic and exciting description of what befell his party, which included Mr Moore and the two famous guides Almer and Croz. Having slept at some filthy châlets, the climbers, first passing over easy mountain slopes, gained a level glacier. Beyond this a way towards the unexplored gap in the ridge, which they called the Moming Pass, had to be decided on. The choice lay between difficult and perhaps impassable rocks, and an ice-slope so steep and broken that it appeared likely to turn out impracticable. In fact it was the sort of position that whichever route was chosen the climbers were sure, when once on it, to wish it had been the other. Finally, the ice-slope, over which a line of ice-cliffs hung threateningly, lurching right above the track to be taken, was decided on, and the whole party advanced for the attack. Mr Whymper writes:
"Across this ice-slope Croz now proceeded to cut. It was executing a flank movement in the face of an enemy by whom we might be attacked at any moment. The peril was obvious. It was a monstrous folly. It was foolhardiness. A retreat should have been sounded.[4]
"'I am not ashamed to confess,' wrote Moore in his Journal, 'that during the whole time we were crossing this slope my heart was in my mouth, and I never felt relieved from such a load of care as when, after, I suppose, a passage of about twenty minutes, we got on to the rocks and were in safety.... I have never heard a positive oath come from Almer's mouth, but the language in which he kept up a running commentary, more to himself than to me, as we went along, was stronger than I should have given him credit for using. His prominent feeling seemed to be one of indignation that we should be in such a position, and self-reproach at being a party to the proceeding; while the emphatic way in which, at intervals, he exclaimed, 'Quick; be quick,' sufficiently betokened his alarm.
"It was not necessary to admonish Croz to be quick. He was fully as alive to the risk as any of the others. He told me afterwards that this place was the most dangerous he had ever crossed, and that no consideration whatever would tempt him to cross it again. Manfully did he exert himself to escape from the impending destruction. His head, bent down to his work, never turned to the right or to the left. One, two, three, went his axe, and then he stepped on to the spot he had been cutting. How painfully insecure should we have considered those steps at any other time! But now, we thought only of the rocks in front, and of the hideous séracs, lurching over above us, apparently in the act of falling.
"We got to the rocks in safety, and if they had been doubly as difficult as they were, we should still have been well content. We sat down and refreshed the inner man, keeping our eyes on the towering pinnacles of ice under which we had passed, but which, now, were almost beneath us. Without a preliminary warning sound, one of the largest—as high as the Monument at London Bridge—fell upon the slope below. The stately mass heeled over as if upon a hinge (holding together until it bent thirty degrees forwards), then it crushed out its base, and, rent into a thousand fragments, plunged vertically down upon the slope that we had crossed! Every atom of our track that was in its course was obliterated; all the new snow was swept away, and a broad sheet of smooth, glassy ice, showed the resistless force with which it had fallen.
"It was inexcusable to follow such a perilous path, but it is easy to understand why it was taken. To have retreated from the place where Croz suggested a change of plan, to have descended below the reach of danger, and to have mounted again by the route which Almer suggested, would have been equivalent to abandoning the excursion; for no one would have passed another night in the châlet on the Arpitetta Alp. 'Many' says Thucydides, 'though seeing well the perils ahead, are forced along by fear of dishonour—as the world calls it—so that, vanquished by a mere word, they fall into irremediable calamities.' Such was nearly the case here. No one could say a word in justification of the course which was adopted; all were alive to the danger that was being encountered; yet a grave risk was deliberately—although unwillingly—incurred, in preference to admitting, by withdrawal from an untenable position, that an error of judgment had been committed.