THE DEATH-ROLL OF MONT BLANC.
In these days, when it is the fashion to decry Mont Blanc, in company with a good many other old institutions, there is one thing about the mountain which is apt to be lost sight of, and that is how very fatal it has been to mountaineers. It is quite possible that the proportion of killed to those who succeed in the ascent—and the same will hold good in respect of any other Alpine peak—would not be found to be great, for probably more people have gone up Mont Blanc than any other high mountain; but no number of successful ascents will minimise the fact that there can be very real danger on Mont Blanc. The causes of danger are not far to seek. The mountain is regarded, and in fact is, comparatively easy of ascent; and from the days when Albert Smith did so much to dispel the awe with which it was once the fashion to regard it, the popularity of the expedition has grown year by year, till quite a considerable percentage of those who now go to Chamouni consider but the half of their visit accomplished if they fail to ‘do’ Mont Blanc. Thus it comes to pass that a great number of individuals are allowed to ascend who ought not to go on the mountain at all, and who, under certain conditions, may easily become a source of danger to themselves and to those who accompany them.
But the danger from this cause is as nothing compared with that which exists in the inferior quality of many of the guides. At Chamouni, every one who styles himself a guide must belong to a kind of trades-union society called the ‘Compagnie des Guides,’ and presided over by a ‘Guide-chef.’ All who enter the ‘Compagnie des Guides,’ good, bad, and indifferent, enter it on the same footing, and are compelled to take their turn for an engagement on a register kept at the office of the ‘Guide-chef’ for the purpose. Thus, a traveller who wishes to engage a guide, is not allowed—except under very special circumstances—to choose his man, but must take him whose name stands first on the list; and it may so happen that quite an incompetent individual is given charge of a party wishing to ascend Mont Blanc, while a really good guide is told off to carry a knapsack over the Col de Balme.
It is easy to imagine what may result from a system such as this. For one thing, it has had the effect of utterly demoralising Chamouni guides as a body; and it has been the means, as we shall see presently, of some of the worst accidents that have ever happened in the Alps. It is usual nowadays for members of Alpine Clubs to bring to Chamouni their own guides from other districts, rather than trust to the local men; and so it has come about that Chamouni guides have been reduced to taking casual parties up Mont Blanc, with the result, that very few of them are of any use out of their own particular district, and as regards the more difficult peaks of the range, very little even in it. In fact, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the really good Chamouni men may now be counted on the fingers. The grave scandal occasioned by the desertion of the Russian, Professor Fedchenko, by his guides—two inexperienced boys—and his subsequent death on the Mer de Glace, called forth a severe protest against the Chamouni guide system on the part of the Alpine Club; but beyond some slight modification of the rules as regards the choosing of special men, very little has been done; and to this day the Rules and Regulations of the ‘Compagnie des Guides’ of Chamouni remain a byword with all mountaineers.
Finally, there is the danger—and this perhaps greatest of all—from weather. Easy though Mont Blanc may be as long as the weather is good, there is not a mountain in all the Alps which can become so dangerous in a storm. Every one who has had experience of climbing, knows how weather can affect a mountain, and how an ascent which is easy enough one day, may become dangerous if not impossible the next. It is quite a mistake to suppose that because a mountain offers no physical difficulties, that there is no risk attending the ascent. We have Mont Blanc as a case in point. Easiest of all the Great mountains, he has proved himself the most fatal of any.
The first accident within our knowledge which occurred on Mont Blanc was that to Dr Hamel’s party in 1820, and being the first accident to Alpine climbers, it created at the time an immense sensation. From accounts published by the survivors, it seems clear that the accident was caused by ignorance of the state of the snow—ignorance excusable enough in those days, when as a matter of fact the art of climbing was very little understood. On August 18, 1820, a Russian professor, Dr Hamel; two Oxonians, Messrs Durnford and Henderson; a Genevese named Sellique; and twelve guides, left Chamouni, and in twelve hours—about double the time now taken—reached the rocks of the Grands Mulets. Here they pitched a tent which they had brought with them, and passed the night. Bad weather came on after sunset; and as it did not clear next morning in time for them to start, they had to pass another night in the tent. It came on to rain again in the evening; but the following morning, August 20, was fine, and it was determined to make a push for the summit. At this juncture, M. Sellique was overcome with ‘scruples’ on the subject of making the ascent, and declined to accompany the others, so he was left behind in charge of two of the guides. The rest of the party set out at five A.M. The weather kept fine; but the snow—to quote one of the survivors—was found to be ‘rather too soft.’ They would appear to have followed the line of ascent usually adopted in these days, until opposite the Dome du Goûté, and on a level with it, when they branched off sharply to the left, and commenced to traverse a steep snow-slope, directing their course straight for the Mont Maudit. They were not roped, and were apparently proceeding in Indian file, when suddenly the snow gave beneath their feet, and carried them away bodily down the slope. They were all carried a great distance—some accounts say twelve hundred feet—and then the whole avalanche buried itself in a great crevasse. The three leading guides were completely overwhelmed; but the rest of the party stopped short of the crevasse, and were saved. The survivors made frantic efforts to rescue their unfortunate companions; but the poor fellows must have been buried under many tons of snow, and these efforts were unavailing.
It was scarcely thought probable that trace of them would ever again be found; but after the lapse of nearly half a century, the glacier yielded up its dead. In 1863, or forty-three years after the catastrophe, portions of human bodies, the débris of a lantern and Alpenstock, and the leaves of a Latin book, were found imbedded in the ice on the surface of the Glacier des Bossons and near its foot. They were recognised as belonging to the lost guides of Dr Hamel’s party. Further discoveries were made in the two following years; and of the relics thus brought to light, some are preserved to this day by the Alpine Club in their rooms at St Martin’s Place.
This accident afforded strong evidence in favour of the fact of glacier motion, for the remains were found to have been carried by the ice a distance of nearly five miles from the spot where the catastrophe occurred.
Almost simultaneously with the finding of the relics of Dr Hamel’s ill-fated expedition, occurred another accident on Mont Blanc. On August 9, 1864, a young porter named Ambroise Couttet, while accompanying two Austrian gentlemen in the ascent of Mont Blanc, fell into a crevasse on the Grand Plateau. This was an accident attributable entirely to carelessness, for it appears that at the moment of the catastrophe Couttet was walking apart from the others and quite unattached. His companions did their best to effect a rescue; but the crevasse was of such great depth that they could not come near him. A party of guides subsequently went out with the object of recovering the body; but although two of their number descended ninety feet into the crevasse, they failed to reach it. It is almost certain, from the terrible nature of the fall, that the unfortunate man’s death must have been instantaneous.
There were two sad accidents on Mont Blanc in 1866. The precise cause of the first is somewhat obscure, but the facts as far as they are known are these. Sir George Young and his two brothers, unaccompanied by guides, set out to ascend Mont Blanc on August 23, and succeeded in reaching the summit in safety. They had not proceeded far in the descent, when, for some reason unexplained, one of the party slipped and dragged down the other two. They slid for a short distance, then fell a height of twenty feet or so, and were finally stopped by soft snow. Sir George and his second brother escaped serious injury; but the youngest brother, Mr Bulkeley Young, was found to have broken his neck.