The accident to Captain Arkwright’s party was of a different description, and in many respects bears a close resemblance to that in which Dr Hamel’s guides lost their lives. On the 13th of October—unusually late in the year for such an expedition—Captain Arkwright with one guide, Michel Simond, and two porters, started from the Grands Mulets to ascend Mont Blanc. At a little distance they were followed by the landlord of the Pierre Pointue, Silvain Couttet, and a porter—these two having apparently come for their own pleasure—on a separate rope. The guides, probably by reason of its being a shorter route, and, as such, likely to save time—an important matter at that season of the year—chose the route adopted by Dr Hamel’s party, and which had come to be known by the name of the Ancien Passage. They had almost reached the spot where the disaster of 1820 occurred, when the roar of an avalanche was heard. Couttet and his companion, realising the danger, fled for their lives. They were a little way behind the others, and were so fortunate as to escape; but Captain Arkwright and his guides were caught by the avalanche and swept away. This accident arose from precisely the same cause as that which happened to Dr Hamel’s party—ignorance of the state of the snow; but it differed in one respect: whereas Dr Hamel’s party started the avalanche, the avalanche which proved fatal to Captain Arkwright and his guides fell from above.
The fact of a second accident occurring at the same place and from a similar cause, has given to the Ancien Passage the reputation of being essentially unsafe. It is not necessarily more dangerous than other routes, and indeed it may even be the safest route from Chamouni up Mont Blanc. It is only really dangerous when the snow is in bad order; and this is a point upon which a guide is—or should be—competent to give an opinion. On the day of the accident, the snow was not in proper condition, and it was because a right discretion was not used, that Captain Arkwright and his companions lost their lives.
We now come to an accident which ranks as by far the most terrible which has ever happened to Alpine climbers, for it resulted in the loss of no fewer than eleven lives. On September 5, 1870, a party consisting of two American gentlemen, Messrs Beane and Randall, and a Mr MacCorkendale, with eight guides and porters—with one exception, all Chamouni men—left Chamouni with the intention of ascending Mont Blanc. They passed the night at the Grands Mulets, and next morning started for the summit. Early in the afternoon, a violent storm burst over Mont Blanc; and as the weather became very bad and they did not return, it was resolved to send out a search-party from Chamouni. The weather, however, continued for some days of such an unfavourable character that it was not until the 17th, and when all hope had been abandoned of finding any of the lost party alive, that a discovery was made. The dead bodies of Mr MacCorkendale and two of the porters were first found. They were lying on the snow quite uninjured, head uppermost, a little way above the Mur de la Côte; and from the torn condition of their clothes, it seemed probable that they had slid some distance to the spot where they were discovered. Higher up, lay the bodies of Mr Beane and another porter, with the greater portion of the baggage beside them. Of the remaining six, no trace could be seen. A few small articles which must have belonged to them were picked up subsequently in the direction of the Brenva Glacier; but that was all. To this day their fate remains a mystery.
The only light thrown upon the catastrophe was that which could be gathered from the pages of a diary found on Mr Beane, and written by him. Some doubt at first was cast upon the authenticity of the entry, but there seems no reason at all for disbelieving its genuineness. What it told was as follows: ‘Tuesday, September 6.—I have made the ascent of Mont Blanc with ten persons—eight guides, Mr Corkendale, and Mr Randall. We arrived at the summit at half-past two o’clock. Immediately after leaving it, I was enveloped in clouds of snow. We passed the night in a grotto excavated out of the snow, affording very uncomfortable shelter, and I was ill all night. September 7 (morning).—Intense cold, much snow, which falls uninterruptedly, guides restless. September 7 (evening).—We have been on Mont Blanc for two days in a terrible snowstorm; we have lost our way, and are in a hole scooped out of the snow, at a height of fifteen thousand feet. I have no hope of descending. Perhaps this book may be found and forwarded.... We have no food; my feet are already frozen, and I am exhausted; I have only strength to write a few words. I die in the faith of Jesus Christ, with affectionate thoughts of my family; my remembrances to all. I trust we may meet in heaven.’
The diary ended with instructions to his family as to his private affairs.
It is to be regretted that poor Mr Beane gives us so little information of any practical value; but meagre as his diary is, it sheds light on one or two points. First, we gather that the party actually reached the summit; and next, that it was about half-past two in the afternoon, and immediately after leaving it, that the storm caught them. Now, how was it, we may fairly ask, that so little progress was made on the downward path?—for the ice-grotto of which Mr Beane speaks was constructed at an altitude of fifteen thousand feet, or only seven hundred and eighty-one feet below the summit. How was it that the guides failed completely to find a way back over ground which they had traversed so recently? Mr Beane does not tell us if any attempts were made on the 6th and 7th to find the way down—what little evidence we have tends to prove that there were none—he merely says, ‘We have lost our way.’ To sit down and wait where they were, as they appear to have done, showed a want of judgment which, without being better acquainted than we are with the facts of the case, seems quite inexplicable. Nothing is more common in the high Alps than to be overtaken by bad weather; but out of the Chamouni district there has not been an instance of a whole party perishing from this special cause. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the guides were not equal to their task, that they lost their heads at the very approach of danger, and gave themselves up for lost at the moment when they should have made the most determined effort to escape.
There was another circumstance, too, which was held at the time to reflect somewhat upon the conduct of the guides—not one of their bodies was found. The five bodies recovered were those of the heaviest members of the party, and there can be little doubt that they must have been left behind, while the rest made an effort to save themselves. Mr Beane, however, makes no mention of any division of the party, and it is charitable to suppose that no division actually took place until after the weaker members had succumbed to the exposure. What led to the division, will never be known; neither will it be known what motive impelled the guides to act in such an utterly incomprehensible manner. That the leaders of the party ought to have been thoroughly up to their work, is emphasised by the fact, that neither Mr Beane, Mr Randall, nor Mr MacCorkendale had had previous experience of mountaineering, and were quite incapable of giving advice of any practical value when difficulties arose. As a matter of fact, it does not appear that any one of the guides held a foremost place in his profession. Judging by their actions, they certainly proved themselves singularly wanting in many of the most important qualities of good guides; and it is impossible to believe that they could have been other than very second-rate. But should the blame of the disaster be laid to their charge? Should it not rather attach to a system which rendered such an accident only too probable?
In the same year (1870) there was yet another accident on Mont Blanc. A gentleman and two ladies, accompanied by a guide and a porter, were out on the mountain; and the gentleman wishing to go further than the ladies cared to, took the guide, and left them in charge of the porter. With what object, it is not known, the porter promptly proceeded to conduct his charges across a snow-field which was well known to be honeycombed with concealed crevasses. Under these circumstances, it would have been only wonderful if an accident had not occurred, and unfortunately that took place which might have been predicted. The porter had given his arm to one of the ladies, and was leading her across, when the snow gave way beneath them, and they both fell headlong into a deep crevasse. Here was a case of two lives wantonly sacrificed. That any one calling himself a guide should have shown such gross ignorance of the very first principles of mountaineering as this porter did, is almost inconceivable. It is perfectly clear that he did not understand his business, and was certainly not a fit person to have been sent on expeditions above the snow-line.
A still later accident on Mont Blanc took place on the south side. On the 30th August 1874, Mr J. A. G. Marshall, with two Oberland guides, Johann Fischer and Ulrich Almer, left Courmayeur with a view to attempting the ascent of Mont Blanc by way of the Brouillard Glacier, an ascent which had not at that time been effected. They camped out upon the mountain at a height of about ten thousand feet, and the following day worked their way a considerable distance upwards till they found themselves finally stopped by an impassable wall of rock. This occurred somewhat late in the afternoon, too late, indeed, to attempt any other route, and accordingly they turned back. The descent was difficult, and night overtook them before they reached the spot where they had bivouacked the previous evening. They were crossing the last bit of glacier, when Fischer inquired the time, and Mr Marshall drew out his watch, while the others came up to him with a light. As they stood thus close together, the snow gave way beneath them. Fischer fell first into a crevasse which at this point was some thirty feet deep and five feet in width; and Mr Marshall was dragged on to him; while Almer alighted upon a hummock of snow but a few feet below the mouth of the crevasse. Mr Marshall’s head came in contact with the side of the crevasse, and in his case, death must have been instantaneous; while Fischer’s injuries were of such a character that he, too, could not have lived for any time after the fall. Almer escaped with a severe shaking, but was rendered insensible by the shock of the fall. Upon coming to himself, he found that both his companions were beyond help; and as soon as there was sufficient light, he struggled down to Courmayeur with the intelligence of the accident. The dead bodies were recovered the same evening, and brought back the next day to Courmayeur.
Of all the accidents which have happened on Mont Blanc, this was perhaps the one most deserving the term. Mr Marshall and his guides were first-rate mountaineers, and it was scarcely from any fault of their own that the catastrophe occurred. From a sketch of the spot taken by M. Loppé the artist a few days after the occurrence, the crevasse looks curiously narrow, and if the party had only been standing but a few paces to right or left, they would have been in perfect safety. Moreover, the scene of the catastrophe was not five minutes’ walk from the moraine.