"THEY WERE ALMOST BURIED IN SNOW AND DOING THEIR UTMOST TO STRUGGLE THROUGH IT."
When it is remembered that there were seventy five fatalities in the Alps last year, and three hundred and fifty more or less grave accidents to climbers, it will be seen that observation of the movements of persons upon the mountains through the telescopes fulfils a useful purpose. There is no doubt that Mr. Turner, a well-known English Alpinist, owes his life to-day to the fact that he was watched in this way during his attempt to cross the Col Bonder-Krinden (seven thousand two hundred feet high) last season. He was accompanied by a guide named Amschwand. An observer at a telescope watched their ascent and followed them step by step, until a blinding snowstorm arose. They were then lost to view for several minutes, when suddenly they were detected apparently almost buried in snow and doing their utmost to struggle through it. The observer gave the alarm and, it being then late in the afternoon, it was decided to send a search-party out on the following morning at sunrise. Meanwhile the couple on the mountain realized that their only hope of life was to reach a hut on the pass, and they heroically struggled on through six feet of snow. They arrived at the hut exhausted and without food, for they had brought none, as the Col, under ordinary conditions, is easy to climb. The snow penetrated into the hut and the unfortunate pair were literally buried beneath it. Next morning ten guides left Adelboden to search for them, solely because their distress had been noticed through the telescope. The rescuers, however, were driven back by avalanches, several of them being injured. A second search-party was finally got together, and they succeeded, after great hardships and at no little risk, in digging their way to the hut, where they found Mr. Turner and his guide starving, frost-bitten, and in the last stage of exhaustion. They had been imprisoned in the hut for forty-eight hours. After administering restoratives the rescuers carried the couple to Adelboden.
Last season thirteen persons lost their lives in the Alps while attempting to gather edelweiss and other mountain flowers. There is no doubt the number would have been greater were it not for the part played by the telescopes. Two young English ladies staying at Zermatt decided to collect some edelweiss and take it back to London with them. They learned that the flowers could be obtained within four hours' journey up the mountain, and one bright morning started off in the highest spirits. Everything went well until late in the afternoon, when they were returning with their prize, much pleased with themselves as the result of their adventure. If they had followed the same path as that which they had taken, all would no doubt have been well; but, believing they could make the journey shorter, they descended by a different route and came to grief. Suddenly they found their way blocked, and decided to negotiate a short but dangerous ridge. In doing this one of them fell a distance of some twenty feet, fortunately into fairly soft snow, but the weight of the lady's body broke her ankle, and there she lay, unable to move. With the greatest difficulty her companion got down to her and remained by her side. Then a snowstorm came on, descended, and blotted them from view. This accident was witnessed through a telescope by a boy, who had sense enough to give the alarm, and two guides were at once dispatched to escort the ladies down the mountain. They soon found them, but it was clear that if the rescuers had not arrived when they did the two girls might have fared very badly. They had completely lost their nerve, and were found huddled together in the snow, crying hysterically.
THE GIANT TELESCOPE AT SCHYNIGE PLATTE, NEAR INTERLAKEN.
From a Photograph.
Few mountains look more absolutely inaccessible than the mighty Matterhorn, standing up at the head of the Zermatt Valley like a prodigious obelisk, some fifteen thousand feet in height. The first impression one gets on viewing the mountain is that one could no more climb it than he could scale Cleopatra's Needle. Naturally, therefore, it is the peak that attracts the attention of the more daring climbers, and watchers using the telescopes that are trained upon this mountain are frequently afforded wonderful glimpses of what it means to ascend its steep sides and cut one's way step by step up its ice-covered slopes. Some nasty accidents, too, have been witnessed through the glasses which command this famous mountain—hapless climbers have been seen to miss their footing and hurtle downwards for hundreds of feet until lost to view in some abyss. It is then that search-parties are at once organized, and for hours their movements in turn are eagerly watched through the telescopes. Then comes the pitiable sight of the return of the rescuers, dragging the dead bodies over the ice behind them. Fortunately, such incidents as these are rare, and to the ordinary visitor the mountain telescopes of Switzerland are appreciated for the wonderful scenery they reveal and the opportunities they afford of doing one's mountaineering by deputy.
