THE VIEW FROM THE SLOPES.
From a Photograph.
Next day we landed to reconnoitre, and at two o'clock the following morning we set forth for our climb. We landed at the edge of a forest and had to force our way through it. The ground was a chaos of stones, the trees grew close together and were densely matted with other vegetation. The whole place was reeking wet and it was pitch-dark. We fought and tumbled our way through this hideous chaos as best we might, and in an hour or two got out on the other side, near the margin of a glacier. Here we could scramble along well enough over the moraine, and presently we had daylight to help us. Nothing was visible ahead; there was the ice-wall on one hand, rock-cliffs on the other. Presently it seemed better to climb the rocks, and we accordingly turned aside to scale them. They were not difficult, and we rose higher and higher, passing through another narrow belt of forest, where the trees grew in the chinks and crannies of a wall of rock polished by ice and precipitously steep. Above that came a floundering bog, and then at last a reasonable grass-slope that narrowed into a rock-ridge. The rock presently gave place in turn to snow, and led us on to the mass of the mountain.
The weather was now tolerably clear, though over all there hung a dark pall of cloud, through occasional holes in which shafts of solid-looking sunlight penetrated. Where we rested for breakfast we had a most striking view over desolate channels and still more desolate islands, a very labyrinth of waterways and mountain walls. We could see westwards to the ocean and northwards to the continent; the flat land of the northern part of Tierra del Fuego was at our feet.
Its great mountain backbone was behind us as we faced north. We looked along the face of it as along a wall, but all its crest was in the clouds. Looking down whence we had come we saw our boat like a little cork on the water. Also we could now look down into the water itself and discover the countless sunken rocks amongst which we had so casually navigated. There was one, only a short distance from our anchorage, close to which we must have steamed. These details, of course, are not charted; a navigator in such out-of-the-way places must take his luck.
From this point our way lay right up the great northern face of the peak, which is covered by an ice-cascade. This empties below into a huge glacier plateau or lake, which is drained by several glacier tongues, up one of which we had come. As we climbed on I kept looking round and gazing on the wonderful panorama, for it was obviously destined to be soon blotted out. Our way lay amongst huge seracs. Deep crevasses yawned all about, and occasionally we had to double back and forth to get ahead.
At last, however, we reached plainer going, traversing a steeper but less broken slope which led to the foot of a final pyramid of rock. But these rocks, unfortunately, we never actually reached, for the storm battalions from the north swept furiously down upon us, swallowing up the view before ever we reached the crest of the range whence we might have looked down into the dark hollow of Beagle Channel. The darkness in the north before the tempest fell upon us was truly appalling. As it advanced it seemed to devour the wintry world. The heavens appeared to be descending in solid masses, so thick were the skirts of snow and hail that the advancing cloud-phalanx trailed beneath it. The black islands, the leaden waters, the pallid snows, and the splintered ice-encrusted peaks disappeared in the blackness of the storm, which enveloped us also, almost before we had realized that it was at hand. A sudden wind shrieked and whirled round our heads; hail was flung into our faces, and all the elements began to rage together. The ice-plastered rocks were now easily accounted for; we resembled them ourselves in a very few minutes. All landmarks vanished; the drifted snow itself was no longer distinguishable from the snow-filled air.
To advance under these appalling conditions was impossible. The one thing to be done, and done at once, was to secure our retreat before it was too late. How we raced downwards! Not till we gained the lower glacier did snow give place to rain, which soaked us to the skin and overflowed in a steady stream out of our boots. We floundered in swamps, tumbled through brushwood, and at last gained the shore, almost dead beat with toil, yet delighting in what had been, after all, an exhilarating experience. A boat came off to fetch us, and we were soon on board our steamer. Thus we did not reach the actual summit of Mount Sarmiento—that remains virgin, for I could not wait to try it again. Whoever climbs it will accomplish a great feat and will have a splendid experience. Some years have already passed since my attempt, however, and I have not heard of another. I suppose the inhabitants of Sandy Point have more urgent interests to attend to.
