Part 2
To climb the Blümlis-Alphorn, the highest point of the range, we slept out at a hut, which was unluckily occupied by workmen, who were building another hut close by. Our night in dirty straw was not so pleasant in dirty company, and the early morning was dark and threatening; we started however at 4.30, led by Joseph Hari, a local man. After crossing the glacier he took us over some smooth slabs of rock arranged like a slated roof and coated with ice to make us careful. These safely crossed, Truffer took the lead, and up the final steep everything was ice wherein steps had to be laboriously cut to the summit. We stood on the top at 10 o’clock, but saw little of our surrounding glories, except occasionally a brief glance round through the mists while standing perched in an ice step. The weather ended up in snow, which shut us in on the glacier below, and made us thankful to be well off the ice, and safely quit of a mountain which, though usually an easy climb, could assert itself seriously in a storm.
Taking Truffer with us, A. B. and I travelled to Dauphiné; we spent a few hours at Grenoble to see the old church and the Bayard statue. While at lunch at the Hotel Monnet I admired the oak wine jugs, which are called there “Brocs.” There is a charming old chateau at Vizille, with a lovely trout stream in the grounds full of big fish. The tennis court no longer stands in which in 1788 a memorable meeting took place to protest against the tax. The late President Carnot unveiled a statue in 1888 in memory of this Revolutionary event and slept at the chateau as the guest of Madame Casimir-Périer. The old soldier who took us round showed an oubliette in the old part of the building—beneath its horrible shaft he had seen armour-coated skeletons dug up.
[Illustration: LES ECRINS FROM THE GLACIER BLANC.]
We walked up to La Bérarde, a mule carrying our baggage. Immediately on my arrival I was told of an awkward accident which had just happened. Two parties were ascending a slope of ice when the last man of the first caravan slipped out of his step and sent his iron-shod heel into the jaw of the leader of the second caravan, who was too near. Poor Maximin Gaspard got a bad torn wound of his tongue, cut by his teeth, which I had to stitch up with silk and horse-hair. As he was in fine health the wound healed well, and in a few days, in fact, as soon as ever he could feed, he was climbing again. Maximin’s father, Pierre Gaspard, is the fine old fellow who has made so many first ascents in these districts, and still makes the great climbs.
The highest mountain in the Dauphiné, is the Pointe des Ecrins, 13,462 feet, its summit is a ridge of several beautiful points of snow and rock. With Hippolyte Rodier to assist Truffer we started to traverse this peak. We met on the way to the Challeret hut, a native with a dead sheep on his shoulders; it had been killed by a stone falling from the height above, and no doubt was to be made into “precipice mutton.” After sleeping a few hours at the hut we got off at 1.30 in the morning, over the glacier to the Col des Avalanches. Rodier led us to the couloir on the south face, and we began to crawl up; this was a rock couloir, which at a steep part was iced and caused some delay. Our leader, however, got up to a firm position and I followed, but no one else came, and looking down I saw Truffer wringing his hands and in distress. He explained that his right hand was frost-bitten and he could not proceed; nevertheless, he was pulled up by the help of the rope, and finding from the appearance of the hand and from the pain, which is really a good sign of reaction, that recovery was sufficient, we decided to proceed, with some misgiving on my part. We gained the highest part of the Ecrins about 10 o’clock. There was a great deal of fresh snow on the arête, and in coming down to the glacier Blanc on the north side we worked hard for five hours without a halt to reach the Col des Ecrins. Here we rested and then descended a couloir of 1,000 feet to the glacier de la Bonne Pierre, with its long and dreary moraine. There is a measurement station on this moraine to register the movements of the glacier, and here we found a marmot recently killed, its flesh almost entirely eaten, the entrails strewn around. An eagle’s feather on the body suggested the mode of death. The sight of the sheep killed by a stone, and still more the beautiful furry marmot killed by an eagle, added in a strange way to the savagery of the scene. In this wild region stern Nature seems to cry, “I care for nothing, all shall go.” We had a long walk home, the last half-hour by lantern light, having been eighteen hours over our expedition.
We wished next to traverse the Meije from La Bérarde to La Grave, which neither of our guides had ever done, so it seemed best to let Truffer go back to Switzerland, lest on a serious expedition his hand should fail him again and its recovery be delayed. His helpless condition in the iced couloir was explained by the fact that months before he had been ill with a bad hand, and its vitality had been impaired by what was probably a previous attack of frost-bite. Before his departure we had a lovely day on the Grande Aiguille; on the top we basked and slept in the sun after a lunch of tinned fruits and bread and butter. There is a little ice and snow requiring care on this beautiful peak, but we climbed it up and down without a rope, and here we passed over the slope where the tongue accident occurred.
One evening I was aware of a pain in my chest, especially when I laughed, and I was reminded that at Easter I had broken a rib—in climbing to the top of a cromlech on Dartmoor called “The Spinster’s Rock,” but the bone seemed to have mended in spite of some neglect, and was forgotten until my compass box in the breast pocket jammed against the hurt in some scramble and found out the weak point. I was warned by pains in certain movements of the arms against any attempt to traverse the Meije, and very sadly I had to see my friend take off our guides for a successful expedition; for though with a suitable bandage on my chest I was quite active, yet could not pull myself up by my arms in climbing.
[Illustration: JOSEPH TURC. PIERRE GASPARD. MATHON. HIPPOLYTE RODIER.
W. HERR VON RATH. A. B. HERR GRISAR.]
We had parted from Truffer with mutual regrets, for he was a very good fellow, and taken on Joseph Turc, a more experienced man than Rodier, and they worked well together. This Turc had just come over from La Grave with a porter named Etienne. The latter, a poor wizened sun-baked little man, had all his finger tips on each hand blackened with frost-bite; his thumbs had escaped. It appears that a Frenchman who could not climb well was taken by Turc to traverse the Meije from La Bérarde. They got no further than the Pic Central, there they had to spend the night—next day getting into La Grave. The poor porter was allowed to sleep with his fingers in this bad state, and come back over a pass to La Bérarde where in the afternoon I saw him. He had had some pain in the morning of this day, and this encouraged me to attempt treatment; so during two or three hours I rubbed him and watched him, and was assisted by my friend; it was satisfactory to find a considerable improvement, especially in his right hand, which next morning was even more apparently improved when the limits of the black dead portions were more defined—his nails will probably come off, and there will be ulcerated surfaces on his finger ends, which will be months in healing. The aspect of this man presented a pitiable combination of apathy and patience, reminding me of the wolf-bitten Russian peasants I saw in Pasteur’s laboratory in the Rue D’Ulm years ago. The guide with the frost-bitten feet, of whom I wrote in my letter last year, is only now hobbling about with sticks, the wounds of his amputated toes still unhealed, so much is the process of repair hindered in tissues damaged by frost-bite.
What I call determination, but my friends describe as obstinacy, now induced me, after three days’ rest, to climb the Meije, 13,081 feet. It is a serious rock climb, decidedly stiffer than the Matterhorn, and I did not attempt the traverse, but it was an error of judgment to have climbed it in my crippled condition. Doubtless the fine air, which makes a man laugh so easily, and makes the careworn light-hearted, steals away the reason like champagne—making the old man seem young—so the poet writes—
“The plague of guide and chum, and wife and daughter Is Senex who will climb and didn’t oughter.”
[Illustration: LA MEIJE FROM THE VAL DES ETANÇONS.]
My friend having returned to rest from his expeditions I took off the guides for the ascent of the Meije. We walked up the valley and halted at the hut. Joseph Turc wanted to put his skin of wine, containing over five bottles, into my rücksack, and we had a difference, as I objected to his claret leaking into my shirts, so he had to carry it separately; it was quite an easy matter, as I had a porter to carry my sleeping bag to a rock gîte where the night was to be passed, a climb of several hours. On reaching the glacier, Joseph and I being in front of the others, who carried the rope, he asked me if I was afraid to go over the glacier. Probably he meant without the rope. I said it was what I had come for; but when we began to get to steep ice I found he did not cut steps, and as he had three large spikes in each of his heels he could go where I could not follow without using my axe vigorously. He then said he could not cut the steps because of his wine skin, and thus I was left either to cut on up all the slopes or carry his skin. After a little hesitation I offered to carry the wine for fear of hurting my rib, and I carried it up to the sleeping place, though I did not find the steps cut much better after his burden was removed.
We went to sleep under the stars on a lovely night, but the day broke dark and gloomy, so that it was half-past four before we could start. We roped at once, leaving the porter to take the things back, and Turc led, but instead of placing me second I was left to the last. With my own rope of 80 feet long it happened frequently that the men passed out of sight, and I had no sort of communication with them unless I chose to pull and shout. But this is well enough when going straight up. It is a difficult corner or traverse where the position is a bad one; the experts who have been on their own mountain before, leave the traveller alone to get round his corner as best he can. “In medio tutissimus ibis,” is a good motto.
I gained the summit at nine o’clock, but just at the final struggle, where it is necessary to straddle on a sharp red rock ridge, called the “cheval rouge,” with fine precipices below, my rib gave way, and went completely broken through. In spite of firm bandaging, the coming down was a painful experience, for I could feel and even hear the ends of the broken bone grating together; but I kept at it, going down steadily and slowly with groans and grunts. The guides sang and shouted and drowned my feeble exclamations. They had had a good feed with tinned peaches and plenty of wine on the top when we rested, and it seemed to make them very happy. They carried seven bottles of wine on this expedition, besides each man a flask of brandy, and as I do most of my climbing on cold tea, they had a good allowance.
Joseph Turc is a real genius at rock climbing, a truly brilliant performer; but on ice, as he can’t cut steps, another time I should get spikes or crampons. The guides here use three spikes in each heel, driven in, fixed by gomphosis, not like the Mummery spikes with a screw.
I got to the Inn in time to change for the table d’hôte, not in the least fatigued, only blaming myself for the painful ordeal I had passed through. While changing my garments in the small bedroom we occupied together, my companion could plainly hear across the room the grating of my fractured rib. So soon as exertion ceased I was entirely well, and had a good dinner and night’s rest.
No traveller who goes for mountain expeditions to the Dauphiné district will leave without feeling a debt of gratitude (mixed with envy) to his own countrymen who have climbed and walked all over this wonderful country. The maps and climber’s guide by Mr. Coolidge are marvels of convenience and accuracy, and must be carried by everyone who wishes to learn his way about these very difficult regions. Mr. Whymper ought to be as proud of the conquest of the Pointe des Ecrins as of the Matterhorn.
My friend had a good climb on the Pic Bourcet, but of course I did not attempt this, returning to England by easy stages, halting at Aix-les-Bains and at Paris. In London I found laughing at “Charley’s Aunt” a serious matter for my damaged rib, though I thoroughly enjoyed this absurd farce, as I enjoyed every day of my vacation, and there was no day I would not willingly live over again.
Switzerland and Savoy
1893
Begin at Kandersteg—Benighted on the Zinal glacier—Glacier tables and baths—Wild beasts in the hut—The Col Durand—Guide in a crevasse—Ascent of the Dent Blanche—A climber exhausted—Ascent of the Weisshorn—A thunderstorm—Death of Mr. Lucas and Mr. Seiler. The Furggen Joch—Italy and the Italian side of Mont Blanc—The hut on the Aiguille Grise—The traverse of Mont Blanc—Anxiety as to weather—The observatory on the summit—Ascent of Aiguille du Dru. Ascent of the Aiguille Verte—Frost-bitten guide—Peculiar dangers of a fine season.
When Albert Smith made the ascent of Mont Blanc in 1851, he did not seem to enjoy himself much; he was thoroughly exhausted and done up, as well he might be, with sixteen guides, and £20 worth of provisions. If he did not have a good time our fathers did, in hearing his lecture, or in reading his dear little book. They listened with the greatest interest to his serio-comic groans. A hundred bottles of wine, sixty-seven fowls, joints of meat in proportion, and ten cheeses carried up the mountain ought to have led to trouble somewhere. On the other hand I enjoyed myself so much in the ascent of Mont Blanc that I fear I have nothing left to entertain others. My climbing friend was with me and two guides, also friends of former years; we had no certificate and no cannon. Nor was there any pretty Julie down below to give me a cornelian heart and talk about “une alliance.”
But I will begin at the beginning, and travel first from Cambridge to Kandersteg, from the land of fen and bog to the land of fine air and bright mountains—the Bernese Oberland. At Kandersteg my friend was staying in Egger’s most comfortable inn, and there we made a plan of campaign. We were fortunate in crossing the Gemmi to obtain a fine view of the mountains we were about to attack. We slept at Sierre in the Rhone Valley, and in the morning went up the Val D’Anniviers, one of the finest valleys in the Alps, a beautiful journey to Zinal, where we met our trusty guides—Alois Kalbermatten and Xaver Imseng. We must needs try and reach the hut high up the glacier that same night, and consequently got benighted, and arrived very late at the Mountet Cabane, rather cross and tired. While the daylight lasted I saw on the glacier hundreds of glacier-tables, like a crop of gigantic mushrooms. The hot weather this year may have made these more apparent, for on all the glaciers I walked over they seemed more conspicuous than usual. A stone, as big as a teacup or a cottage, when it lies upon the glacier, protects the ice beneath from the sun, so that in time the ice melting all round leaves the stone perched on a pedestal of ice. The icy pyramid gradually yields on the sunny side, and allows the stone to tilt and fall always in the same direction. On the Gorner Glacier I saw a stone supported by two separate pyramids, but this is unusual. If the stone which lies upon the glacier be thin enough, it may be so warmed through by the sun that it makes a hole for itself in the ice, and is buried in a pit full of water. So may dirt make a bath in the glacier, or if it be in large quantity, may leave a cone of solid ice all dirt covered, looking like a large ant heap.
The deep pits full of water are started in the manner indicated, but the sun-warmed surface water is continually being replaced by the ice-cold water below, and the warmed water deepens the pit in the ice, until a large bath is formed, often two or three feet deep, with steep sides, and no warning ledge or ridge around, so that a careless walker might go in, and in the dusk they are very difficult to avoid.
We had a dark experience on the glacier, and had to leave it for the icy-hearted moraine for fear of accidents, thankful to find shelter after some hours of weary stumbling along, when there was light enough to see our dangers but barely enough to permit us to avoid them. When in the welcome shelter of the hut, we shared with fleas and rats that rough abode—whether the rats in the straw had guides to this place is a curious problem; the fleas in the rugs were unusually fierce and hungry. There was a rat in the hut before its building was completed; when I called M. Constans’ attention to his first visitor, he remarked in surprise “Déjà!” but it no doubt migrated from the old Mountet Cabane near by to the Constantia, as the present place is called in honour of the architect.
All next day the weather was too bad to climb, and we had to give up our traverse of the Rothhorn this season, having been beaten in the same way last year after coming over the Triftjoch. We went to Zermatt over the Col Durand, which led us to an ice slope of some steepness up which steps had to be cut, and then over snow. As we neared the top of the pass, with no suggestion of any crack in the smooth white surface of snow, we walked along all roped together; quite suddenly our leading guide disappeared down a crevasse. I was last on the rope and saw nothing but his hat; however, he was soon out again by wrigglings on to his back, shook himself free of snow, and appeared to mind it about as much as a Newfoundland dog minds water. But it was a good lesson in the use of the rope, which alone can make such an ordinary journey safe. My first care in reaching Zermatt was to have my boots well nailed. English nails are no good, though Flack’s boots stood me well. My next thought was to present the local chemist with a prescription which puzzled him for the moment—Mr. Pulex Irritans—Rx: Pulvis usque ad mortem pulicibus ferocibus quantum sufficit. My friend said this dog Latin was appropriate, for dogs and fleas were inseparable. I was soon supplied with a tin of Keating.
The weather was too good for dawdling, and we proceeded to attack the Dent Blanche. Taking provisions and rugs to the Schönbühl rock, our men cut bits of dry trees with their ice axes before we left the woods below us to cross the glacier, and thus provided fuel to cook the excellent supper we enjoyed before we slept. There were two other parties on the rocks that night—the Stockje hut being in ruins. We crept into a hole and had a good night there, in a natural cave which was warm and dry. When in the small hours of the morning we were drinking our chocolate, a cry suddenly arose from one of the other parties that their rope was missing. We stirred the fires and searched with lanterns, and it was all very picturesque, but did not lead to discovery—the rope was lost. So only two parties started off early and began to climb, and reached the summit after a hot fatiguing ascent up ice, snow, and rock. The younger man of this other party climbed in a boating sweater, appeared to feel the heat exceedingly, and went to sleep whenever there was a halt. Before the descent was over he was decidedly ill, but fortunately not utterly collapsed until after the more dangerous ice slopes had been descended; his “legs” were then quite gone and he had to be supported by the guides before he reached the sleeping place, where we left him wrapped in my shawl with his friend faithfully beside him to pass the night.
The unlucky man whose rope had been lost was a Britisher not easily beaten. He sent his guides back on their tracks, and by daylight the rope had been found, where it had been carelessly dropped, upon the glacier; so that, though rather delayed, his ascent was made successfully, and the traveller returned by another route to Ferpècle. We, after having decided that the sick man was safe enough and fast asleep, found our way with difficulty in the dark, except for lanterns, across the glacier, whereon we wandered nearly three hours, and Xaver refreshed himself by falling into a big water bath. Finally we had to stay at Staffel Alp instead of at our hotel at Zermatt. But we here enjoyed a sound refreshing sleep all night, and walked down cheerfully in the sunlight of the early morning.