CHAPTER IVTHE JUNGFRAU
A glanceat the map of the Bernese Oberland will show that a straight line drawn in a north-easterly direction from the Breithorn to the Eiger will pass through, or close to, the Grosshorn, Mittaghorn, Ebnefluh, Jungfrau and Mönch. The ridge connecting these great peaks forms a lofty watershed flanked on the south by gently-rising glacier slopes and on the north by precipitous ice-clad cliffs and icefalls. Almost every route, therefore, leading from the north across this great connecting ridge constitutes an arduous ice-climb followed by a comparatively easy descent on the south side. Small wonder, then, that the guides of the Oberland, who live in close proximity to such a wonderful training ground, excel all others in the art of snow and ice mountaineering.
The ascent of the north face of the Jungfrau is reputed to be one of the finest ice expeditions in the Alps and, as such, attracted the boyish attention of my brother and me, incited as we were even in the earliest days of our climbing career by the picture of Himalayan adventure that hovered in the background of our minds. In the event of the picture coming to life, ice work, we felt sure, would stand us in better stead than mere agility on rock, and it was, therefore, our endeavour to perfect ourselves as far as possible in the more serious side of mountaineering, that is, in the intricacies of snow and ice-craft. The north face of the Jungfrau presents itself to the eye as an imposing edifice built up of glistening, greenish-white terraces of ice and snow of such purity that it were almost desecration to set human foot upon them. To the mountaineer, who is perhaps actuated less by poetic imagination than by the virile desire to pit his puny strength against a much stronger force, these great terraces become but the stepping-stones on the road to the summit. In number they are five—the upper reaches of the Guggi Glacier, the Kühlauenen Glacier, the Giessenmulde, the Silbermulde and the Hochfirn—forming a wonderful spiral staircase, as it were, betwixt earth and heaven. No better field could be found in which to test our skill and improve our knowledge; and it was this ambitious climb that figured next to the Wetterhorn in our programme for the summer of 1909.
The north face of the Jungfrau.
“... an imposing edifice of glistening terraces of ice and snow....”
Facing page 52.
Max, Sturgess and I, after traversing the three summits of the Wetterhorn, left the Dossen hut on July 27 for Rosenlaui, and thence walked over the Great Scheidegg to Grindelwald where we arrived with barely an hour to spare before the last train of the day was due to leave for the Little Scheidegg. That hour was a crowded one. Boots required re-nailing and patching up, a stock of provisions sufficient for eight days had to be laid in, and all superfluous baggage bundled up and posted off to Zermatt, our next port of call in the valleys. We spread out into the village bazaar where, thanks to a good distribution of labour and unstinting use of what we were pleased to imagine was Swiss-German, we stirred up the kindly but stolid Grindelwald shopkeepers to unwonted activity and succeeded in arriving at the station just on time. The spectacle we presented—dissolving in perspiration, weighed down by bulging knapsacks, with climbing irons, cooking apparatus and ropes slung on anyhow, loaves of bread tucked under our arms—caused some merriment amongstthe trippers who thronged the waiting train. However, we succeeded in finding room for ourselves and belongings and utilised the leisure afforded by the journey up to the Little Scheidegg in repacking stores in more convenient and comfortable fashion. We also made the acquaintance of the famous Swiss climber, the lateDr.Andreas Fischer who, with the two guides Hans Almer (son of Christian Almer, in his time the greatest of Swiss guides) and Ulrich Almer (son of Ulrich, Christian’s almost equally renowned brother), was, like us, bound for the Guggi hut. All three were extremely kind to us. We toldDr.Fischer that Max and I intended to climb the Jungfrau from the Guggi hut. Somewhat amazed and not a little concerned at this bold project on the part of two mere boys, he urged us to be careful. When we assured him, however, that we were fully aware of the toughness of the impending task and intended to spend at least one whole day in reconnoitring the way and cutting the necessary steps up as far as the Schneehorn, he saw that we meant business and returned our confidences by telling us of his own ambitious plans, from which it appeared that our roads would lie together as far as the Schneehorn. There, however, our ways would part, for it was his intention to cut up long and tremendously steep ice slopes to the then unascended north-east ridge of the Jungfrau and climb over that ridge to the summit.
In spite of the novelty of our surroundings and the wonderful aspect of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau as seen from this side, the walk from the Scheidegg over the Eiger Glacier to the hut was, for us with our heavy loads, far from being a pleasure. More lightly laden, Fischer and his guides soon outstripped us, and it was with a sigh of relief that, just before nightfall, we arrived at our destination.
The old Guggi hut, now almost disused, is one of the smallest in the Alps, measuring as it does in floor space only ten feet by twelve. In 1909 more than half that space was taken up by two tiers of straw-filled sleeping bunks, and what remained was largely exhausted by a tiny stove and rickety table. Within comfortable walking distance of the Eiger Glacier station of the Jungfrau railway, the hut is frequently visited by trippers, a section of the community noted in the Alps for the trail of disorder they leave behind them; and we arrived to find the Almers endeavouring to clear up the pigsty condition in which they had found our resting-place for the night. We lent a hand and, a semblance of tidiness once more restored, prepared a simple dinner and turned in to sleep. There was a rug for each man and one huge horse blanket which sufficed to cover us all, so we slept warmly.
Shortly after midnight the disturbing ring of my alarum watch drove us forth to inspect the weather. The night air was warm, and long streaks of fish-shaped clouds in the west threatened trouble. Fischer’s party required settled weather for their expedition, and as on the first day we only intended prospecting as far as the Schneehorn and could, therefore, afford to wait for an hour or two, all turned in again to sleep while waiting for the weather to show its hand. At 1 a.m. Max and I became impatient. Prospects were still doubtful, though for our purposes fair enough. The Almers could not make up their minds to start; but we, not so dependent upon the weather, decided to clear for action.Dr.Fischer now came forward with a plan which, even then, I realised was prompted by his anxiety for our safety and the liking which he had already formed for us. He suggested that we should join forces and go together as far as the rocks of the Schneehorn and bivouac there for the night. Next morning, weatherpermitting, we could then complete our climb, and he and his guides would carry on with their great task. We at once fell in with this generous proposal. Hans and Ulrich, hitherto obviously downhearted at the idea of a day’s idleness, now brightened up. One by one we crawled out of our bunks—the cramped space would not allow all to get up together—and while the cooks monopolised the interior, the rest of us busied ourselves outside the hut, groping for clothes in the darkness, seeking the more elusive garments with matches and generally completing our toilet under difficulties. Breakfast, coming so soon after a late supper, was but a shadow of a meal; and it was barely half-past one when, shod with climbing irons, we put on the rope and, bidding good-bye to Sturgess who intended returning to Grindelwald in the course of the day, stepped forth with lighted lanterns into the night.
With a few steps we had left the ridge upon which the hut stands and were proceeding through the icefall of the Guggi Glacier. Max and I had an easy time of it here. We could not risk wounding the feelings of such splendid guides as the Almers by offering to take our share in finding the way, and therefore had to content ourselves by following in our best style, always paying attention to the correct handling of the rope. Once, while making our way round the corner of an ice pinnacle below which yawned the black depths of an appalling crevasse,Dr.Fischer expressed anxiety for our safety. But Hans, watching us coming along, reassured him: “They are sure-footed like cats; they know how to use the rope; they are quite safe”: ample reward for the self-restraint we had imposed upon ourselves in not attempting to take the lead. Young Ulrich, who went ahead, had plenty to do. The icefall is very broken up. Clambering over or round, or even under enormous séracs, towering all about us like the suddenlyfrozen waves of a storm-tossed sea, we gradually made our way upwards, amidst a brooding, gloomy silence that was rendered more vast and impressive by the occasional chipping of Ulrich’s axe, the tinkling of fragments of falling ice and the crunching sound of the climbing irons as their sharp points bit at each step into the ice.
The icefall of the Guggi Glacier.
Facing page 56.
Almost at the head of this first icefall we encountered the most serious of its defensive barriers. A huge crevasse, a great open gash, stretched across our path and was lost in the darkness, its bottom far beyond the reach of the dim light of the lanterns. Hans having paid us the compliment of asking us to explore out to the left while his party reconnoitred to the right, we were fortunate in soon discovering a solution to the problem in the shape of a slender flake of ice forming a fragile bridge. After some judicious step-cutting, the flake being too frail to endure much belabouring, we were across and shouting the news of our success to the others, already returning from a fruitless search.
All now lay clear before us up to the foot of the second icefall, where the Kühlauenen Glacier tumbles down on to the Guggi in a mighty mass of séracs. Uncrevassed slopes, gentle at first but rising up more steeply as we mounted higher, brought us rapidly to the foot of the icefall where we foregathered and studied the outlook while waiting for the pale light of dawn to enable us to stow away the lanterns. Beyond the frozen torrent of séracs merging into the Guggi Glacier stretched a great vertical wall of ice, a gaunt, lofty rampart forty to sixty feet high, which gleamed clear and unbroken in the cold, grey light from under the cliffs of the Mönch right round to the rocks of the Schneehorn. It was plain that the obstacle could not be turned; the flanks were too well guarded by steep ice-glazed and avalanche-swept rocks. Yet nowherewas there apparent a flaw which would aid the besieger. In Hans Almer, however, there was no lack of decision. He seemed to act on the principle of poking his nose right into a difficulty in searching for its key. Presently, with a cheery “Come along!” he cut ahead and, with amazing speed, worked his way through a steep tangle of crevasses and séracs, never at fault for a means of negotiating the many obstructions met with, until we arrived on a débris-strewn ledge at the base of the great ice cliff. Haste had been imperative, for almost throughout this passage we had been endangered by lurching monsters of séracs. It is true we were still in the shade, and according to the best authorities séracs do not fall until the warmth of the sun’s rays or the hot breath of the föhn wind strikes upon them. Later in the day Hans emphatically characterised such beliefs as “Unsinn,” and told me that, in his experience, séracs fell just when they thought fit and often displayed the greatest activity on cold and frosty nights when it behoved them to be asleep. My later observations tend to show that the falling of séracs is most likely to occur just before sunrise, during the coldest hours of the night. On the east face of Monte Rosa I once counted sixteen falls of ice and séracs between 3 and 4.30 a.m., eleven between 6 and 8 a.m. and two between 3 and 4 p.m.
The swift scramble up the séracs had somewhat robbed us of our breath, and we welcomed the brief halt which a search for a possible breach in the great ice wall before us demanded. Immediately above, the wall showed sure signs of disintegration; several great sheets of ice were in process of detaching themselves. One monster, fully fifty feet in height, leaned forward in an ominous manner. As its fall would have strewn with blocks the ledge where we stood, Hans moved over to the right where a great square-cutbastion of undoubted firmness afforded security from the perils of falling ice. From here we sighted the one and only weak spot we were ever able to detect in the great barrier. A huge crevasse in the glacier above cleft the wall in twain, and were it but possible to gain the floor of this crevasse, the problem of surmounting the wall itself would no more exist. But the approach to the chasm was defended by an immense archway of rickety séracs which looked ready to collapse at any moment. The presence of masses of very broken ice under the archway promised slow and, therefore, unsafe progress, and Hans decided that we must look round for another way out of our trouble. Max and I were told to climb to the top of the bastion now shielding us and to report on the prospects as seen from up there. The others, bent on a similar mission, moved along the ledge towards the Schneehorn rocks. But neither party had any luck; there remained nothing but to risk the archway passage or retire, beaten. We were on the point of leaving the issue to chance by tossing a coin, when nature stepped in and providentially staged a thrill. Suddenly a loud crashing as of thunder was heard, and the ground upon which we stood trembled and shook under the impact of tons of ice blocks; dense clouds of ice dust filled the air and, enveloping us, hid everything from view. As the mists slowly thinned we saw that the giant archway had fallen in. The ruins, choking up the floor of the crevasse, furnished us with a causeway giving egress to the glacier above. The god had indeed descended from his chariot. Without the necessity of cutting a single step, we arrived a few minutes later on the almost level plateau of the Kühlauenen Glacier, the second of the five glacier plateaux characteristic of the north face of the Jungfrau.
Meanwhile, the weather had not improved. By now weought to have been able to bask in the warm rays of the rising sun, but fish-shaped clouds filled the morning sky, and great masses of clammy mist floated up the Guggi Glacier and rolled down upon us from the Jungfraujoch. A snowstorm was brewing. We sat down in the snow for a rest and, while eating a few biscuits, noted the best point for crossing the bergschrund which defends the approach to the rocks of the Schneehorn. The mists had closed in ere we began the final stage of the day’s work. Largely filled up with masses of snow and fallen stones, the schrund was easily crossed, and, walking up a short slope of good snow, we soon gained the rocks which were dry and firm and nowhere actually difficult. Knowing our dislike for merely following in the footsteps of others,Dr.Fischer tactfully encouraged us to choose our own line of ascent. So henceforward we climbed on a level with, and some distance out to the left of, his party.
At 9 a.m. we arrived at a point about half-way between the bergschrund and the summit of the Schneehorn and, observing that the rocks higher up were sprinkled with new snow, decided to look round for a suitable site to bivouac. Failing to find a platform large enough to seat all five together, we rummaged about in detachments for convenient ledges and eventually settled down within speaking distance of each other.
The ledge chosen by Max and myself was small and narrow. With our backs to the wall above and feet dangling over the cliff falling away to the glacier below, we planted the cooking apparatus between us. The next two hours were spent partly in attending to cooking operations and partly in chipping Hans Almer who, every few minutes thinking he espied a more suitable abode than the one he was occupying at the time, was continually on the move changinghouse. At 11 a.m. it began to snow in a desultory, intermittent manner. Then came a sleet and hail storm with chilly gusts of wind from which there was no sheltering. Before midday it snowed in real earnest, and it was obvious that, unless an immediate change set in, there could be no hope of our continuing the climb next day. New snow lay two inches deep over the rocks when, at one o’clock,Dr.Fischer gave the word for retreat.
The descent over the now snow-covered rocks demanded great care; but, once down on the glacier, we plunged in long strides over to the crevasse in the great ice wall. The steps of the morning were all obliterated, but, unhesitatingly and in spite of the mist and snow, Hans unravelled his way through the séracs and presently brought us out on to the Guggi Glacier.Dr.Fischer elected to rest here; but Hans told us to go straight on, advising us not to retrace the line of previous ascent, but to try and get through over on the right bank close under the rocks of the Mönch. Acting on his advice we found there a good way and at 3 p.m. were safely back in the hut.
PresentlyDr.Fischer’s party arrived and, after a brief halt, returned to Grindelwald to await more auspicious weather. Max and I, having a stock of provisions sufficient for more than a week, could afford to wait on the spot, ready to drive home a renewed attack as soon as the weather cleared. In the early hours of the morning of July 29, the sky was still overcast; so we slept on well into the day, awaking, too late for breakfast yet too early for lunch, to find the sun blazing down from a cloudless sky and dissolving the rolling billows of cloud in the valleys below. After an orgy of a meal that we elected to call “brunch,” we basked on the roof of the hut until, early in the afternoon, the sun sankbehind the Jungfrau. Towards evening we carried our surplus provisions over to the Eiger Glacier to be forwarded by rail to the Eismeer station. On returning to the Guggi hut, we foundDr.Fischer and his guides once more installed therein, full of confidence in the prospects.
At 2 a.m. on July 30, we again set forth on our quest. Not a breath of wind stirred; the sky was cloudless. Hans Almer sent us on ahead to lead the way. Knowing the ground well now, we forged up through the first icefall and came to a halt on the gentle snow slopes at the foot of the Kühlauenen Glacier icefall, there to await the arrival of the others. They had no sooner reached us thanDr.Fischer found that he had lost his tea flask, so he and Hans went back to look for it. In the meanwhile Ulrich and we two shivered and stamped about in a vain endeavour to keep warm. Just as it was becoming light enough to dispense with the lanterns,Dr.Fischer rejoined us, having found his precious flask in the snow at the very edge of an immense crevasse just above the Guggi icefall.
By 5 a.m. we were walking over the almost level basin of the Kühlauenen Glacier and soon afterwards were grappling with the rocks of the Schneehorn—no longer without difficulty, for much fresh snow hampered us in the finding of foot- and handholds. Beyond the site of our bivouac of two days ago, we found the rocks so buried in snow that Hans had to clear a way with his axe. Progress was accordingly slow, and it was not until 7 o’clock that, cutting through the little cornice at the head of the final, short, steep, snow slope over which the summit of the Schneehorn (11,200ft.) is approached, we set foot on the Giessenmulde, the third of the five plateaux. Henceforward our ways lay apart. While Max and I were bound for the direction of the Little Silberhorn,Dr.Fischer and his guides were to turn off to the south towards the immense slopes of gleaming ice leading up to the north-east ridge of the Jungfrau. But so quickly are friendships formed in the mountains that already, after such a brief acquaintance, we were by no means loth to retard the hour of parting by settling down to breakfast.
“We basked on the roof of the Guggi hut.”
Facing page 62.
At a quarter past sevenDr.Fischer said, “Now then, you boys, it’s time you were off!” and, after bidding an “Au revoir” all-round and expressing the hope that we would meet on the summit, Max and I got under way. While crossing the level, hard-frozen snow surface of the Giessenmulde, we had ample time to study the icefall guarding the approach to the Silbermulde, the fourth glacier plateau. This icefall was obviously formidable, and it looked as if a huge, unbridged crevasse which cut across it might prove, if not insuperable, at all events a source of much delay. The icy north-east ridge of the little Silberhorn, however, offered a sure, even if arduous, means of flanking the obstacle; and we quickly decided to choose the harder work of cutting up this ridge in safety, in preference to the less laborious but much more uncertain and, on account of possible falls of ice, perhaps dangerous passage through the icefall. The ridge was covered with a thick layer of crystals of rotten ice, in which two, or at the most three, well-directed blows of the axe sufficed to make a good step. Working hard and as fast as possible, we rose so rapidly that, half an hour after leaving the others who were now just beginning to tackle their big ice slope, we arrived on the beautifully curved ice ridge which forms the summit of the little Silberhorn. After a brief descent, we crossed the Silbermulde and faced the next difficulties, a great bergschrund and a short, but very steep, ice slope below the Silbersattel. Over to the left, away from the Silbersattel, the two edgesof the bergschrund approached more closely together, so that by discarding my rucksack and standing on Max’s shoulder I was able to effect a lodgment on the slope above. I then saw that, to get over to the Silbersattel, handholds and footholds would have to be cut round to the right, past an almost vertical ice bulge. Only the right hand could be used to ply the axe; the left would be fully occupied in holding on. Max unroped and tied himself on again, but this time at the extreme end of the hundred-and-fifty-foot rope; then, after carefully working round the bulge, I was able to cut straight up into the Silbersattel where, finding good standing ground, I held the rope firmly and afforded Max, with his double burden of rucksacks, the necessary assistance over the bergschrund and round the bulge. It is quite probable that in some seasons this obstacle may prove impassable. The Silberlücke, however, could always be gained by crossing the Silberhorn, a roundabout route which would entail some loss of time. The ridge known as the Silbergrat, stretching up before us to the Hochfirn, commences in a great rock pinnacle which looked difficult, but was, with the ensuing ridge of good firm rock, quite easy, though enthrallingly interesting in view of the dizzy precipices that fall away to the Lauterbrunnen Valley. Higher up, cornices, wind-whirled into fantastic shapes, crowned the ridge. We hacked them down and strode triumphant over their battered remains until at length the rocks merged into a slender snow-crest, along which, swinging the axe in rhythm with our pace and leaving a step after each blow, we passed quickly over to the Hochfirn, up which, almost knee-deep in soft snow, we laboriously plodded our way.
The day was now won; no further difficulty lay between us and the summit. It was still early, and time was our own to squander as we willed; so, veering towards the left, westamped through deep snow up on to the Wengern Jungfrau (13,320ft.), the lower summit of the Jungfrau, in order to see howDr.Fischer’s party were progressing. They were still far below the north-east ridge—three tiny black dots sticking like flies to the smooth, glassy wall. Our shouts of triumph were faintly echoed by them; then, realising that there would be no chance of our meeting up here, we turned towards the true summit of the Jungfrau (13,668ft.) and, walking up the easy rocks of the south ridge, soon gained the top. It was 11 a.m.; we had been in all only nine hoursen route, and of those nearly one hour had been spent down below the Kühlauenen icefall, awaiting dawn.
As on our last visit to the Jungfrau, the view was clear. To the north we looked down into the valleys of the Bernese Oberland, invitingly clad in the soft, restful colourings of forest, pastureland and lake. Southwards, the gaze passed over glaciers and snow-clad mountains, through the bluish haze rising from the dark rift of the Rhône Valley to beyond the Pennine Alps, and lingered at last on the glistening snow cap of Mont Blanc. The hardest part of the day’s work was over. The air was warm, still and languorous, so, after setting the cooking apparatus on to melt snow for a brew of tea and having, by way of precaution against the consequences of any tendency to sleep walk, belayed the rope to our axes driven deep into the snow, we lay down and were soon wrapt in slumber.
Two hours later we awoke at the chill touch of a gust of wind. Clouds hovered all around, warning us of the approach of yet another spell of bad weather. We finished lunch and made ready for the descent by the ordinary route to the Bergli hut. As was to be expected, we found a beautiful staircase of immense steps already cut in the moderatelysteep snow slope leading down to the Rotthal Sattel. The bergschrund below the saddle was smaller than we had ever known it before, and soon we were plodding a monotonous way over the Jungfrau Glacier through the now thoroughly softened snow towards the Mönchjoch. There was not a breath of wind; and so fiercely did the sun blaze that we almost marvelled that the whole glacier did not turn to water. At 4 p.m. we arrived at the Bergli hut. The sky had become completely overcast; but, though the sun was obscured, the air was hot and stifling. A break in the weather seemed certain; a matter of small concern to us, however, for our labours had been so strenuous that a day of enforced idleness was a welcome prospect. At 6 o’clock we turned in and slept peacefully and uninterruptedly until 8 a.m. next morning.
Dr.Fischer and the Almers had arrived at the hut about midnight. They had gained the north-east ridge, only to be driven down to the Jungfrau Glacier by bad weather. Snow-glasses are apt to disturb one’s aim when cutting steps, and as the Almers, for this reason, had not worn theirs during the ascent of the great ice slope, they were now snowblind and in considerable pain. But they were a merry pair of companions notwithstanding. After a joint breakfast, we all went over to the Eismeer station, Fischer and the Almers leaving for Grindelwald while Max and I returned to the Bergli hut with a fresh supply of stores. Early in the afternoon the weather showed unmistakable signs of mending, so we settled down to try and shape our somewhat uncertain plans for the future. Our first big ice-climb had left us with a voracious appetite for more. The wicked, green shimmer of the appallingly steep ice slope leading from the Kühlauenen Glacier up to the Jungfraujoch held out a persistent challenge. But how to get there from the Bergli hut? The solution wassimple, if perhaps a little ambitious: climb the Jungfrau, descend the north face to the Kühlauenen Glacier, and then cross over the Jungfraujoch to the Concordia hut. The north face had already so far exceeded our expectations for ice work and wonderful scenery that there was no fear of our finding a renewed visit dull. The ascent to the Jungfraujoch would provide some hours of continuous step-cutting, and we were still in need of practice with the ice-axe. Furthermore, by descending to the Concordia hut we should find ourselves well on the way to Zermatt. Fair dreamstuff for the mountain-mad! Content and expectant, we turned in to sleep.