The dust of an Avalanche falling from the Matterhorn Glacier may be seen to the right.
The dust of an Avalanche falling from the Matterhorn Glacier may be seen to the right.
The Haut-de-Cry is not one of the giants of the Alps. It is a peak of modest height but fine appearance, rising abruptly from the valley of the Rhone. In 1864 it had never been climbed in winter, and one of our countrymen, Mr Philip Gosset, set out in February of that year to attempt its ascent. He had with him a friend, Monsieur Boissonnet, the famous guide Bennen, and three men from a village, named Ardon, close by, who were to act as local guides or porters.
The party had gained a considerable height on the mountain when it became necessary to cross a couloir or gully filled with snow. It was about 150 feet broad at the top, and 400 or 500 at the bottom. "Bennen did not seem to like the look of the snow very much," writes Mr Gosset inThe Alpine Journal. "He asked the local guides whether avalanches ever came down this couloir, to which they answered thatour position was perfectly safe. We were walking in the following order—Bevard, Nance, Bennen, myself, Boissonnet, and Rebot. Having crossed over about three-quarters of the breadth of the couloir, the two leading men suddenly sank considerably above their waists. Bennen tightened the rope. The snow was too deep to think of getting out of the hole they had made, so they advanced one or two steps, dividing the snow with their bodies. Bennen turned round and told us he was afraid of starting an avalanche; we asked whether it would not be better to return and cross the couloir higher up. To this the three Ardon men opposed themselves; they mistook the proposed precaution for fear, and the two leading men continued their work.
"After three or four steps gained in the aforesaid manner, the snow became hard again. Bennen had not moved—he was evidently undecided what he should do. As soon, however, as he saw hard snow again, he advanced, and crossed parallel to, but above, the furrow the Ardon men had made. Strange to say, the snow supported him. While he was passing, I observed that the leader, Bevard, had ten or twelve feet of rope coiled round his shoulder. I of course at once told him to uncoil it, and get on to the arête, from which he wasnot more than fifteen feet distant. Bennen then told me to follow. I tried his steps, but sank up to my waist in the very first. So I went through the furrows, holding my elbows close to my body, so as not to touch the sides. This furrow was about twelve feet long, and as the snow was good on the other side, we had all come to the false conclusion that the snow was accidentally softer there than elsewhere. Bennen advanced; he had made but a few steps when we heard a deep, cutting sound. The snow-field split in two, about fourteen or fifteen feet above us. The cleft was at first quite narrow, not more than an inch broad. An awful silence ensued; it lasted but a few seconds, and then it was broken by Bennen's voice, 'Wir sind alle verloren.'[1]His words were slow and solemn, and those who knew him felt what they really meant when spoken by such a man as Bennen. They were his last words. I drove my alpenstock into the snow, and brought the weight of my body to bear on it. I then waited. It was an awful moment of suspense. I turned my head towards Bennen to see whether he had done the same thing. To my astonishment I saw him turn round, face the valley, and stretch out both arms.The ground on which we stood began to move slowly, and I felt the utter uselessness of any alpenstock. I soon sank up to my shoulders, and began descending backwards. From this moment I saw nothing of what had happened to the rest of the party. With a good deal of trouble I succeeded in turning round. The speed of the avalanche increased rapidly, and before long I was covered up with snow. I was suffocating, when I suddenly came to the surface again. I was on a wave of the avalanche, and saw it before me as I was carried down. It was the most awful sight I ever saw. The head of the avalanche was already at the spot where we had made our last halt. The head alone was preceded by a thick cloud of snow-dust; the rest of the avalanche was clear. Around me I heard the horrid hissing of the snow, and far before me the thundering of the foremost part of the avalanche. To prevent myself sinking again, I made use of my arms, much in the same way as when swimming in a standing position. At last I noticed that I was moving slower; then I saw the pieces of snow in front of me stop at some yards distant; then the snow straight before me stopped, and I heard on a large scale the same creaking sound that isproduced when a heavy cart passes over frozen snow in winter. I felt that I also had stopped, and instantly threw up both arms to protect my head, in case I should again be covered up. I had stopped, but the snow behind me was still in motion; its pressure on my body was so strong that I thought I should be crushed to death. This tremendous pressure lasted but a short time; I was covered up by snow coming from behind me. My first impulse was to try and uncover my head—but this I could not do, the avalanche had frozen by pressure the moment it stopped, and I was frozen in. Whilst trying vainly to move my arms, I suddenly became aware that the hands as far as the wrist had the faculty of motion. The conclusion was easy, they must be above the snow. I set to work as well as I could; it was time for I could not have held out much longer. At last I saw a faint glimmer of light. The crust above my head was getting thinner, but I could not reach it any more with my hands; the idea struck me that I might pierce it with my breath. After several efforts I succeeded in doing so, and felt suddenly a rush of air towards my mouth, I saw the sky again through a little round hole. A dead silence reigned around me; I was so surprised to bestill alive, and so persuaded at the first moment that none of my fellow-sufferers had survived, that I did not even think of shouting for them. I then made vain efforts to extricate my arms, but found it impossible; the most I could do was to join the ends of my fingers, but they could not reach the snow any longer. After a few minutes I heard a man shouting; what a relief it was to know that I was not the sole survivor!—to know that perhaps he was not frozen in and could come to my assistance! I answered; the voice approached, but seemed uncertain where to go, and yet it was now quite near. A sudden exclamation of surprise! Rebot had seen my hands. He cleared my head in an instant, and was about to try and cut me out completely, when I saw a foot above the snow, and so near to me that I could touch it with my arms, although they were not quite free yet. I at once tried to move the foot; it was my poor friend's. A pang of agony shot through me as I saw that the foot did not move. Poor Boissonnet had lost sensation, and was perhaps already dead.
"Rebot did his best. After some time he wished me to help him, so he freed my arms a little more, so that I could make use of them. I could do but little, for Rebot had torn the axe from my shoulder assoon as he had cleared my head (I generally carry an axe separate from my alpenstock—the blade tied to the belt, and the handle attached to the left shoulder). Before coming to me Rebot had helped Nance out of the snow; he was lying nearly horizontally, and was not much covered over. Nance found Bevard, who was upright in the snow, but covered up to the head. After about twenty minutes, the two last-named guides came up. I was at length taken out; the snow had to be cut with the axe down to my feet before I could be pulled out. A few minutes after 1P.M.we came to my poor friend's face.... I wished the body to be taken out completely, but nothing could induce the three guides to work any longer, from the moment they saw it was too late to save him. I acknowledge that they were nearly as incapable of doing anything as I was. When I was taken out of the snow the cord had to be cut. We tried the end going towards Bennen, but could not move it; it went nearly straight down, and showed us that there was the grave of the bravest guide the Valais ever had or ever will have."
Thus ends one of the most magnificent descriptions of an avalanche which has ever been written. The cause of the accident was a mistaken opinion as to the state of winter snow, which is very different tothe snow met with in summer, and of which at that time the best guides had no experience.
A RACE FOR LIFE
Once upon a time, in the year 1872, a certain famous mountaineer, Mr F. F. Tuckett, had with his party a desperate race for life. The climbers numbered five in all, three travellers and two guides, and had started from the Wengern Alp to ascend the Eiger. Nowadays there is a railway to the Wengern Alp, and so thousands of English people are familiar with the appearance of the magnificent group of mountains—the Eiger, the Mönch, and the Jungfrau—which they have before them as they pass along in the train. Suffice it here to say that the way up the Eiger lies over a glacier, partly fed by another high above it, from which, through a narrow, rocky gully, great masses of ice now and again come dashing down. Unless the fall is a very big one, climbers skirting along the edge of this glacier are safe enough, but on the only occasion I have been up the Eiger, I did not fancy this part of the journey.
Eiger. Mönch.From the Lauberhorn.The Cross marks the Scene of "A Race for Life." The dotted line shows the steep Ice-Wall of the Eigerjoch (page 208).
Eiger. Mönch.
From the Lauberhorn.
The Cross marks the Scene of "A Race for Life." The dotted line shows the steep Ice-Wall of the Eigerjoch (page 208).
To return to Mr Tuckett and his friends. They were advancing up the snowy valley below the funnel-shaped opening through which an avalanche occasionally falls. The guide, Ulrich Lauener, wasleading, and, remarks Mr Tuckett, "He is a little hard of hearing; and although his sight, which had become very feeble in 1870, is greatly improved, both ear and eye were perhaps less quick to detect any unexpected sound or movement than might otherwise have been the case. Be this as it may, when all of a sudden I heard a sort of crack somewhere up aloft, I believe that, for an instant or two, his was the only head not turned upwards in the direction from which it seemed to proceed, viz., the hanging ice-cliff; but the next moment, when a huge mass of sérac broke away, mingled apparently with a still larger contingent of snow from the slopes above, whose descent may, indeed, have caused, or at least hastened, the disruption of the glacier, every eye was on the look-out, though as yet there was no indication on the part of any one, nor I believe any thought for one or two seconds more, that we were going to be treated to anything beyond a tolerably near view of such an avalanche as it rarely falls to anyone's lot to see. Down came the mighty cataract, filling the couloir to its brim; but it was not until it had traversed a distance of 600 to 800 feet, and on suddenly dashing in a cloud of frozen spray over one of the principal rocky ridges with which, as I have said, the continuity of the snow-slope was broken, appearedas if by magic to triple its width, that the idea of danger to ourselves flashed upon me. I now perceived that its volume was enormously greater than I had at first imagined, and that, with the tremendous momentum it had by this time acquired, it might, instead of descending on the right between us and the rocks of the Klein Eiger, dash completely across the base of the Eiger itself in front of us, attain the foot of the Rothstock ridge, and then, trending round, sweep the whole surface of the glacier, ourselves included, with the besom of destruction.
"I instinctively bolted for the rocks of the Rothstock—if haply it might not be too late—yelling rather than shouting to the others, 'Run for your lives!'
"Ulrich was the last to take the alarm, though the nearest to the danger, and was thus eight or ten paces behind the rest of us, though he, too, shouted to Whitwell to run for his life directly he became aware of the situation. But by this time we were all straining desperately through the deep, soft snow for dear life, yet with faces turned upwards to watch the swift on-coming of the foe. I remember being struck with the idea that it seemed as though, sure of its prey, it wished to play with us for a while, at one momentletting us imagine that we had gained upon it, and were getting beyond the line of its fire, and the next, with mere wantonness of vindictive power, suddenly rolling out on its right a vast volume of grinding blocks and whirling snow, as though to show that it could out-flank us at any moment it chose.
"Nearer and nearer it came, its front like a mighty wave about to break, yet that still 'on the curl hangs poising'; now it has traversed the whole width of the glacier above us, taking a somewhat diagonal direction; and now run, oh, run! if ever you did, for here it comes straight at us, still outflanking us, swift, deadly, and implacable! The next instant we saw no more; a wild confusion of whirling snow and fragments of ice—a frozen cloud—swept over us, entirely concealing us from one another, and still we were untouched—at least I knew that I was—and still we ran. Another half second and the mist had passed, and there lay the body of the monster, whose head was still careering away at lightning speed far below us, motionless, rigid, and harmless. It will naturally be supposed that the race was one which had not admitted of being accurately timed by the performers; but I believe that I am speaking with precision when I say that I do not think the whole thing occupied from first to last more than five or sixseconds. How narrow our escape was may be inferred from the fact that the spot where I halted for a moment to look back after it had passed, was found to be just twelve yards from its edge, and I don't think that in all we had had time to put more than thirty yards between us and the point where our wild rush for the rocks first began. Ulrich's momentary lagging all but cost him his life; for in spite of his giant stride and desperate exertions he only just contrived to fling himself forwards as the edge of the frozen torrent dashed past him. This may sound like exaggeration, but he assured me that he felt some fragments strike his legs; and it will perhaps appear less improbable when it is considered that he was certainly several yards in the rear, and when the avalanche came to a standstill, its edge, intersecting and concealing our tracks along a sharply defined line, rose rigid and perpendicular, like a wall of cyclopean masonry, as the old Bible pictures represent the waters of the Red Sea, standing 'upright as an heap' to let the Israelites through.
"The avalanche itself consisted of a mixture, in tolerably equal proportions, of blocks of sérac of all shapes and sizes, up to irregular cubes of four or five feet on a size, and snow thoroughly saturated with water—the most dangerous of all descriptions toencounter, as its weight is enormous. We found that it covered the valley for a length of about 3300 feet, and a maximum breadth of 1500, tailing off above and below to 500 or 1000 feet. Had our position on the slope been a few hundred feet higher or lower, or in other words, had we been five minutes earlier or later, we must have been caught beyond all chance of escape."
There was no rashness which can be blamed in the party finding themselves in the position described. Avalanches, when they fall down the gully, hardly ever come so far as the one met with on this occasion, and they very seldom fall at all in the early morning. The famous guide, Christian Almer, while engaged on another expedition, visited the spot after the avalanche had fallen, and said that it was the mightiest he had ever seen in his life. Mr Tuckett roughly estimated its total weight as about 450,000 tons.
The following exciting account is taken from an article by Herr Lorria, which appeared inThe St Moritz Postfor 28th January 1888. The injuries received were so terrible that, I believe, Herr Lorria never entirely ceased to feel their effects.
The party consisted of two Austrian gentlemen, Herren Lammer and Lorria, without guides, who, in 1887, had made Zermatt their headquarters for some climbs. They had difficulty in deciding which ascent to begin with, especially as the weather had recently been bad, and the peaks were not in first-class condition. Herr Lorria writes:
"I fancied the Pointe de Zinal as the object of our tour; but Lammer, who had never been on the Matterhorn, wished to climb this mountain by the western flank—a route which had only once before been attacked, namely by Mr Penhall. We had with us the drawing of Penhall's route, published inThe Alpine Journal.
"After skirting a jutting cliff, we reached the couloir at its narrowest point. It was clear that we had followed the route laid down inThe Alpine Journal; and although Mr Penhall says that the rocks here are very easy, I cannot at all agree with him.
"We could not simply cross over the couloir, for, on the opposite side, the rocks looked horrible: it was only possible to cross it some forty or fifty mètres higher. We climbed down into the couloir: the ice was furrowed by avalanches. We were obliged to cut steps as we mounted upwards in a sloping direction. In a quarter of an hour we were on the other side of the couloir. The impression which the couloir made upon me is best shown by the words which I at the moment addressed to Lammer: 'We are now completely cut off.' We saw clearly that it was only the early hour, before the sun was yet upon the couloir, which protected us from danger. Once more upon the rocks, we kept our course as much as possible parallel to the N.W. arête. We clambered along, first over rocks covered with ice, then over glassy ledges, always sloping downwards. Our progress was slow indeed; the formation of the rock surface was ever becoming more unfavourable, and the covering of ice was a fearful hindrance.
"Such difficult rocks I had rarely seen before; the wrinkled ledges of the Dent Blanche were easy compared to them. At 1P.M., we were standing on a level with the "Grand Tower"; the summit lay close before us, but as far as we could see, the rocks were completely coated with a treacherous layer of ice. Immediately before us was a precipitous ice couloir. All attempts to advance were fruitless, even our crampons were of no avail. Driven back! If this, in all cases, is a heavy blow for the mountain climber, we had here, in addition, the danger which we knew so well, and which was every moment increasing. It was one o'clock in the afternoon; the rays of the sun already struck the western wall of the mountain; stone after stone, loosened from its icy fetters, whistled past us. Back! As fast as possible back! Lammer pulled off his shoes and I stuffed them into the knapsack, holding also our two ice-axes. As I clambered down the first I was often obliged to trust to the rope. The ledges, which had given us trouble in the ascent, were now fearfully difficult. Across a short ice slope, in which we had cut steps in the ascent, Lammer was obliged, as time pressed, to get along without his shoes. The difficulties increased; every moment the danger became greater; and already wholeavalanches of stones rattled down. The situation was indeed critical. At last, after immense difficulty, we reached the edge of the couloir at the place we had left it in the ascent. But we could find no spot protected from the stones; they literally came down upon us like hail. Which was the more serious danger, the threatening avalanches in the couloir or the pelting of the stones which swept down from every side? On the far side of the couloir there was safety, as all the stones must in the end reach the couloir, which divides the whole face of the mountain into two parts. It was now five o'clock in the afternoon; the burning rays of the sun came down upon us, and countless stones whirled through the air. We remembered the saying of Dr Güssfeldt, in his magnificent description of the passage of the Col du Lion, that only at midnight is tranquility restored. We resolved, then, to risk the short stretch across the couloir. Lammer pulled on his shoes; I was the first to leave the rocks. The snow which covered the ice was suspiciously soft, but we had no need to cut steps. In the avalanche track before us on the right a mighty avalanche is thundering down; stones leap into the couloir, and give rise to new avalanches.
"Suddenly my consciousness is extinguished, and I do not recover it till twenty-one days later. I can, therefore, only tell what Lammer saw. Gently from above an avalanche of snow came sliding down upon us; it carried Lammer away in spite of his efforts, and it projected me with my head against a rock. Lammer was blinded by the powdery snow, and thought that his last hour was come. The thunder of the roaring avalanche was fearful; we were dashed over rocks, laid bare in the avalanche track, and leaped over two immense bergschrunds. At every change of the slope we flew into the air, and then were plunged again into the snow, and often dashed against one another. For a long time it seemed to Lammer as if all were over, countless thoughts went thronging through his brain, until at last the avalanche had expended its force, and we were left lying on the Tiefenmatten Glacier. Our fall was estimated at from 550 to 800 English feet.
"I lay unconscious, quite buried in the snow; the rope had gone twice round my neck and bound it fast. Lammer, who quickly recovered consciousness, pulled me out of the snow, cut the rope, and gave me a good shake. I then awoke, but being delirious, I resisted with all my might myfriend's endeavours to pull me out of the track of the avalanche. However, he succeeded in getting me on to a stone (I was, of course, unable to walk), and gave me his coat; and having thus done all that was possible for me, he began to creep downwards on hands and knees. He could not stand, having a badly sprained ankle; except for that he escaped with merely a few bruises and scratches. At length Lammer arrived at the Stockje hut, but to his intense disappointment there was nobody there. He did not pause to give vent to his annoyance, however, but continued his way down. Twice he felt nearly unable to proceed, and would have abandoned himself to his fate had not the thought of me kept him up and urged him on. At three o'clock in the morning he reached the Staffel Alp, but none of the people there were willing to venture on the glacier. He now gave up all hope that I could be saved, though he nevertheless sent a messenger to Herr Seiler, who reached Zermatt at about 4.15A.M.
"In half an hour's time a relief party set out from Zermatt. When the party reached the Staffel Alp, Lammer was unconscious, but most fortunately he had written on a piece of paper the information that I was lying at the foot of Penhall's couloir.They found me about half-past eight o'clock. I had taken off all my clothes in my delirium, and had slipped off the rock on which Lammer had left me. One of my feet was broken and both were frozen into the snow, and had to be cut out with an axe.
"At 8P.M.I was brought back to Zermatt, and for twenty days I lay unconscious at the Monte Rosa Hotel hovering between life and death."
Herr Lorria pays a warm tribute to the kindness of Seiler and his wife, and the skill of Dr de Courten, who saved his limbs when other doctors wished to amputate them. He ends his graphic account as follows: "The lesson to be learnt from our accident is not 'Always take guides,' but rather 'Never try the Penhall route on the Matterhorn, except after a long series of fine, hot days, for otherwise the western wall of the mountain is the most fearful mouse-trap in the Alps.'"
THE ICE AVALANCHE OF THE ALTELS.
Those who climbed in the Alps during the summer of 1895 will recollect how wonderfully dry and warm the weather was, denuding the mountains of snow and causing a number of rock-falls, so that manyascents became very dangerous, and, in my own case, after one or two risky encounters with falling stones, we decided to let the rock peaks alone for the rest of that campaign.
In the centre of the picture may be seen an Avalanche, which a non-climber might mistake for a Waterfall, dropping down the Rocks of the Wetterhorn.
In the centre of the picture may be seen an Avalanche, which a non-climber might mistake for a Waterfall, dropping down the Rocks of the Wetterhorn.
InThe Alpine Journalof August 1897, Mr Charles Slater gives an admirable description of a great ice-avalanche which overwhelmed one of the fertile pastures near the well-known Gemmi route. From this account I make some extracts, which will give an idea of the magnitude of the disaster and its unusual character, as the ice from a falling glacier rarely ever approaches cultivated land and dwellings.
The scene of the catastrophe was at Spitalmatten, a pasturage with châlets used in summer by the shepherds, in a basin at the beginning of the valley which extends to the pass. Steep slopes bound it on the east, and above them rises the glacier-capped peak of the Altels. The glacier was well seen from the Gemmi path, and all tourists who passed that way must have noticed and admired it. It is believed that a big crevasse, running right across the glacier, was noticed during the month of August, and the lower part of the glacier seemed to be completely cut off from the upper portion by it.
On the evening of 10th September, the Vice-President of the commune of Leuk (to which communethe Alp belonged) arrived at the châlets to settle the accounts of the past summer. Several of the women had already gone down, taking some of the calves with them, and the rest of the inhabitants of the little settlement were to follow next day. The weather was warm but cloudy, with a strongföhnwind.[2]
On the morning of 11th September, about 5A.M., the few people who lived at or near the Schwarenbach Inn heard a roar like an earthquake, and felt a violent blast of wind. A servant, rushing out of the inn, saw "what appeared to be a white mist streaming down the Altel's slope. The huge mass of ice forming the lower end of the glacier had broken away, rushed down the mountain side, leapt from the Tateleu plateau into the valley, and, like an immense wave, had swept over the Alp, up the Uschinen Grat, as if up a 1500 sea-wall, andeven sent its ice-foam over this into the distant Uschinen Thal."
The only other eye-witness of this appalling catastrophe was a traveller who was walking up the Kanderthal from Frutigen in the early morning. "He saw in the Gemmi direction a fearful whirlwind, with dust and snow-clouds, and experienced later a cold rain falling from a clear sky, the rain being probably due to the melting of the ice-cloud."
The scene after the disaster must have been a terrible one. "Winter had apparently come in the midst of summer"; the whole pasture was covered with masses of ice. "The body of the Vice-President was found lying 180 yards away from the hut. Another body had been flung into the branches of an uprooted tree, while a third was found still holding a stocking in one hand, having been killed in the act of dressing."
There was no chance of escape for the people, as only a minute or little more elapsed from the time the avalanche started till it reached the settlement. The cows were nearly all killed, "they seem to have been blown like leaves before a storm to enormous distances."
A year later, much of the avalanche was still unmelted.
The thickness of the slice of glacier which broke away is believed to have been about 25 feet, and it fell through a vertical height of 4700 feet. It moved at about the average rate of two miles a minute.
"It is difficult to realise these vast figures, and a few comparisons have been suggested which may help to give some idea of the forces which were called into play. The material which fell would have sufficed to bury the City of London to the depth of six feet, and Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens would have disappeared beneath a layer six-and-a-half feet deep. The enormous energy of the moving mass may be dimly pictured when we think that a weight of ice and stones ten times greater than the tonnage of the whole of England's battle-ships plunged on to the Alp at a speed of nearly 300 miles an hour."
An almost exactly similar accident had occurred in 1782.
AN AVALANCHE WHICH ROBBED A LADY OF A GARMENT
One of the greatest advantages in mountaineering as a sport is the amount of enjoyment it gives even when climbing-days are past. While actuallyengaged in the ascent of difficult peaks our minds are apt to be entirely engrossed with the problem of getting up and down them, but afterwards we delight in recalling every interesting passage, every glorious view, every successful climb; and perhaps this gives us even more pleasure than the experiences themselves.
If we happen to have combined photography with mountaineering we are particularly to be envied, for an hour in the company of one of our old albums will recall with wonderful vividness many an incident which we should have otherwise forgotten.
Turning over some prints which long have lain on one side, a wave of recollection brings before me some especially happy days on snowy peaks, and makes me long to bring a breath of Alpine air to the cities, where for so much of the year dwell many of my brother and sister climbers.
With the help of the accompanying photographs, which will serve to generally illustrate my remarks, let me relate what befell me during an ascent of the Schallihorn—a peak some twelve thousand and odd feet high, in the neighbourhood of Zermatt.
Now, although Zermatt is a very familiar playground for mountaineers, yet even as late as ten years ago one or two virgin peaks and a fairnumber of new and undesirable routes up others were still to be found. I had had my share of success on the former, and was at the time of which I write looking about for an interesting and moderately safe way, hitherto untrodden, up one of the lesser-known mountains in the district. My guide and my friend of many years, Joseph Imboden, racked his brains for a suitable novelty, and at length suggested that as no one had hitherto attacked the south-east face of the Schallihorn we might as well see if it could be ascended. He added that he was not at all sure if it was possible—a remark I have known him to make on more than one peak in far away Arctic Norway, when the obvious facility of an ascent had robbed it of half its interest. However, in those days I still rose satisfactorily to observations of that sort, and was at once all eagerness to set out. We were fortunate in securing as our second guide Imboden's brilliant son Roman, who happened to be disengaged just then. A further and little dreamed-of honour was in store for us, as on our endeavouring to hire a porter to take our things to the bivouac from the tiny village of Taesch no less a person than the mayor volunteered to accompany us in that capacity.
Mr Whymper. Zermatt, 1896.
Mr Whymper. Zermatt, 1896.
Mrs Aubrey Le Blond on a Mountain Top.Photographed by her Guide, Joseph Imboden
Mrs Aubrey Le Blond on a Mountain Top.
Photographed by her Guide, Joseph Imboden
A Hot Day in Mid-Winter on the Summit of a Peak 13,000 feet high.
A Hot Day in Mid-Winter on the Summit of a Peak 13,000 feet high.
So we started upwards one hot afternoon, bound for some overhanging rocks, which, we were assured by those who had never visited the spot, we should find. For the regulation routes up the chief peaks the climber can generally count on a hut, where, packed in close proximity to his neighbours, he lies awake till it is time to get up, and sets forth on his ascent benefited only in imagination by his night's repose. Within certain limits the less a man is catered for the more comfortable he is, and the more he has to count on himself the better are the arrangements for his comfort. Thus I have found a well-planned bivouac under a great rock infinitely preferable to a night in a hut, and a summer's campaign in tents amongst unexplored mountains more really luxurious than a season in an over-thronged Alpine hotel.
Two or three hours' walking took us far above the trees and into the region of short grass and stony slopes. Eventually we reached a hollow at the very foot of our mountain, and here we began to look about for suitable shelter and a flat surface on which to lay the sleeping-bags. The pictured rocks of inviting appearance were nowhere to be found, and what there were offered very inferior accommodation. But the weather was perfect, and we hadan ample supply of wraps, so we contented ourselves with what protection was given by a steep, rocky wall, and turned our attention to the Schallihorn. The proposed route could be well seen. Imboden traced out the way he intended taking for a long distance up the mighty precipice in front of us. There were tracks of avalanches at more than one spot, and signs of falling stones were not infrequent. My guide thought he could avoid all danger by persistently keeping to the projecting ridges, and his idea was to descend by whatever way we went up, as the ordinary route is merely a long, uninteresting grind.
We now lit a fire, made soup and coffee, and soon after got into our sleeping-bags. The night passed peacefully, save for the rumble of an occasional avalanche, when great masses of ice broke loose on the glacier hard by. Before dawn we were stirring, and by the weird light of a huge fire were making our preparations for departure. It gradually grew light as our little party moved in single file towards the rocky ramparts which threatened to bar the way to the upper world. As we ascended a stony slope, Imboden remarked, "Why, ma'am, you still have on that long skirt! Let us leave it here; we can pick it up on our return." Now, in order not to beconspicuous when starting for a climbing expedition, I always wore an ordinary walking-skirt over my mountaineering costume. It was of the lightest possible material, so that, if returning by a different route, it could be rolled up and carried in a knapsack. I generally started from the bivouac without it; but the presence on this occasion of the Mayor of Täsch had quite overawed me; hence the unusual elegance of my get-up. Lest I be thought to dwell at undue length on so trifling a matter, I may add that the skirt had adventures that day of so remarkable a nature that the disappearance of Elijah in his chariot can alone be compared to them.
The skirt was now duly removed, rolled up and placed under a heavy stone, which we marked with a small cairn, so as to find it the more easily on our return. Shortly after, the real climb began, and, putting on the rope, we commenced the varied series of gymnastics which make life worth living to the mountaineer. We had several particularly unpleasant gullies to cross, up which Imboden glanced hastily and suspiciously, and hurried us over, fearing the fall of stones. At length we came for a little time to easier ground, and as the day was now intensely hot the men took off their waistcoats, leaving them and their watches in a hole in the rock.Above this gentler slope the mountain steepened again, and a ridge in the centre, running directly upwards, alone gave a possible route to the summit. This ridge, at first broad and simple, before long narrowed to a knife-edge. There was always enough to hold; but the rocks were so loose and rotten that we hardly dared to touch them. Spread out over those treacherous rocks, adhering by every finger in our endeavour to distribute our weight, we slowly wormed ourselves upwards. Such situations are always trying. The most brilliant cragsman finds his skill of little avail. Unceasing care and patience alone can help him here. Throwing down the most insecure of the blocks, which fell sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other of the ridge, we gradually advanced. The conversation ran rather in a groove: "Not that one, ma'am, or the big fellow on the top will come down!" "Don't touch the red one or the little white one!" "Now come up to where I am without stepping on any of them!" "Roman! look out! I'm letting this one go!" Then bang! bang! bang! and a disgusting smell as of gunpowder, while a great boulder dashed in leaps towards the glacier below, grinding and smashing itself to atoms before it reached the bottom.
Joseph Imboden.Mrs Aubrey Le Blond.Zermatt, September, 1896.
Joseph Imboden.Mrs Aubrey Le Blond.
Zermatt, September, 1896.
Crossing a Snow Couloir(page 73).
Crossing a Snow Couloir(page 73).
Thus with untiring thoroughness Imboden led his little band higher and higher, till at last the summit came in sight and our muscles and overstrained nerves saw rest ahead.
I readily agreed to Imboden's decision that we should go down the ordinary way.
After descending for a considerable distance we stopped, and the guides held a short consultation. It seemed that Roman was anxious to try and fetch the waistcoats and watches and my skirt, and his father did not object.
Wishing him the best of good-luck, we parted by the rocks and trudged on over the snow towards Zermatt. We moved leisurely, as people who climb for pleasure, with no thought of record-breaking; and as it was late in September it was dusk as we neared the village.
Later in the evening I saw Imboden, and asked for news of Roman. He had not arrived, and as time passed we grew uneasy, knowing the speed at which, if alone, he would descend. By 10P.M.we were really anxious, and great was our relief when a figure with knapsack and ice-axe came swinging up the narrow, cobbled street.
It was an exciting tale he had to tell, though it took a good deal of danger to impress Roman withthe notion that there was any at all. Soon after leaving us he came to the first gully. Just as he was about to step into it he heard a rumble. Springing back, he squeezed himself under an overhanging piece of rock, while a huge mass of stones and snow dashed down the mountain, some of the fragments passing right over him—though, thanks to his position, none actually touched him. When tranquility was restored he dashed across to the other side, and immediately after a fresh fall commenced, which lasted for a considerable time. At length he approached without injury the spot he was looking for, far down on the lower slopes, where my skirt had been left, and here he felt that all danger was past. But the extraordinarily dry season had thrown out most people's calculations, and at that very moment he was really in the direst peril. As he ran gaily down the slope of earth and stones a tremendous crash brought him to a standstill, and looking back he saw the smoke of a mighty avalanche of ice coming in a huge wave over the cliffs above. He rushed for shelter, which was near at hand, and from beneath the protection of a great rock he saw the avalanche come on and on with the roar of artillery, and he gazed, fascinated, as it swept majestically past his place of refuge. He could see the mound where lay my skirt with itsheap of stones. And now a striking sight met his eyes, for before ever the seething mass could touch it the whole heap rose from the ground and was carried far out of the path of the avalanche, borne along by the violence of the wind which preceded it.
The late John Addington Symonds has related in one of his charming accounts of winter in the Alps that an old woman, sitting peaceably before her châlet door in the sun, was transported by the wind of an avalanche to the top of a lofty pine-tree, where, quite uninjured, she calmly awaited assistance; but that my skirt should have such an adventure brought very strongly home to me the dangers Roman had passed through that afternoon and the escape we had had ourselves.
It was in 1786 that the summit of Mont Blanc was reached for the first time. It had been attained on only eleven occasions, and no accidents had happened on it when, in 1820, the catastrophe since known as the Hamel accident, took place.
Dr Joseph Hamel was a Russian savant, and Counsellor of State to the Czar. He much desired to ascend Mont Blanc in order that he might make scientific experiments on the top, and in August 1820, he came to Chamonix for the purpose. It is of no use, and of little interest to general readers, if I enter into particulars of the controversy which this expedition excited. Some declared that Dr Hamel urged his guides to proceed against their better judgment. Others say that the whole party—which included two Englishmen and nine guides—were anxious to continue the ascent, and, indeed, saw no reason for doing otherwise. Certain it is, howeverthat in those days no one was a judge of the condition of snow, and able to tell from its consistency if an avalanche were likely or not.
Mont Blanc.The black line shows the probable course the bodies took during their 40 years' descent in the ice.By a local Photographer.
Mont Blanc.
The black line shows the probable course the bodies took during their 40 years' descent in the ice.
By a local Photographer.
Nicolas Winhart, escaping on this occasion with his life, afterwards perished on the Col des Grands Montets in 1875 (page 99).By a local Photographer.
Nicolas Winhart, escaping on this occasion with his life, afterwards perished on the Col des Grands Montets in 1875 (page 99).
By a local Photographer.
A Banker at Geneva, who was a most active searcher for Henry Arkwright's body. He was killed in a duel in 1869. It is interesting to compare the old-fashioned costume with that of the present day climber.By a local Photographer.
A Banker at Geneva, who was a most active searcher for Henry Arkwright's body. He was killed in a duel in 1869. It is interesting to compare the old-fashioned costume with that of the present day climber.
By a local Photographer.
The Relics.The rope was found round the body but worn through in two places by the hip bones. The handkerchief, shirt front with studs, prune stones, watch chain, pencil case, cartridge, spike of alpenstock, coins, glove tied with spare bootlace, etc., all belonged to Henry Arkwright.
The Relics.
The rope was found round the body but worn through in two places by the hip bones. The handkerchief, shirt front with studs, prune stones, watch chain, pencil case, cartridge, spike of alpenstock, coins, glove tied with spare bootlace, etc., all belonged to Henry Arkwright.
The party, which at first numbered fourteen, duly reached the rocks of the Grands Mulets, where it was usual to spend the night. The sky clouded over towards evening, and there was a heavy thunderstorm during the night. Next morning the weather was too unsettled for the ascent to be tried, so a couple of guides were sent down to Chamonix for more provisions, and a second night was spent in camp. Early next morning, in beautiful weather, a start was made, one of the members of the party, Monsieur Selligne, who felt ill, and two guides leaving the others and going down to Chamonix. The rest safely reached the Grand Plateau. The snow, hardened by the night's frost, had thus far supported the weight of the climbers and made their task easy. It was, however, far from consolidated beneath the crust, as the warm wind of the previous days had made it thoroughly rotten.
All were in excellent spirits during the halt for breakfast on the Grand Plateau, that snowy valley which is spread out below the steeper slopes of the final mass of the mountain. Dr Hamel employedpart of his time in writing a couple of notes announcing his arrival on the top of Mont Blanc leaving a blank on each to insert the hour. These notes he intended to despatch by carrier pigeon, the bird being with them, imprisoned in a large kettle.
At 10.30 they reached the foot of what is now known as the Ancien Passage. This is a steep snow-slope leading almost directly to the top of Mont Blanc. When the snow is sound, and the ice above does not overhang much, this route is as safe as any other; but a steep slope covered with a layer of rotten snow is always most dangerous. At that time, the Ancien Passage was the only way ever taken up Mont Blanc.
They had ascended a considerable distance, the snow being softer and softer as they rose, and they formed a long line one behind the other, not mounting straight up, but making their way rather across the slope. Six guides walked at the head of the troop, and then, after an interval, the two Englishmen and two more guides, Dr Hamel being last.
All seemed to be going excellently. Everyone plodded along, and rejoiced to be so near the culminating point of the expedition. No thought of danger disturbed them.
Suddenly there was a dull, harsh sound. Immediately the entire surface of the snow began to move. "My God! The avalanche! We are lost!" shrieked the guides. The slope at Dr Hamel's end of the party was not steep,—barely more than 30°—but up above it was more rapid. The leading guides were carried straightway off their feet. Hamel was also swept away by the gathering mass of snow. Using his arms as if swimming, he managed to bring his head to the surface, and as he did so the moving snow slowed down and stopped. In those few moments, some 1200 feet had been descended. At first Dr Hamel thought that he alone had been carried away, but presently he saw his English friends and their guides—no more.
"Where are the others?" cried Dr Hamel. Balmat, who a moment before had let his brother pass on to the head of the party, wrung his hands and answered, "The others are in the crevasse!"
The crevasse! Strange that all had forgotten it! The avalanche had poured into it, filling it to the brim.
"A terrible panic set in. The guides lost all self-control. Some walked about aimlessly, uttering loud cries. Matthieu Balmat sat in sullen silence, rejecting all kind offices with an irritation whichmade it painful to approach him. Dornford threw himself on the snow in despair, and Henderson, says Hamel, 'was in a condition which made one fear for the consequences.' A few minutes later two other guides extricated themselves, but the remaining three were seen no more. Hamel and Henderson descended into the crevasse, and made every possible attempt to find the lost guides, but without avail; the surviving guides forced them to come out, and sore at heart they returned to Chamonix.
"The three guides who were lost were Pierre Carrier, Pierre Balmat, and Auguste Tairraz. They were the three foremost in the line and felt the first effects of the avalanche. Matthieu Balmat, who was fourth in the line, saved himself by his great personal strength and by presence of mind. Julien Dévouassoud was hurled across the crevasse, and Joseph Marie Couttet was dragged out senseless by his companions, 'nearly black from the weight of snow which had fallen upon him.'"[3]
Scientific men had already begun to give attention to the movement of glaciers. In addition to this, cases had occurred where the remains ofpersons lost on glaciers had been recovered years afterwards. A travelling seller of hats, crossing the Tschingel Glacier on his way from the Bernese Oberland to Valais, had fallen into a crevasse. Eventually his body and his stock of merchandise was found at the end of the glacier. Near the Grimsel, the remains of a child were discovered in the ice. An old man remembered that many years before a little boy had disappeared in that locality and must doubtless have been lost in a crevasse. These facts were probably known to Dr Hamel, and he made the remark that perhaps in a thousand years, the bodies of his guides might be found. Forbes, who knew more of the subject, believed that, travelling in the ice, they would reach the end of the glacier in forty years.
He was right, for on 15th August 1861, his "bold prediction was verified, and the ice give up its dead." On that day, the guide, Ambrose Simond, who happened to be with some tourists on the lower part of the Glacier des Bossons, discovered some pieces of clothing and human bones. From that time until 1864 the glacier did not cease to render up, piece by piece, the remains and the belongings of the three victims.
An accident, very similar to that which befell Dr Hamel's party, took place in 1866. This has for me a very special interest, as I have met the brother of the Englishman who perished, and have examined all the documents, letters, newspaper cuttings, and photographs relating to the catastrophe. The guide, Sylvain Couttet, an old friend of mine, since dead, has given a moving account of the sad event. Sylvain knew Mont Blanc better than any other native of Chamonix, and though when I knew him he had given up guiding, he desired to add one more ascent of the great white peak to his record, for at that time he had been up ninety-nine times. I accordingly invited him to come with my party when we climbed it from the Italian side. He did so—he had never been up that way before—and I well remember how he slipped himself free of the rope after the last rocks, saying, "Ah, you young people, you go on. The old man will follow." Alone he arrived on the top, strode about over its snowy dome as if to say good-bye, and was just as ready for his work as any of us when, in a stiff gale, we descended the ridge of the Bosses.
But to return to what is known as the Arkwright accident.
In the year 1866, Henry Arkwright, a young manof twenty-nine, aide-de-camp to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, was travelling in Switzerland with his mother and two sisters. Writing from Geneva on 3rd September to a member of his family, he said, "We have ventured to try our luck higher up, as the weather is so warm and settled—as otherwise I should leave Switzerland without seeing a glacier." On what an apparent chance—a run of fine weather—do great issues depend!
The party shortly afterwards moved on to Chamonix, where many excursions were made, thanks to the beautiful weather which still continued. It had now become quite the fashion to go up Mont Blanc, so one is not surprised that Henry Arkwright, though no climber, decided to make the attempt. One of his sisters went with him as far as the hut at the Grands Mulets, and they were accompanied by the guide Michael Simond, and the porters Joseph and François Tournier. Another party proposed also to go up. It consisted of two persons only, Sylvain Couttet and anemployéof the Hotel Royal named Nicolas Winhart, whom Sylvain had promised to conduct to the top when he had time and opportunity. It was the 12th October when they left Chamonix, and all went well across the crevassed Glacier des Bossons, and they duly reached their night quarters.
While the climbers were absent next day, Miss Fanny Arkwright employed herself with writing and finishing a sketch for her brother.
Meanwhile the two parties, having set out at an early hour, advanced quickly up the snow-slopes. The days were short, and it was desirable to take the most direct route. For years the Ancien Passage had been abandoned, and the more circuitous way by the Corridor used instead. However, the snow was in good order, and as up to then no accidents had happened through falling ice, this danger was little dreaded, though it is sometimes a very real one in the Ancien Passage. So the guides advised that this should be the way chosen, and both parties directed their steps accordingly. Sylvain Couttet has left a remarkable description of the events which followed, and portions of this I now translate from his own words as they appeared inThe Alpine Journal.
The two parties were together at the beginning of the steep snow-slope. Sylvain's narrative here commences:—"I said to the porter, Joseph Tournier, who had thus far been making the tracks, 'Let us pass on ahead; you have worked long enough. To each of us his share!' It was to this kindly thought for my comrade that, without the slightest doubt, Winhartand I owe our salvation! We had been walking for about ten minutes near some very threateningséracswhen a crack was heard above us a little to the right. Without reasoning, I instinctively cried, 'Walk quickly!' and I rushed forwards, while someone behind me exclaimed, 'Not in that direction!'
"I heard nothing more; the wind of the avalanche caught me and carried me away in its furious descent. 'Lie down!' I called, and at the same moment I desperately drove my stick into the harder snow beneath, and crouched down on hands and knees, my head bent and turned towards the hurricane. I felt the blocks of ice passing over my back, particles of snow were swept against my face, and I was deafened by a terrible cracking sound like thunder.
"It was only after eight or ten minutes that the air began to clear, and then, always clinging to my axe, I perceived Winhart 6 feet below me, with the point of his stick firmly planted in the ice. The rope by which we were tied to each other was intact. I saw nothing beyond Winhart except the remains of the cloud of snow and a chaos of ice-blocks spread over an area of about 600 feet.
"I called out at the top of my voice—no answer—I became like a madman, I burst out crying, I beganto call out again—always the same silence—the silence of death.
"I pulled out my axe, I untied the rope which joined us, and both of us, with what energy remained to us, with our brains on fire and our hearts oppressed with grief, commenced to explore in every direction the enormous mountain of shattered ice-blocks which lay below us. Finally, about 150 feet further down I saw a knapsack—then a man. It was François Tournier, his face terribly mutilated, and his skull smashed in by a piece of ice. The cord had been broken between Tournier and the man next to him. We continued our search in the neighbourhood of his body, but after two hours' work could find nothing more. It was vain to make further efforts! Nothing was visible amongst the masses ofdébris, as big as houses, and we had no tools except my axe and Winhart's stick. We drew the body of poor Tournier after us as far as the Grand Plateau, and with what strength remained to us we descended as fast as we could towards the hut at the Grands Mulets, where a terrible ordeal awaited me—the announcement of the catastrophe to Miss Arkwright.
"The poor child was sitting quietly occupied with her sketching.
"'Well, Sylvain!' she cried on seeing me, 'All has gone well?'
"'Not altogether, Mademoiselle,' I replied, not knowing how to begin.
"Mademoiselle looked at me, noticed my bent head and my eyes full of tears—she rose, came towards me—'What is the matter? Tell me all!'
"I could only answer, 'Have courage, Mademoiselle.'
"She understood me. The brave young girl knelt down and prayed for a few moments, and then got up pale, calm, dry-eyed. 'Now you can tell me everything,' she said, 'I am ready.'
"She insisted on accompanying me at once to Chamonix, where she, in her turn, would have to break the sad tidings to her mother and sister.
"At the foot of the mountain the sister of Mademoiselle met us, happy and smiling.
"Do not ask me any more details of that awful day, I have not the strength to tell them to you."
Thirty-one years passed, when, in 1897, Colonel Arkwright, a brother of Henry Arkwright's, received the following telegram from the Mayor of Chamonix:
"Restes Henry Arkwright peri Mont Blanc 1866 retrouvés."
Once more the glacier had given up its dead, and during these thirty-one years the body of Henry Arkwright had descended 9000 feet in the ice and had been rendered back to his family at the foot of the glacier.
The remains of the Englishman were buried at Chamonix, and perhaps never has so pathetic a service been held there as that which consigned to the earth what was left of him who thirty-one years before had been snatched away in the mighty grip of the avalanche.
Many belongings of the lost one's came by degrees to light. A pocket-handkerchief was intact, and on it as well as on his shirt-front, Henry Arkwright's name and that of his regiment written in marking-ink were legible. Though the shirt was torn to pieces, yet two of the studs and the collar-stud were still in the button-holes and uninjured. The gold pencil-case (I have handled it), opened and shut as smoothly as it had ever done, and on the watch-chain there was not a scratch. A pair of gloves were tied together with a boot-lace which his sister remembered taking from her own boot so that he might have a spare one, and coins, a used cartridge,and various other odds and ends, were all recovered from the ice.
The remains of the guides had been found and brought down soon after the accident, but that of Henry Arkwright had been buried too deeply to be discovered.
In connection with the preservation of bodies in ice the following extract fromThe Daily Telegraphfor 10th May 1902 is of great interest. It is headed: