F. F. Roget

“ Imitation by such a distinguished mountaineer was the most flattering form of appreciation I could look for. I met him some time after at our Geneva Ski Club, when he observed that he wondered not so much at what my party had accomplished—in which he was quite right, as I proved by producing the table of our very easy hours—as at the bold practical thought that had inspired and helped us.
Like me, Dr. König had noticed from the Zmutt glacier how practicable the Matterhorn would be. In fact, Maurice would have tackled the Zmutt arête on the slightest provocation. ”

“ Can there be a more noble spectacle than the sight of one, who having met young with an extremely serious accident in climbing, which to all appearance, and according to cool reason, should confine him to the part of an armchair propagandist and pen-wielding missionary, yields again to the irresistible call of the Alps, and ascends the Dent Blanche in spite of the lameness consequent upon the accident in North Wales in which his right leg was broken in two places, under such conditions that it has continued ever since to be a source of daily suffering? ”

“ At dawn and at sunset a diadem of snow-crystals sets a many-coloured band about his hoary head. He flies, and his feet do but tip the top of the peaks, and his stature rises aloft in an immense upward sweep. In a blue-and-white transparency, such as one sees in glacier crevasses and in pure ice water, the spring of his sinuous limbs uplifts him to the confines of atmosphere and firmament. ”

“ They plant their mark on the edge of the glacier, above the cliffs which drop down clear on to the Derborence grazings. Their bowls are like enormous curling-stones hewn out of the ice. When the gnomes miss their aim—which in their love of mischief they like to do—the ice blocks fly over the edge of the rock parapet, and crash down upon the grazings. In summer the shepherds endeavour to meet this calamity by prayer. In winter it is of no consequence. ”

“ Winter mountaineering may be more difficult and more dangerous than summer climbing. One often has to face the most intense cold; but with first-class conditions such as we enjoyed, it is scarcely more arduous, and certainly much more enjoyable, than summer work. Our journey in summer would have involved hours of walking through damp, slushy snow. There would have been wearisome tramps up and down moraines, tedious stretches of mule paths, dull grinds over grass slopes, and I shudder to think—consider the mileage!—what the last day would have meant in July. ”

“ Had we been told that what we stirred up with our ski were the burning sands of Africa which we mistook for Alpine snow, because our eyes were under the spell of mirage, it would have been ungracious on our part to pretend to know better, so much did we long for the coolness of the evening, for sea breezes and the dew at dusk, as Arabs might, returning upon their tired steeds to the secrecy of the oasis, after a raid in the desert. ”

“ Somehow the memories of those six days have the power to impart something of the magical colourings of a winter sunset to the drab dullness of lowland evenings. On the mountains we all have moments when life assumes unsuspected values, helping us to realise on our return to civilisation, that the things that are seen are temporal, whereas the things which for the time are not seen are for all practical purposes eternal. “The winter Alps are but a vision, a faint memory intruding itself at intervals when the roar of the commonplace is for a moment hushed in silence. ”

“ By twilight we began ascending the last slopes to the Fuorcla Sella. We reached the col, and, leaving the sunny Italian slopes behind us, entered into the shadow of the Sella basin. It was 4.30 p.m.; we still had three-quarters of an hour of daylight left, which would exactly allow us to reach the flat of the Roseg glacier. We enjoyed a lovely run over the soft, powdery snow tinted with mauve, the reflection from the rocks of Piz Roseg all on fire in the setting sun. We knew our way here by heart, and skimmed over the snow without fear, ‘yodling’ frantically. ”

“ What subsists of the Superman’s adventure? It had been just as well for him, had he stood on the edge of the glacier of the Plaine-Morte, withstanding temptation, though he had thereby shorn Elba and St. Helena of their title to fame.
The bent of the mountaineer’s mind is turned inwards, towards the education of self. As a superman he pits himself against nature, to man he is kind and just. ”

“ There is a delightful thrill of impending battle hazards in being the first to break upon new ground, as when a troop nearing the line of fire eagerly questions the dissolving morning mists and doubtingly greets the light that will expose it to the enemy’s strokes. What unkind shafts might Fate have in store? What bolts might the glacier be preparing to fire off, when we should pass under the portcullisses of its castellated strongholds? ”

“ The long grass on the steep pastures of Caux was tipped [50] with fresh snow. It lay here and there in melting patches, and every blade of grass had its trickle of water.
Seated on my knapsack for dryness, I was comfortably munching some bread and chocolate when discordant and husky cries burst upon me from behind. The sound was more grotesque than pathetic.
On looking round there hove in sight a suit of fashionable clothes, which seemed to betray the presence of a man. They were mud-bespattered and stained green with grass. ”

“ Now, when a ski-runner is seen upon a steep winding path, or ploughing his way up the sides of it, it often means that he has not reconnoitred the skiers’ route on his map. Those young men cut into a snow bulge, the snow ran out through the slit and overwhelmed one of them.
Those bulges are a most treacherous invention of the snow-fiend. They are best likened to an egg-shell full of sand, with some compressed air imprisoned between the shell and the sand. Break the crust, the air runs out with a puffing sound, and the snow, freed from pressure, begins to trickle through the hole, enlarging it. ”

“ Once more the popular notion that to allow one’s self to fall asleep on an open glacier is to court an awakening in the other world, had been effectually dispelled. Provided one is clad to perfection in weather-proof material, with chamois leather underwear over the usual woollen undergarments, one need have no fear as long as the air is still and free from falling snow. ”

“ While the Oldenhorn pyramid glowed in the morning light, a veil of mist hung over the Zan Fleuron glacier. The mist in no ways interfered with our run. We flew like birds over the scene of the January accident. On the pass we sat down and waited. Victor Marti was to come up. But who was to accompany him up the pass, in the guise of a porter, with a further supply of provisions? We required no such thing as a porter—nor even guides, for the matter of that; but if I acted upon that view, the game was up. Local men would be slow in taking up the cry, the new cry: Winter mountaineering! ”

“ Carpeted in the purest white, surrounded by pyramids in the best assorted white marble architecture, set out with flying buttresses and domes in jasper, jade, and sapphire, the Concordia Platz did not betoken the symmetrical designing power of man, but perfect harmony in the work of Nature’s agents—sun, snow, rock, and ice. ”

“ A miserable Alpine hut awaited his tottering footsteps. He staggered through the doorway and collapsed on the mattresses, sleeping at last when to sleep was decent. What was it to him that every curve in the swelling snows, every crag and buttress of the Blümlisalp cliffs was lit up by the mellow rays of the mountain moon? ”

“ The laws of perspective bring then those peaks nearer the perpendicular. By an optical delusion, which is full of scenic effect, they tower aloft. The designers of Alpine models run after poetical and picturesque effects. They very naturally do not wish to show you in plaster Alps far less formidable than those which agreeably overawe you in nature. They add from 10 to 20 per cent. to the angles of declivity, deepen the valleys and pull out the mountain tops like putty. They thus show you the Alps in your own natural perspective, as a painter does on his canvas. ”

“ Step out to the right or to the left by one inch, you drop down several feet into the drifts.
What this might mean, in the fog or during a blizzard, to those weary, ill-shod, ill-clad, under-fed Italian labourers who still choose that mode of transit to save their railway fare under the Simplon, we could easily imagine. The dogs, on the other hand, would keep upon the track and scent in what snow-covered spot the poor trespasser had missed his footing and strayed. The remainder would be spade and shovel work for the charitable monks. ”

“ When the wind broke the mist up in rifts a patch of blue would look down upon us benignly. At last, low down in the north, a black speck showed itself to our straining eyes. Then the speck divided up. There were two men, and something moving along close to the ground. This turned out to be a dog, dragging along a pair of ski. The dog got on very well on the hard frozen snow. But when about to leave the wind-beaten tract, he floundered and got no further. On inspection with my binoculars, the porter turned out to be none other than Father Marti, come to fetch his bairns. ”

“ A frail stick, planted in the middle of a patch of snow on the most exposed and weather-beaten arête in the Alps, appears here as the needle showing how nicely balanced are the scales of Nature.
In due course the rock came to an end, and the arête showed itself under the appearance of a white-hooded crest. It was the final pyramid. On that day, Friday January 13, 1911, the small, conic snow-cap which surmounted the brow of the peak was brought down by a blow from an ice-axe, at 3.30 p.m. A short time was spent on the summit. ”

“ But, as some one says, on the Aletsch the boundary mountains form an insignificant cup-lip to the glacier itself, which, to my knowledge, may be compared to the same on the Plaine-Morte only. The Oberland peaks, which from Grindelwald or Lauterbrunnen exhibit such a wonderful wealth of design, are comparatively tame from the basin of the Aletsch. When we think of the Jungfrau we always think of her as seen from the pastures of the Wengern Alp. Seen from the Aletsch she is not particularly striking. One’s whole attention is focussed on the broad, silent reaches of snow. ”

“ A ski-runner who, on deep snow, has to give up the use of his ski, is very much like a sailor upon a small craft in mid-ocean. Suppose the boat capsizes, the sailor may swim. But for how long? Similarly, a ski-runner bereft of his ski amid boundless, pathless snow-fields, may walk. But for how long? Snow is a good servant, but a bad master.
Most people who have not found it out for themselves do not know that snow gets deeper and deeper as you descend from the glaciers into the valleys. After we had reached the pass we would still have to climb by night down the Sanetsch gorge. ”

“ Indeed, a ski-runner must look a very paradoxical creature. For him, passes are just convenient, saddle-like depressions connecting the summits he has left with the summit he next wishes to attain. He will have no dealings with the valleys. He does not follow the path, say from Kandersteg to Louèche. That is all very well for mules. But he crosses, say, the Sanetsch and Rawyl passes, in the same way as a foot-passenger goes across a street from one pavement to the other. ”

“ It is not weather-tight, and the snow on the roof—in summer I have known it to be rain—trickles through in large drops, sometimes on the clothes set out to dry on strings all round the stove pipe and sometimes on the noses of the sleepers in their berths. I understand that the trickle of water on one’s cranium is one of the most terrible tortures a man can be subjected to. ”

“ Some of the Swiss peasantry, brought into contact with the foreign clientèle, are in the habit of being so pampered by sentimental, gullible people that they quite overstep the bounds of any liberty that may be permissible in resenting such treatment.
On the whole, the winter life led in the high Swiss valleys is not altogether wholesome. When they are visited in summer, the people are seen in the busiest time and appear in the most favourable light. ”

“ The instability of wealth and health is a platitude. But Lunn rightly says that every successful expedition is a permanent asset, bringing in year by year a high rate of interest, an incorruptible treasure in the memories of the past which nothing can destroy.
“Next day we got away by 7, stumbled down the steep rocks below the hut, picked up our ski, our faithful boards, standing all bespattered with snow, and by the light of the moon skied merrily down the Fiesch glacier. As dawn broke we pushed up the long slopes leading to our next pass, the Oberaarjoch. ”

“ Free-thinkers in the Protestant sense of the word, those boys, creeping under the shadow of the cliffs up to the snowy vastness above, saw welling up from the depths of their minds, as in a mirror, the images of the strange beings with which the rude fancy of the peasantry peoples those upper reaches of the Alps which they call the Evil Country. ”

“ There are two golden rules for avoiding a drop into a crevasse: firstly, keep off glaciers or of those parts of any glacier where crevasses are known to be numerous, deep, long, and wide; secondly, if called [26] upon to run over a glacier that is crevassed, use the rope, but use it properly—that is, bring its full length into use, take off your ski, and proceed exactly as you would do in summer by sounding the snow and crossing bridged crevasses one after another. It is absurd to mix summer and winter craft; they are distinct. ”

“ A run over some extremely broken ground, then some cuts and capers in a wood led us to a chalet, where we decided to have a feed and a rest.
“This confession,” says Arnold Lunn, “lays us open to the scorn of those who imagine that mountaineering is a kind of game, the object of which is to spend the minimum of time on a peak consistent with reaching its summit. Our party fortunately belonged to the leisurely school that combines a fondness for wise passiveness with a strong dislike to reach one’s destination before sunset.
“Thus understood, mountaineering on ski is the purest of all sports. ”

“ Of all places that suggest Chaos, a poor bare beginning of things, that place is the desolate spot in which the Hinter Rhine takes its rise. It is called Paradise, and if ever man required to cheer himself with a euphemism, it might be here. From Splügen to Hinterrhein extends a flat tract of country on every inch of which nature has left an impression as of exhausted powers. And yet, under those external marks of sterility, lurks the beginning of a great thing, the Rhine, its fruitful valleys, its grandeur, its world-renowned towns. ”