George Ingle Finch

“ The Grandes Jorasses and the Rôchefort ridge were dimly outlined against the starry heaven. The Charmoz and the Dru, dark, ghostly pillars almost piercing the skies, stood, as if on guard, at the portals of that great world of snow and ice-bound rock where we had found true happiness, and to which we were now to bid farewell for a space.
It may be instructive to consider in how far a training in British rock-climbing will help or hinder the aspirant to high adventure in the Alps or any of the world’s greater mountain masses. ”

“ Mont Blanc, seen from the north, is a wonderful, glistening mass of snowy domes, piled one against the other in ever-increasing altitude to a beautifully-proportioned and well-balanced whole. No beauty or symmetry of form can be read out of the ponderous, ungainly, ill-proportioned lump whose horizontal stratification lines produce an appearance of almost comical squatness and which carries, as if by accident, on its western extremity a little carelessly truncated cone to serve as a summit. For such is Mount Everest as seen from the Base Camp. ”

“ One is simply off the earth.
We sat in calm enjoyment of the wonderful panorama. The day was quiet, the breeze was of the gentlest, the sky of the clearest and bluest, and the sun was bright and warm. At our feet the mountain sloped steeply down on all sides. Away below, Breuil lay still asleep; and all around, range upon range of snow and ice-clad peaks stretched to the far horizon. It must have been on just such a day that Whymper made his memorable ascent, and human foot first trod the summit of this noblest of pyramids. ”

“ The neighbouring peaks stood up bold and sharp in the clear atmosphere. The sun flooded all with warmth. It was good to be alive. A last, half-whimsical glance at the little St. Fridolin’s hut, a tiny brown speck at the foot of the great four-thousand-foot wall, and we turned our steps along the snow-crested ridge towards the summit. Chipping a step here and there where the cornice forced us out on to the steep north flank, we mounted speedily. One more clamber over a pitch of easy, broken rocks and the fight was over. At 2 p.m. we stood atop of the Bifertenstock. ”

“ Then the ice steepened until it was so sheer that it was only just possible to retain one’s balance without having to make handholds. The work was really severe, and great care was needed in cutting; a single ill-aimed blow of the axe might easily have destroyed one’s equilibrium. Stones, freed from the grip of the frost by the warm rays of the sun, hurtled down past us in little avalanches from the north-east ridge of the Jungfrau, or skimmed giddily by, one by one, within half a rope’s length of us, down the glassy surface of the wall. ”

“ 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 suddenly [Pg 57] frozen 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. ”

“ There, bathed in the warm sunshine, all hardships were forgotten, and we gazed longingly over to the ranges of the Tödi and the Glärnisch—real snow and ice mountains with great glaciers streaming down from their lofty crests. Thence the eye travelled away to the rich plains, the gleaming lakes and dark, forested hills of the lowlands, until details faded in the bluish mist of distance. Switzerland, a whole country, was at our feet. This escapade taught us further lessons: that mountaineering is a hungry game; that boots should be waterproof, and soles thick and studded with nails ”

“ Up and up the gully we climbed, and, as we rose, it became steeper and steeper, until the man below saw nothing but the nailed boot soles of the man above. Snow choked all cracks and crannies and concealed handholds, but fortunately the rocks were free from ice. Carefully scraping and kicking, we cleared the snow away, and at last, just as my bare fingers had become so cold as to be devoid of feeling, I scraped out a channel in the little snow cornice crowning the exit of the gully and stepped back on to the crest of the Zmutt ridge. ”

“ After breakfast we thawed our boots against the stove, and put them and puttees on. Still inside the hut, we roped and shortly after sunrise set off towards the lower Mönchjoch.
It was laborious work forcing our way up towards the skis, for the snow was as soft as ever. The day was gloriously fine; the sky was cloudless; strange, cold, yellowish-green near the horizon, but deepening to a pale, hard blue overhead. Most of the peaks about us were already bathed in the warm light of the sun, but we ourselves were still in the shade. Presently we reached the spot where we had left our skis. ”

“ Mont Blanc showed up to wonderful advantage, an enormous snowy dome, the brilliance of its wide flanks almost entirely unrelieved by the darkness of rock. Far below lay the valley of Chamonix, its detail filtered softly through the grey-blue haze of a fine summer’s day. Beyond the Buet and the lesser mountains of Savoy, the gaze roved over a purple mistiness shrouding the Lake of Geneva, to the sombre wooded curves of the Jura. On our right were the tapering spires of the Chamonix Aiguilles and the wider snows of Mont Blanc de Tacul, our next objective. ”

“ As the years passed by it became almost fashionable to climb Mont Blanc; and to-day the many who make the ascent for the mere sake of saying that they have stood on the crown of Europe, still follow the route of the original discoverers in most of its essential details, except where, in one or two cases, deviations have resulted in considerable improvement. The ascent of the mountain from Chamonix by the well-established route is nothing more than a long, uphill walk; a good, sound walker could go to the summit with his hands in his trouser pockets, should he feel so disposed. ”

“ All that day we struggled on, often knee-deep in snow. At dusk, still far from our goal, we sought refuge from the cold breezes of eventide. Letting ourselves in through the chimney [Pg 15] hole in the roof of a snowed-up Alp hut, we bivouacked for the night. Shivering and sleepless we lay, watching the stars as they twinkled derisively in frosty clearness through the hole in the roof. After what seemed an eternity, morning came, and we plodded on with stiff and weary limbs to the summit. ”

“ Perhaps from nowhere else are the impressive beauties and the almost overwhelming grandeur of the Monte Rosa of Macugnaga to be seen to better advantage than from the Monte Moro. From the Jägerhorn up the Nordend, over the Grenz Gipfel, beyond the Zumstein Spitze and the Punta Margherita down to the Colle della Loccie, the eye travelled on that still, clear morning along a bewildering succession of clear-cut snow-crests, aglow and glistening in the morning light, interrupted here and there by gaunt rock cliffs all dusted with freshly-fallen snow. ”

“ THE MATTERHORN Perhaps no other mountain in the Alps, or for that matter in the whole world, can make such an appeal to the eye as the Matterhorn. This appeal is not merely one of beauty and boldness of form, but also one of position. The Matterhorn has no neighbours in close proximity to invite comparison; it stands utterly alone—a great, dark, rocky pyramid with sides of tremendous steepness, and towering up towards the heavens from out a girdle of glistening séracs and snowfields. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Rock-climbing, particularly on good, sound rock, has never held any great charm for me. I have always regarded it as but one of the simplest, most easily learnt and less important branches of a wider art, and, as it is met with on almost any big snow-and-ice expedition, I have never felt disposed to go out of my way in search of it for its own sake. It was not until the close of the summer season of 1910 that my friend, Ph. Visser, induced me to launch out on an expedition where rock-climbing was avowedly the main attraction. ”

“ The sun had set, and, as we were without a lantern, there was no time to be lost in crossing the glacier. The unfriendly, threatening aspect of the séracs, below which we threaded our way between numerous blocks of ice and crevasses, also urged the necessity for speed. Once on the far side of the glacier, the danger from falling ice was past, and a brief ascent over a diminutive bergschrund and gentle snow slope led on to the summit of the hump that separates the two tongues of the Charpoua Glacier, and upon which, somewhat lower down, stands the Charpoua hut. ”

“ MOUNTAINEERING PHOTOGRAPHY Not the least of the rewards of mountaineering are the memories of mountain comrades and adventures which cheer those of the true faith through the humdrum existence of ordinary life. The camera enables us to retain a faithful picture of the many striking incidents, the wonderful surroundings and the fellow-actors who have played with us in the great game; so that photography, like a keen and accurately observant sixth sense, helps to keep our mountain memories fresh and true for all time. ”

“ He was a splendid specimen of humanity, standing fully six feet in his stockings, broad-shouldered, deep-chested and altogether well-knit. Above all things, the slightest provocation brought a wide grin to Tejbir’s pleasant face, even in the depths of adversity. Like Geoffrey Bruce, he had never climbed before; but I have noticed in the course of my experience that the man who grins most, is usually the one who goes farthest in the mountains—and perhaps also elsewhere. What porters we could, Geoffrey Bruce and I selected at the Base Camp. ”

“ There is much to be said for winter mountaineering. In summer, if one wishes to climb the Jungfrau or any other similar mountain, the ascent of which involves a lengthy walk on snow-covered glaciers, one must start very early, well before daybreak; otherwise, the sun will have softened the snow so much that the ascent, and still more the descent, will be most laborious. On skis and in winter, this nightmare of a long and wearisome trudge in soft snow hardly exists. The return from a climb, especially, is a simple and almost effortless affair. ”

“ The historic interest of the Matterhorn is enhanced beyond that of all other mountains by the fact that so many of its different features bear the names of the men associated with them; a story seems to hang to every stone. At the slab, a steep, smooth pitch where hands and feet and additional effort are all required, the lantern was extinguished; and I saw that the rock around me and at my feet was losing its bluish-black tint. ”

“ Could we reascend in the teeth of the storm and, trusting to luck to find the way, force a descent down that precipitous ice-swept gully, the Schneerunse, probably only to be buried in an avalanche? For above the roar of the tempest we frequently heard dull rumbles as ice and snow, crashing down from the cliffs high above, swept through that gloomy funnel, avalanche upon avalanche. Should we aim to the left and descend, by the ordinary summer route, the rocks of the Gelbe Wand hand over hand on the rope, throwing the skis [Pg 115] down before us? ”

“ For devotees of rock-climbing pure and simple, the Aiguilles of Chamonix are a veritable paradise, for they form one of the few mountain groups in the Alps where the rock is so firm and reliable that one can climb for hours on end without encountering a single loose stone or questionable handhold. ”

“ To the east, beyond the Col Émile Rey we could see a snow summit, probably one of the summits of the Aiguilles de Trélatête. The height of our bivouac, therefore, must have been about 13,200 feet. The great south face of Mont Blanc falls away from the Brouillard ridge above, in slopes of broken rocks which finally merge into enormously steep, slabby precipices abutting on the Brouillard Glacier. The eye could follow the course of this glacier almost throughout its length. It is so grotesquely broken up that one wonders that it is possible to thread it. ”

“ The first extensive snow patch proved too much for both mule and driver. The Corsicans have a real terror of walking in snow; they fear that at any moment they may sink in and be suffocated. So we had to dismiss our burden bearers and make shift to carry our loads into camp ourselves. In the heart of the forest, on a little snow-free plot of ground hard by the left bank of the river, we pitched the tent. To the south-west rose the great precipices of Paglia Orba, the grandest summit in the great chain of mountains which in the form of a gigantic horseshoe shuts in the valley of the River Viro. ”

“ To gain the first foothold on the slab, I had to have a little leverage from below and a pull from above; my limbs and climbing experience were alike too short to enable me to reach it unaided. With the exception of this and one other occasion on the ascent, I managed by myself, if the second person on a rope can ever truly be said to do so. My previous reading of Alpine literature had led me to conclude that, in any mountaineering venture, the man to whom admiration is due is he who is first on the ascent and last in the descent. On him falls the real work and responsibility ”

“ With a rope slung over Max’s shoulder, and a camera and a few provisions in my pockets, we ski-ed up towards the prominent gap in the south-west ridge of the Grüneckhorn. Before reaching it, the badly crevassed nature of the glacier and the icy condition of the snow forced us to leave the skis. We put on the rope and kicked a way up in snow that was so hard and good that we never sank in to more than ankle-depth. From the gap onwards, we followed a delightful ice ridge which forced us to a free use of the ice-axe in cutting steps. ”

“ Once one accepts the fact that the difference between a mountain and a crag is not only one of scale, it will be readily acknowledged that he who disports himself on the latter has much to learn and, possibly, something to unlearn before he can become a mountaineer in the full sense of the word. How many of those who have begun their climbing in Great Britain have accomplished anything of note in real mountaineering? Rock-climbing is too liable to strangle any innate aptitude for mountaineering proper, and to restrict achievement in the wider craft to a level of dull mediocrity. ”

“ The throngs who swarm on the Matterhorn day after day in the summer, the airy contempt with which some climbers dismiss it as a climbing proposition, the fact that a clumsy novice like myself has actually passed over it—these things do nothing to detract from the wonderment with which I shall always regard the ascent of the most famous mountain in Europe. ”