Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond

“ An inferior or less daring guide would have hesitated to enter upon the descent in a dense mist; and Croz himself would have done right to pause had he been less magnificent in physique. He acted, rather than said, 'Where snow lies fast, there man can go; where ice exists, a way may be cut; it is a question of power; I have the power—all you have to do is to follow me.' Truly, he did not spare himself, and could he have performed the feats upon the boards of a theatre that he did upon this occasion, he would have brought down the house with thunders of applause. ”

“ A large glacier is fed by such a gigantic mass of snow that it is in its upper part hundreds of feet thick. Of course when it reaches warmer places it begins to melt. But the quantity of ice composing it is so great that it takes a long time before it disappears, and a big glacier sometimes flows down far below the wild and rocky parts of mountains and reaches the neighbourhood of forests and corn-fields. It is very beautiful at Chamonix to see the white, glittering ice of the Glacier des Bossons flowing in a silent stream through green meadows. ”

“ It is sad to look back to the terrible ending of Roman's career at a period when he was the best young guide in the Alps. How little, in September 1895, as with the Imbodens, father and son, I stood on the summit of the Lyskamm, did any of us think that never again should we be together on a mountain, and that from the very peak on which we were Roman would be precipitated in one awful fall of hundreds of feet, his companions, Dr Guntner and the second guide Ruppen, also losing their lives. ”

“ There is no great mountain in the Alps so easy to ascend as Mont Blanc. There is not one on which there has been such a deplorable loss of life. The very facility with which Mont Blanc can be climbed has tempted hundreds of persons totally unused to and unfitted for mountaineering to go up it, while the tariff for the guides—£4 each—has called into existence a crowd of incapable and inexperienced men who are naturally unable, when the need for it arrives, to face conditions that masters of craft would have avoided by timely retreat. ”

“ It is when things go badly that a first-class guide is so conspicuously above an inferior man. In sudden storms or fog you may, if accompanied by the former, be in security, while the latter may get his party into positions of great peril. The former will take you slowly and carefully, sounding, perhaps, at every step, over what appears to you a perfectly easy snow plateau. The latter goes across a similar place unsuspecting of harm and with the rope loose, and, lo and behold, you all find yourselves in a hidden crevasse, and are lucky if you escape with your lives. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When one remembers all the facilities for climbing which are found at present in every Alpine centre, the experienced guides who may be had, the comfortable huts which obviate the need for a bivouac out of doors, the knowledge of the art of mountaineering which is available if any desire to acquire it, one marvels more and more at the undaunted persistence displayed by the pioneers of present-day mountaineering in their struggle with the immense difficulties which beset them on every side. ”

“ Then there came a short troublesome bit of snow scramble, where the heaped-up cornice had fallen back from the final rock. There we paused for a moment, for the summit was but a few feet from us, and Hartley, who was ahead, courteously allowed me to unrope and go on first. In a few seconds I clutched at the last broken rocks, and hauled myself up on to the sloping summit. There for a moment I stood alone gazing down on Chamouni. The holiday dream of five years was accomplished; the Aiguille du Dru was climbed. Where in the wide world will you find a sport able to yield pleasure like this? ”

“ The story of the Matterhorn must always be one of unique attraction. Like a good play, it resumes and concentrates in itself the incidents of a prolonged struggle—the conquest of the Alps. The strange mountain stood forth as a Goliath in front of the Alpine host, and when it found its conqueror there was a general feeling that the subjugation of the High Alps by human effort was decided, a feeling which has been amply justified by events. ”

“ Of course those above, to whom the duty of paying out the rope was entrusted, would seize the occasion to jerk as violently at the cord as a cabman does at his horse's mouth when he has misguided the animal round a corner. Now another step, and a layer of snow not more than a foot deep would slide off with a gentle hiss, exposing bare, black ice beneath, or treacherous loose stones. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have myself seen a row of telegraph posts in an Alpine valley in winter thrown flat on the ground by the air preceding an enormous avalanche, which itself did not come within 300 yards of them. It is a very wonderful thing that persons buried beneath an avalanche can sometimes hear every word spoken by a search party, and yet not a sound that they utter reaches the ears of those outside. A great deal of air is imprisoned between the particles of snow, and so it is possible for those overwhelmed by an avalanche to live inside it for hours. ”

“ Few mountains have been the object of such repeated attempts by experienced climbers to reach their summits, as was the rocky pinnacle of the Aiguille du Dru, at Chamonix. While the name of Whymper will always be associated with the Matterhorn, so will that of Clinton Dent be with the Aiguille du Dru, and the accounts given by him in his delightful little work, Above the Snow Line, of his sixteen unavailing scrambles on the peak, followed by the stirring description of how at last he got up it, are amongst the romances of mountaineering. ”

“ Others rose like church spires, or like square towers, defended by trenches of unfathomable depths. Once beyond this barrier we should be safe upon the highest plateau of the glacier at the foot of the last snow-slope. But it was obviously necessary to turn them by some judicious strategical movement. One plan was to climb the lower rocks of the Eiger; but, after a moment's hesitation, we fortunately followed Lauener towards the other side of the glacier, where a small gap between the séracs and the lower slopes of the Mönch seemed to be the entrance to a ravine that might lead us upwards. ”

“ Mountaineering is not merely walking up hill. It is the art of getting safely up and down a peak where there is no path, and where steps may have to be cut in the ice; it is the art of selecting the best line of ascent under conditions which vary from day to day.
Mountaineering as a science took long to perfect. It is more than a century since the first ascent of a big Alpine peak was accomplished, and the early climbers had but little idea of the dangers which they were likely to meet with. They could not tell when the snow was safe, or when it might slip away in an avalanche. ”

“ 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 10 P.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. ”

“ He will also recollect that he owes something to the Alps, and will scorn to bring them into disrepute. He will not go on a glacier without a rope. He will not climb alone, or with a single companion. He will treat a great mountain with the respect it deserves, and not try to rush a dangerous peak with inadequate guiding power. He will turn his back steadfastly upon mist and storm. He will not go where avalanches are in the habit of falling after fresh snow, or wander about beneath an overhanging glacier in the heat of a summer afternoon. ”

“ As it advances with ever-increasing rapidity the air in front is more and more compressed as the avalanche rushes on with lightning-like speed behind it. The wind sweeps everything before it, and many are the tales related by those who have survived or witnessed a display of its power. ”

“ At last, after cutting a passage through the cornice, which hung over the slope like the crest of a great wave about to break, Mr Wills stepped on to the ridge. His description is too thrilling to be omitted. "The instant before, I had been face to face with a blank wall of ice. One step, and the 55 eye took in a boundless expanse of crag and glacier, peak and precipice, mountain and valley, lake and plain. The whole world seemed to lie at my feet. ”

“ Instead of the 213 rough footing in which we had hitherto been unwillingly restricted, we found ourselves ascending a narrow gorge, with the giant cliffs of the Mönch on our right, and the toppling ice-pinnacles on our left. A beautifully even surface of snow, scarcely marked by a single crevasse, lay beneath our feet. We pressed rapidly up this strange little pathway, as it wound steeply upwards between the rocks and the ice, expecting at every moment to see it thin out, or break off at some impassable crevasse. ”

“ Of this work I have seen a good deal, since in Arctic Norway my Swiss guides and I have ascended more than twenty hitherto-unclimbed peaks, and were never once unable to reach the summit. Of course, the first thing is to see the mountains, and, to do this, it is wise to ascend something which you are sure, from its appearance, is easy, and then prospect for others, inspecting others again from them, and so on, ad infinitum. You cannot always see the whole of a route, and, perhaps, your leading guide will observe: "We can reach that upper glacier by the gully in the rocks." ”

“ It is true that all the sports Englishmen take part in are manly, but mountaineering is different from others, because it is sport purely for the sake of sport. There is no question of beating any one else, as in a race or a game, or of killing an animal or a bird as in hunting or shooting. A mountaineer sets his skill and his strength against the difficulty of getting to the top of a steep peak. Either he conquers the mountain, or it conquers him. If he fails, he keeps on trying till he succeeds. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is something which makes one long to mountaineer more and more, from the first time one tries it. All climbs are different. All views from mountains are different, and every time one climbs one is uncertain, owing to the weather or the possible state of the peak, if the top can be reached or not. So it is always a struggle between the mountain and the climber, and though perseverance, skill, experience, and pluck must give the victory to the 6 climber in the end, yet the fight may be a long one, and it may be years before a particularly awkward peak allows one to stand on its summit. ”

“ Should climbers desire to make ascents in seldom explored parts of the world, such as the Caucasus, the Andes, or the Himalayas, they must take Alpine guides with them, for mountains everywhere have many characteristics in common, and as a good rider will go over a country unknown to him better than a bad horseman to whom it is familiar, so will a skilful guide find perhaps an easy way up a mountain previously unexplored, while the natives of the district declare the undertaking an impossible one. ”

“ But the angle was too wide to give security to this position, the more especially that with shortened axes they were compelled to hack out enough of the ice to reveal the rock below. In such places the ice is but loosely adherent, being raised up from the face much as pie-crust dissociates itself from the fruit beneath under the influence of the oven. Strike lightly with the axe, and a hollow sound is yielded without much impression on the ice; strike hard, and the whole mass breaks away. ”