Edward Whymper

“ There was not much skin left; they were perfectly raw, and for weeks afterwards I was reminded of the ascent of the Dent Blanche by the twinges which I felt when I pulled on my boots. The others escaped with some slight frost-bites; and, altogether, we had reason to congratulate ourselves that we got off so lightly. The men complimented me upon the descent, and I could do the same honestly to them. If they had worked less vigorously, or harmoniously, we should have been benighted upon the face, where there was not a single spot upon which it was possible to sit ”

“ Croz untied Walker in order to get rope enough, and warning us to hold fast, sprang over the chasm. He alighted cleverly on his feet; untied himself and sent up the rope to Walker, who followed his example. It was then my turn, and I advanced to the edge of the ice. The second which followed was what is called a supreme moment. That is to say, I felt supremely ridiculous. The world seemed to revolve at a frightful pace, and my stomach to fly away. The next moment I found myself sprawling in the snow, and then, of course, vowed that it was nothing, and prepared to encourage my friend Reynaud. ”

“ We were light, and could move quickly—the porter was laden inside and out. We went our hardest—he had to shuffle and trot. He streamed with perspiration; the mutton and cheese oozed out in big drops; he larded the glacier. We had our revenge, and dried our clothes at the same time, but when we arrived at the Montanvert the porter was as wet as we had been upon our arrival at the Couvercle. We halted at the inn to get a little food, and at a quarter-past eight re-entered Chamounix amidst firing of cannon and other demonstrations of satisfaction on the part of the hotel-keepers. ”

“ Only one man was moving at a time; when he was firmly planted the next advanced, and so on. They had not, however, attached the additional rope to rocks, and nothing was said about it. The suggestion was not made for my own sake, and I am not sure that it even occurred to me again. For some little distance we two followed the others, detached from them, and should have continued so had not Lord F. Douglas asked me, about 3 p.m., to tie on to old Peter, as he feared, he said, that Taugwalder would not be able to hold his ground if a slip occurred. ”

“ Night fell, and for an hour the descent was continued in the darkness. At half-past nine a resting-place was found, and upon a wretched slab, barely large enough to hold the three, we passed six miserable hours. At daybreak the descent was resumed, and from the Hörnli ridge we ran down to the châlets of Buhl and on to Zermatt. Seiler met me at his door, and followed in silence to my room: “What is the matter?” “The Taugwalders and I have returned.” He did not need more, and burst into tears, but lost no time in useless lamentations, and set to work to arouse the village. ”

“ It seemed to me that he was spinning out the ascent for his own purposes, and that although he wished very much to be the first man on the top, and did not object to be accompanied by any one else who had the same wish, he had no intention of letting one succeed too soon—perhaps to give a greater appearance of éclat when the thing was accomplished. As he feared no rival, he may have supposed that the more difficulties he made the more valuable he would be estimated, though, to do him justice, he never showed any great hunger for money. ”

“ I jerked the rope from Biener, and motioned that we would go back. He did the same to Almer, and we turned immediately. They did not see the stones (they were cutting footsteps) , and misinterpreted the reason of the retreat. Voices were inaudible and explanations impossible.
We commenced the descent of the face. It was hideous work. The men looked like impersonations of Winter, with their hair all frosted and their beards matted with ice. My hands were numbed—dead. I begged the others to stop. “We cannot afford to stop; we must continue to move,” was their reply. ”

“ Moore and Almer crossed the Col du Chardonnet to go to Orsieres, and we others returned towards Chamounix.
But when we got some distance down, the evil spirit which prompts men to ascend mountains tempted us to stop, and to look back at the Aiguille d'Argentière. The sky was cloudless; no wind could be felt, nor sign of it perceived; it was only eight o'clock in the morning; and there, right before us, we saw another branch of the glacier leading high up into the mountain—far above the Col du Chardonnet—and a little couloir rising from its head almost to the top of the peak. ”

“ In the evening the sick man crawled up, a good deal better; but his was the only arrival. The Monday crowd [9] did not cross the Theodule, on account of the continued storms. The inn was lonely. I went to bed early, and was awoke the next morning by the invalid inquiring if I had "heard the news." "No; what news?" "Why," said he, "a large party of guides went off this morning to try the Matterhorn, taking with them a mule laden with provisions."
I went to the door, and with a telescope saw the party upon the lower slopes of the mountain. Favre, the landlord, stood by. ”

“ At half-past six, on the morning of the 6th, we found ourselves accordingly on the top of that pass. The party consisted of our friend Moore and his guide Almer, Reilly and his guide François Couttet, myself and Michel Croz. So far the weather had been calm, and the way easy; but immediately we arrived on the summit of the pass, we got into a furious wind. Five minutes earlier we were warm,—now we were frozen. Fine snow whirled up into the air penetrated every crack in our harness, and assailed our skins as painfully as if it had been red hot instead of freezing cold. ”

“ It is greatly to be regretted that he does not feel that the suppression of the truth is equally against the interests of travellers and of the guides. If the men are untrustworthy, the public should be warned of the fact; but if they are blameless, why allow them to remain under unmerited suspicion?
Old Peter Taugwalder is a man who is labouring under an unjust accusation. Notwithstanding repeated denials, even his comrades and neighbours at Zermatt persist in asserting or insinuating that he cut the rope which led from him to Lord F. Douglas. ”

“ The sun was setting when consciousness returned, and it was pitch dark before the Great Staircase was descended; but, by a combination of luck and care, the whole 4800 feet of descent to Breil was accomplished without a slip, or once missing the way. I slunk past the cabin of the cowherds, who were talking and laughing inside, utterly ashamed of the state to which I had been brought by my imbecility, and entered the inn stealthily, wishing to escape to my room unnoticed. But Favre met me in the passage, demanded "Who is it?" screamed with fright when he got a light, and aroused the household. ”

“ Up went my arms and my hat. “Croz! Croz! come here!” “Where are they, monsieur?” “There—don’t you see them down there?” “Ah! the coquins! they are low down.” “Croz, we must make those fellows hear us.” We yelled until we were hoarse. The Italians seemed to regard us—we could not be certain. “Croz, we must make them hear us—they shall hear us!” I seized a block of rock and hurled it down, and called upon my companion, in the name of friendship, to do the same. We drove our sticks in and prized away the crags, and soon a torrent of stones poured down the cliffs. ”

“ SUMMIT OF THE MOMING PASS IN 1864. It was well for us now that we had such a man as leader. An inferior or less daring guide would have hesitated to enter upon the [pg 201] 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.” ”

“ My old enemy—the Matterhorn—seen across the basin of the Z'Muttgletscher, looked totally unassailable. "Do you think," the men asked, "that you, or any one else, will ever get up that mountain?" And when, undismayed by their ridicule, I stoutly answered, "Yes, but not upon that side," they burst into derisive chuckles. I must confess that my hopes sank; for nothing can look, or he, more completely inaccessible than the Matterhorn on its northern and north-west sides.
"Forwards" once again. We overtopped the Dent d'Herens. "Not a thousand feet more; in three hours we shall be on the summit. ”

“ We saw a toe—it seemed to belong to Moore; we saw Reynaud, a flying body, coming down as if taking a header into water, with arms and legs all abroad, his leg of mutton flying in the air, his baton escaped from his grasp; and then we heard a thud as if a bundle of carpets had been pitched out of a window. When set upon his feet he was a sorry spectacle: his head was a great snowball, brandy was trickling out of one side of the knapsack, Chartreuse out of the other. ”

“ The men clustered together, and advocated leaving the mountain alone. Almer asked, with more point than politeness, “Why don’t you try to go up a mountain which can be ascended?” “It is impossible,” chimed in Biener. “Sir,” said Croz, “if we cross to the other side we shall lose three days, and very likely shall not succeed. You want to make ascents in the chain of Mont Blanc, and I believe they can be made. But I shall not be able to make them with you if I spend these days here, for I must be at Chamounix on the 27th.” ”

“ Macdonald was not so sanguine, and he was right; for at last we found ourselves quite at fault, and wandered helplessly up and down for an hour, while Reynaud and the porter indulged in a little mutual abuse. The dreary fact that, as we could not get down, we must stay where we were, was now quite apparent.
We were at least ten thousand five hundred feet high, and if it commenced to rain or snow, as the gathering clouds and rising wind seemed to threaten, we might be in a sore plight. ”

“ Snow began to fall heavily before we were off the summit-rocks, our track was obscured and frequently lost, and everything became so sloppy and slippery that the descent took as long as the ascent. The schrund was recrossed at 3.15 P.M., and thence we raced down to the Couvercle, intending to have a carouse there; but as we rounded our rock a howl broke simultaneously from all three of us, for the porter had taken down the tent, and was in the act of moving off with it. “Stop, there! what are you doing?” ”

“ Let the glassy face be covered with minute fragments of rock, scarcely attached, but varnished with ice; imagine tins, and then you will have a very faint idea of the face of the Ecrins on which we stood. It was not possible to avoid detaching stones, which, as they fell, caused words unmentionable to rise. The greatest friends would have reviled each other in such a situation. We gained the eastern arête, and endeavoured for half-an-hour to work upwards towards the summit; but it was useless (each yard of progress cost an incredible time) ”

“ Before we could take off our packs and get under any kind of shelter a hurricane of snow burst upon us from the east. It fell so thickly that in a few minutes the ridge was covered by it. “What shall we do?” I shouted to Carrel. “Monsieur,” said he, “the wind is bad, the weather has changed, we are heavily laden. Here is a fine gîte; let us stop. If we go on we shall be half frozen. That is my opinion.” No one differed from him; so we fell to work to make a place for the tent, and in a couple of hours completed the platform which we had commenced in 1862. ”

“ Goodsir were, in the estimation of the guides, best worth attempting, and of these two, Christian, doubtless influenced, good sportsman that he was, by the memory of his defeat when, with Mr. Edward Whymper's party, three years previously, an unsuccessful effort had been made to reach the summit of Mt. Ball, declared it to be the better mountain. ”

“ I had not really lost my footing, but the agonized tone in which Almer, who was behind me, on seeing me waver, exclaimed, “Slip not, sir!” gave us an even livelier impression than we already had of the insecurity of the position...One huge chasm, whose upper edge was far above the lower one, could neither be leaped nor turned, and threatened to prove an insuperable barrier. But Croz showed himself equal to the emergency. Held up by the rest of the party, he cut a series of holes for the hands and feet, down and along the almost perpendicular wall of ice forming the upper side of the schrund. ”

“ It would bully the foreign guides; it would tell them they had lied,—that they had not made the ascent! Where were their proofs? Where was the flag upon the summit?
Poor Almer and Biener were accordingly chivied from pillar to post, from one inn to another, and at length complained to me. Peter Perrn, the Zermatt guide, said on the night that we returned that this was to happen, but the story seemed too absurd to be true. I now bade my men go out again, and followed them myself to see the sport. Chamounix was greatly excited. The bureau of the guide chef was thronged with clamouring men. ”

“ Immediately we heard Croz's exclamation, old Peter and I planted ourselves as firmly as the rocks would permit: [6] the rope was taut between us, and the jerk came on us both as on one man. We held; but the rope broke midway between Taugwalder and Lord Francis Douglas. For a few seconds we saw our unfortunate companions sliding downwards on their backs, and spreading out their hands, endeavouring to save themselves. They passed from our sight uninjured, disappeared one by one, and fell from precipice to precipice on to the Matterhorngletscher below, a distance of nearly 4000 feet in height. ”