Arête

“ The arête from the shoulder to the base of the cliff was now child's play. The cliff was the same old story, though I recall one variants—the hand and foot holds on one occasion lost their grip on the man passing between the first two anchorages, and left him for a moment in a state of what might be called "suspended animation." Arriving at the top, all was changed from the conditions of 1901. The broken arête was indeed under a draping of recent snow, but no cornice was in evidence. ”

“ We speedily crossed the little intervening glacier, or snow-field, and commenced to ascend diagonally the snow wall, but found the snow in such a dangerous condition, lying as it was loosely on the surface of ice, that from the fear of starting an avalanche we once more made our way back to the ridge which formed the continuation of the arête along which we had been climbing. ”

“ We begin with oblique slabs of rock rather inclined to be wet. Then the direct route lies over a block of rock with uncertain holds, but a cleft to the left promises much better, and a traverse at the top leads back easily to the gully again. The scrambling is very pleasant where the right wall begins to overhang, and remains interesting till the gully divides. From here screes lead up each part to the crest of the ridge, but a small rock arête separating the two branches give us climbing all the way. ”

“ It is comparatively seldom, however, that an ascent of a great mountain can be executed exclusively upon snow and glacier. Ridges peep through which have to be surmounted. In my earlier scramblings I usually took to, or was taken upon, the summits (or arêtes) of the ridges, and a good many mountaineers habitually take to them on principle, as the natural and proper way. According to my experience, it is seldom well to do so when any other course is open. ”

“ Crossing from ridge to ridge, high in the air, on long straddling trestles as if flowing on stilts, or down and up across valleys and hills, imprisoned in iron pipes to strike and wash away hills and miles of the skin of the mountain’s face, riddling, stripping every gold gully and flat. These are the white man’s marks made in a few feverish years, to say nothing of mills, fields, villages, scattered hundreds of miles along the flank of the Range. ”

“ The first ridge hid a succession of others; and when, with great fatigue and difficulty, we had climbed up five hundred feet, it was but to make an equal descent on the other side; all these intervening places were filled with small deep lakes, which met the eye in every direction, descending from one level to another, sometimes under bridges formed by huge fragments of granite, beneath which was heard the roar of the water. These constantly obstructed our path, forcing us to make long détours; frequently obliged to retrace our steps, and frequently falling among the rocks. ”

“ All the way up the hills you can trace the road, its serpentine trail drawn in and out the valley and along the ridges, ever and anon doubling upon itself, but ever climbing. At last we reach another water-tank, perched at the crest of a ridge, after having ascended over a grade of nearly five per cent through rock cuts hung with ferns, severing the backs of the buttresses that come down from the mountains above, and through tunnels that pierce them one after another. ”

“ Even while rising, a young upfold is often thus unroofed, and instead of appearing as a long, Smooth, boat-shaped ridge, it commonly has had opened along the rocks of the axis, when these are weak, a valley which is overlooked by the infacing escarpments of the hard layers of the sides of the fold. Under long-continued erosion, anticlines may be degraded to valleys, while the synclines of the same system may be left in relief as ridges. ”

“ On gaining the ledge we turned to our left and soon came across one of our marks; then striking down sooner than our old route would have taken us, we gave a wider berth to the falling ice, and got into the traverse leading to the top of the buttress. Along it we went; but it looked different, had less snow, and when we came near the end a steep rock, with a nasty drop below, blocked the way. It appeared so bad that I said we were wrong. As the others were not sure, we retraced our steps, and by a very difficult descent gained a lower ledge. ”

“ We passed over a dry and broad bed of stones and gravel, which the watercourses tear down from the sides of the rocks, and in turn flow among and fill up. This brought us into an agreeable valley, flat, and shut in by a circular ridge of rocks, in which lies the little village of Serves. There the road runs round some very highly variegated rocks, and takes again the direction towards the Arve. After crossing the latter you again ascend; the masses become constantly more imposing, nature seems to have begun here with a light hand, to prepare her enormous creations. ”

“ For example: if one went so, up that gully and to that chimney there, then one might come out high among those stunted pines that ran round in a sort of shelf and rose still higher and higher as it passed above the gorge. And then? That talus might be managed. Thence perhaps a climb might be found to take him up to the precipice that came below the snow; and if that chimney failed, then another farther to the east might serve his purpose better. And then? Then one would be out upon the amber-lit snow there, and half-way up to the crest of those beautiful desolations. ”

“ Their heaviest masses are away over yonder on our left, where that thick wood, with scarped, quarried slopes below, terminates the ridge whereon we stand; and over to the right, where a marshy brook, its stunted willows still shrouded in mist, breaks through the ridge to join the river, we can see shadowy columns moving in the far distance. ”

“ Upon its west, south, and eastern sides the head of the ridge has been further protected by a broad and deep ditch, which thus covers about two-thirds of its circumference. Towards the north, where the hill projects upon the meadows, the ditch ceases, and this front, rising steeply about 100 feet, has been rendered steeper by art, and is further protected by a wide expanse of wet land, traversed506 by a very ancient and broad mill-leat, and by the sinuous channel of the Dove. ”

“ We are in support, in a place called Maple Redoubt, on the reverse slope of a big ridge. Good dug-outs (sic) , and a view behind, over a big expanse of chalk-downs, which is most exhilarating. A day with blue sky and a tingle of frost. Being on the reverse slope, you can walk about anywhere, and so can see everything. Have just been up in the front trenches, which are over the ridge, and a regular, or rather very irregular, rabbit-warren. The Boche generally only about thirty to forty yards away. The trenches are dry, that is the glorious thing. ”

“ As we ascended, the hill became more steep and rugged, till at length the ridge presented nothing but rocks, the narrow edges of which lay upwards in the direction of the sky. Their sides became steeper and steeper, and it was with difficulty that we crept along paths not wider than a goat-track, to avoid clambering among the crags which formed the very ridge of the hill. At length it became impossible to find footing on the side, and we betook ourselves of necessity to the ridge itself. ”

“ Over against us, on the farther side of this valley, rose a ridge very similar in formation to our own, but having its crest clothed with woods, and on its slope facing us were clumps of trees interspersed among the corn-fields. The valley between the two ridges was for the time neutral ground. The Turks held the wooded ridge confronting us, and our fore-post line ran along in our front about half-way down the slope of our ridge as it trended down into the intervening valley. ”

“ As it rises from the fall it beats with fury against a ledge of rocks which extend across the river at one hundred and fifty yards from the precipice. From the perpendicular cliff on the north, to the distance of one hundred and twenty yards, the rocks rise only a few feet above the water, and when the river is high the stream finds a channel across them forty yards wide, and near the higher parts of the ledge which then rise about twenty feet, and terminate abruptly within eighty or ninety yards of the southern side. ”

“ Narrows.—Where a stream crosses a hard layer or ridge of rock lying between softer ones, the valley will not widen so rapidly in the hard rock as above and below. If the hard beds be vertical, so that their outcrop is not shifted as the degradation of the surface proceeds, a notable constriction of the valley results. Such a constriction is a narrows. The Upper and Lower narrows of the Baraboo (Plate IV) are good examples of the effect of hard rock on the widening of a valley. ”

“ One minute you would be watching the crest of a ridge and see a few men sauntering over the top in twos and threes, and two minutes later you would find the face of the ridge swarming with men, and more and more pushing on behind. ”

“ The path, after running a quarter of a mile or more through an open grove of oaks and sycamores, attained the verge of the large brook, and became there steep and rocky, difficult to the infirm, and alarming to the nervous; often approaching the brink of a precipitous ledge of rock, which in this place overhung the stream, in some places brawling and foaming in hasty current, and in others seeming to slumber in deep and circular eddies. ”

“ Looking towards the north or south one sees ridge after ridge, rising in constant succession, until the peaks vanish in the distant horizon. It is indeed a sublime sight, and may well inspire feelings of deepest reverence for the Power that controls those mighty forces that produced these everlasting hills. ”

“ Sometimes we were floundering with our heavy loads in the deep snow-beds, or scrambling on hands and knees over the huge boulders of the rocky seams. Two hours and a half of climbing brought us to the crest of the main southeast ridge, about one thousand feet below the base of the precipitous dome. At this point our course changed from northeast to northwest, and continued so during the rest of the ascent, Little Ararat was now in full view. ”

“ In places we scrambled for hours along precipitous slopes, cumbered with fallen rocks, and with swirling rapids below us; a mile or so of easier going where the country was more open, and again a mountain spur would shoulder the river aside. This time the abrupt slope would be dense with high and tangled thorn-bush through which we had to cut a way, whilst here and there a huge fallen rock or a whole landslide from the cliffs above would bar further progress, till we had crawled round, over, or under them, at imminent risk of breaking our ponies’ necks or legs, as well as our own. ”

“ At every place where we come in the neighborhood of the river, is heard the roaring of falls. The rock along the banks of the stream, and the ledge over which it falls, is a scoriated basalt, with a bright metallic fracture. ”

“ The rising and elevated ground which formed the place of deposit of the articles just alluded to, is, on three sides, a rather steep slope, and on the west side, the natural connection with the adjacent hills is interrupted by a gully, now a lane, with a wooded slope next to the ground in question, and which lane, it is within the bounds of possibility, may have been the ditch or defence from that side, the ground being sufficiently elevated to have formed some protection on the other three sides. ”

“ Subsequent examination of the mountain disclosed that the descent of water commenced not far from the summit; for two or three rods above the spot where the ground first began to be broken, the trees and shrubs appear to have been swept away by the violence of the deluge. The broken ground is, at first, not more than six feet wide, but rapidly becomes wider as it descends; so that within one hundred and fifty feet it is about three rods in breadth, and in the widest place five or six. ”

“ We keep the rope on unless we are certain that the breaking of a step or a slip will lead to no worse results. If there is a long, steep wall of ice or snow below, or the suggestion of crevasses or a bergschrund, or a rock cliff, or even a section of the slope which we cannot see and which may contain a cliff, we may take no chance, and the rope must be retained. ”

“ Its navigation is impeded, agreeably to a memorandum which I have kept, by thirty-five rapids, nineteen ripples, and two minor falls, called the Little and the Big Falls, in all of which the river has an aggregate descent of two hundred and twenty-four feet in fourteen thousand six hundred and forty yards, or about eight miles. The mean fall of the current, exclusive of the rapids, may be computed at six inches per mile, and its velocity at three miles per hour. ”

“ Rounding a sharp turn we would see before us a long slope of angry water, with huddling waves and frequent rocks; and at the foot of the slope three or four great white “ripples” foaming and roaring 193 in the sun. Then a brief season of stern restraint, strong checkings, strenuous thrustings, sudden bold dashes, and hair’s-breadth evasions—a plunge and a cheer, and, drenched from the crest of that last “ripple,” we would look back on the raging incline behind us. ”

“ It is fortunate that the ridge is not often so narrow as at these spots; for on one side there is a sheer descent of fifteen hundred feet, and on the other is very perpendicular-ground, but wooded. Two decaying rocks that obstruct the path are also dangerous to pass, as we had to round them, with uncertain footing, and nothing but a bare, crumbling surface to grasp. ”

“ The broad valleys seem peaceful enough, and it is hard to imagine the relentless war of the river and its tributary torrents upon the mountains until one works out the cross-section which they have cut from the summits on one side to those on the other, and figures the many cubic miles of rock which have been destroyed and carried down to the plains by the flow of water. ”