Couloir

“ Up by the torrent, through deep forest, past waterfalls, across bright green upper pastures where a million flowers shone, scanning every couloir, examining every ledge where a man might venture, and especially the slope of shale at its foot. ”

“ Many of my readers must have beheld great sérac towers of ice looming out of mist, and magnified by it into excess of grandeur. Never is an ice-fall so imposing as when traversed in not too dense a fog. What a sense of poise between heaven and earth is received when one is in a steep couloir which vanishes into mist above and below. ”

“ Couloirs and gullies are obvious funnels upon which wandering stones concentrate. In a snow or ice-backed couloir we must study the difference between the ominous furrows made by stones or those made by water. In a rock gully we have to look out not only for stones that may use it as a channel, but for all that its weathering walls may contribute on their own account, or that the changes of temperature, or even the disturbance of our own passage, may dislodge from the balanced accumulations. ”

“ Most of those which fall from the rocks of a couloir, sooner or later spin down the snow which fills the trough; and, as their course and pace are more clearly apparent when falling over snow than when jumping from ledge to ledge, persons with lively imaginations are readily impressed by them. The grooves which are usually seen wandering down the length of snow couloirs are deepened (and, perhaps, occasionally originated) by falling stones, and they are sometimes pointed out by cautious men as reasons why couloirs should not be followed. ”

“ From the Imseng Rücken to the Silber Sattel, the Marinelli Couloir glistened with ice, and the idea of cutting up its full length was soon renounced. Quite apart from the volume of step-cutting in promise, the couloir serves as a huge drainage funnel for the avalanches falling down the walls of the vast amphitheatre extending from the Nordend to the Punta Margherita, and to remain in it for hours on end would [Pg 143] be to incur too grave risks. ”

“ This couloir runs up the face of the peak towards the south-western ridge in the near neighbourhood of the summit. Zurfluh had, the previous evening, diagnosed its contents as snow, and the rocks being mostly ice-glazed and distinctly difficult, we thought it desirable to reach it as soon as possible. When we at length gained its brink we saw at a glance that it was much steeper than we had imagined, and that, if I may be pardoned the Irishism, the snow was ice. ”

“ About eight o’clock another start was made, and on reaching the termination of the steps I had cut, Fyfe took the lead and we made good progress. At last we took to the rocks, having hugged the couloir all the way for shelter from falling blocks of ice that might start from ice-cliffs above. The rocks we found in bad and dangerous condition, being coated in places with ice, and consequently we made very little more headway than if we had had to cut every step. On getting up a steep piece of rock at the head of the first couloir the rope behind me got foul. ”

“ Meanwhile the mists closed round us once more. The cliffs above looming through the rushing vapour, looked ever bigger and more precipitous, so, to avoid the possibility of being cut off by some insuperable step, we worked to our right into the couloir. ”

“ As we had now been going for several hours without food, and since leaving the rock rib, where we had breakfasted, had come across no ledge or irregularity of any kind affording a resting-place, it was with no little satisfaction that I descried, on the opposite side of the couloir, at a spot about 30 or 40 feet above, where the cliff on our left somewhat receded, several broken fragments of rock cropping out of the ice, of size and shape to provide seats for the whole party. ”

“ Nothing, perhaps, could look much more unpromising to those who do not know the virtues of couloirs than such a place as the engraving represents,121 and if persons inexperienced in mountain craft had occasion to cross a ridge or to climb rocks, in which there were such couloirs, they would instinctively avoid them. ”

“ And when it had thus been carried across them, it was always exposed to be swept away at any time by a storm, which for the nonce makes the couloir the channel of a raging torrent of commingled water and rocks. It, therefore, became necessary first to put the road in a masonry tunnel, and then to fill the couloir immediately above it with solid masonry, in order that the commingled torrent of water and rocks might not dash upon it, but rush down over it. ”

“ A SNOW COULOIR. Snow couloirs are nothing more or less than gullies partly filled by snow. They are most useful institutions, and may be considered as natural highways placed, by a kind Providence, in convenient situations for getting over places which would otherwise be inac [pg 170] cessible. They are a joy to the mountaineer, and, from afar, assure him of a path when all beside is uncertain; but they are grief to novices, who, when upon steep snow, are usually seized with two notions—first, that the snow will slip, and secondly, that those who are upon it must slip too. ”

“ We ascended to the snow col still further to the left, and then ascended the mountain diagonally to the great secondary ridge on the left of the long couloir lying between the two summits. Owing to great foreshortening our traverse of the face appears almost horizontal; in actual fact it was nearly a direct ascent. The same cause makes the slopes look materially less steep than they really are. Even the snow slopes in the immediate foreground are very steep. ”

“ At every step we took, it became more apparent that nature had never intended any one to pass this way, and had accordingly taken more than usual pains to render the approach to the couloir difficult and dangerous. Below the highest bergschrund were a series of smaller ones, arranged systematically one above the other, stretching completely across a very steep slope, so that they could not be turned, but must each in succession be attacked en face. ”

“ To go on at the same slow rate of progress and without the sun’s warmth meant, on the one hand, the possible collapse of at least one of the party from cold, while, on the other hand, to turn back involved the descent of nearly 3000 feet of ice, and the passage, if we could not turn it, of the couloir and its ghastly ice-wall. ”

“ Unlike most couloirs, this one did not run without interruption to the ridge above, but came to an abrupt termination at a considerable distance below it, leaving an intervening space of rock, which promised some trouble. But we were yet far from the lowest point of these rocks, and every step towards them cost no small amount of time and labour. I have rarely been on harder ice, and, as blow after blow fell with so little apparent result in raising us towards our goal, an inexpressible weariness of spirit and a feeling of despair took possession of me. ”

“ This method is of particular use when, as often in a couloir, it is safer and more comfortable to make our longer pauses under the rocks at the sides, and not all to move harmonically in criss-cross up the centre. ”

“ Stones that come off the rocks will then generally fly over one’s head, or bound down the middle of the trough at a safe distance.
At 9.30 A.M. we commenced the ascent of the couloir leading from the nameless glacier to a point in the ridge, just to the east of Mont Bans.122 So far the route had been nothing more than a steep grind in an angle where little could be seen, but now views opened out in several directions, and the way began to be interesting. It was more so, perhaps, to us than to our companion M. Reynaud, who had no rest in the last night. ”

“ An example of a couloir with a double bergschrund is given on p. 225. ↑ The summit of the Dent Blanche is a ridge, perhaps one hundred yards in length. The highest point is usually at its north-eastern end. ↑ The ascent of the Dent Blanche is the hardest that I have made. ”

“ On your side, the road side, the mountains are not mountain walls, but mountain scarps. The scarps, however, are so steep, and so seamed with couloirs, that there was the utmost difficulty in making the road, as there still is, and ever will continue to be in maintaining it. As you look up the mountain side from the road, you see, above, masses of detached rock, as big as barns, temporarily arrested in their descent, and ready on the slightest provocation to crash down on the road. Sooner or later they all must come. At the couloirs is the great danger and the great difficulty. ”

“ First you have its shabby moraine-strewn extremity; then its cleaner surface and open white crevasses. Higher up they turn continually bluer and the ice grows still whiter. The glacier widens; the slopes that border it become less grassy. You are leaving the habitable, profitable world behind, and approaching the clean undevelopable lands, which man may visit but where he must not dwell. The naked crags stand forth on either hand, furrowed with snow couloirs, and clothed with white raiment. Now you come to the snow-covered surface of the glacier itself. ”

“ The coarser sandy layer just above the finest clay records the spring break-up, the melting of the ice, and resuscitated streams flowing from the hills with a vigor that can be acquired only when the melt-water from the winter snow combines with the normal run-off. ”

“ I followed, sure of getting sight of them from the summit. But here I found myself tricked. Beyond the ridge lay a short dip—short, that is, as a bird flies. Not more than fifty yards ahead the slope rose again, strewn with granite boulders and piled masses of granite, such as in Cornwall we call "tors"; and clear away to the mountain-tops stretched a view with never a tree, but a few outstanding bushes only. Yet from ridge to ridge green vegetation filled every hollow, and in the hollow between me and the nearest the hogs were lost. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The coal, with the accompanying strata of argillaceous sandstone and shale, are, as far as we have seen, entirely horizontal.
The country westward from the base of the Chesnut ridge has an undulating surface. The hills are broad, and terminated by a rounded outline, and the landscape, presenting a grateful variety of fields and forests, is often beautiful, particularly when, from some elevation, the view overlooks a great extent of country, and the blue [pg056] summits of the distant mountains are added to the perspective. ”

“ In various parts of the deep vale below us, we beheld little dancing waterfalls gleaming through the branches, and now, on our left hand, from the very summit of the hill above us, a powerful stream flung itself down, leaping and foaming, and now concealed, and now not concealed, and now half concealed by the fir-trees, till, towards the road, it became a visible sheet of water, within whose immediate neighbourhood no pine could have permanent abiding place. ”

“ For, instead of finding rest at once, like the snow which falls into the tranquil depths of the forests, it is rolled over and over, beaten against rock-ridges, and swirled in pits and hollows, like boulders, pebbles, and sand in the pot-holes of a river, until finally the delicate angles of the crystals are worn off, and the whole mass is reduced to dust. ”

“ The interior mountains, rugged and timberless as they are, have their uses. From the summits of many of the ranges flow springs and small streams that afford a supply of water for the irrigation of the valley and bench lands below. They are also conservators of a supply of moisture. On the summits of the higher ranges snow falls in winter to a great depth, and from the melting of this in spring and summer is derived a considerable supply of water for use on the arable lands on either side. ”

“ But even in the darkness a ridge of harder rock showed me a likely way. I remembered that the cliff hereabouts was of no great height and scalable in a score of places. Very cautiously, and sometimes sitting and straddling the ridge while my fingers sought a new grip, I mounted to the edge of a heathery down; and there, after pricking myself sorely among the furze-bushes that guarded it, found a passage through and cast myself at full length on the short turf. ”

“ Nor, yet further, would a warm steaming atmosphere muffled in clouds have been unfavorable to a rank, flowerless vegetation like that of the Coal Measures. There are moist, mild, cloudy days of spring and early Summer that rejoice the heart of the farmer, for he knows how conducive they are to the young growth on his fields. The Coal Measure climate would have consisted of an unbroken series of these, with mayhap a little more of cloud and moisture, and a great deal more of heat. ”

“ The rocks of Calvin Coolidge State Forest Park can be divided into four distinct units or formations [4] . The geologic map shows these formations as distinct bands, each band representing a different formation and its intersection with the ground surface. Each formation is, so to speak, stacked upon the next older with the oldest forming the western band and the youngest on the east. Remember that these metamorphic rock formations were originally sedimentary in nature and were deposited in a nearly horizontal position on the floor on an ancient sea. ”