To turn from rock to snow climbing. Accidents are constantly happening
on glaciers; yet the observance of the most elementary precautions
ought to make such accidents absolutely impossible.
An open glacier, of course, is safe enough under any circumstances.
The one thing needful is to look where you are going and not try to
make flying leaps across crevasses. But even when the crevasses are
masked by snow all danger may still quite easily be obviated. The
simple rule is that the party crossing the glacier should never
consist of less than three, and that the three should be roped
together in such a way that, if one falls into a crevasse, the other
two can pull him out. And this, of course, involves the further rule
that the rope must always be kept taut, so that a fall may be checked
before it has gained an impetus which would make it difficult to
resist.
[Illustration: PASSAGE OF A CREVASSE, MONT BLANC.]
By experience it is possible to recognize a crevasse, with tolerable
accuracy, in spite of its snow covering; and by sounding with the
ice-axe before treading on it, one ought to be able to tell whether
the snow bridge will bear one's weight. But, now and again, it will
happen that the most experienced man's judgment is at fault. Relying
upon their instinctive perception of such things, the Swiss peasantry
constantly traverse glaciers alone in mid-winter. But accidents are
very frequent, and when guides, tourists, or porters have attempted
the same thing, accidents have constantly befallen them as well. As an
illustration may be quoted the case of a reporter, who foolishly
ventured to return alone over the Loetschen pass. A snow bridge broke
and he fell into a crevasse, where only his knapsack saved him from
breaking his neck. He lay on his back, wedged into the ice in such a
way that he could not move, and it was by the merest accident that he
was discovered in time, and rescued by a party journeying in the same
direction.
So much, as Herodotus would say, for crevasses. Another serious Alpine
danger is the danger of bad weather; and bad weather, as Leslie
Stephen has pointed out, may make the Righi at one time as dangerous
as the Matterhorn at another.
To a certain extent, of course, bad weather can be foreseen; but
meteorology is not yet an exact science, and even the acquired
instinct of the guides is sometimes at fault, so that grave mistakes,
often followed by fatal consequences, are made almost every year.