_DISASTER ON THE COL DU GÉANT._
On the 18th of August, while Mr. Hawkins and I were staying at Breuil,
rumours reached us of a grievous disaster which had occurred on the Col
du Géant. At first, however, the accounts were so contradictory as to
inspire the hope that they might be grossly exaggerated or altogether
false. But more definite intelligence soon arrived, and before we
quitted Breuil it had been placed beyond a doubt that three Englishmen,
with a guide named Tairraz, had perished on the col. On the 21st I
saw the brother of Tairraz at Aosta, and learned from the saddened
man all that he knew. What I then heard only strengthened my desire
to visit the scene of the catastrophe, and obtain by actual contact
with the facts truer information than could possibly be conveyed to
me by description. On the afternoon of the 22nd I accordingly reached
Courmayeur, and being informed that M. Curie, the resident French
pastor, had visited the place and made an accurate sketch of it, I
immediately called upon him. With the most obliging promptness he
placed his sketches in my hands, gave me a written account of the
occurrence, and volunteered to accompany me. I gladly accepted this
offer, and early on the morning of Thursday the 21st of August we
walked up to the pavilion which it had been the aim of the travellers
to reach on the day of their death. Wishing to make myself acquainted
with the entire line of the fatal glissade, I walked directly from the
pavilion to the base of the rocky couloir along which the travellers
had been precipitated, and which had been described to me as so
dangerous that a chamois-hunter had declined ascending it some days
before. At Courmayeur, however, I secured the services of a most
intrepid man, who had once made the ascent, and who now expressed his
willingness to be my guide. We began our climb at the very bottom of
the couloir, while M. Curie, after making a circuit, joined us on the
spot where the body of the guide Tairraz had been arrested, and where
we found sad evidences of his fate. From this point onward M. Curie
shared the dangers of the ascent, until we reached the place where the
rocks ended and the fatal snow-slope began. Among the rocks we had
frequent and melancholy occasion to assure ourselves that we were on
the exact track. We found there a penknife, a small magnetic compass,
and many other remnants of the fall.
At the bottom of the snow-slope M. Curie quitted me, urging me not to
enter upon the slope, but to take to a stony ridge on the right. No
mere inspection, however, could have given me the desired information.
I asked my guide whether he feared the snow, and, his reply being
negative, we entered upon it together, and ascended it along the furrow
which still marked the line of fall. Under the snow, at some distance
up the slope, we found a fine new ice-axe, the property of one of the
guides. We held on to the track up to the very summit of the col,
and as I stood there and scanned the line of my ascent a feeling of
augmented sadness took possession of me. There seemed no sufficient
reason for this terrible catastrophe. With ordinary care the slip might
in the first instance have been avoided, and with a moderate amount of
skill and vigour the motion, I am persuaded, might have been arrested
soon after it had begun.
Bounding the snow-slope to the left was the ridge along which
travellers to Courmayeur usually descend. It is rough, but absolutely
without danger. The party were, however, tired when they reached
this place, and to avoid the roughness of the ridge they took to the
snow. The inclination of the slope above was moderate; it steepened
considerably lower down, but its steepest portion did not much
exceed forty-five degrees of inclination. At all events, a skilful
mountaineer might throw himself prostrate on the slope with perfect
reliance on his power to arrest his downward motion.
It is alleged that when the party entered the summit of the col on
the Chamouni side the guides proposed to return, but the Englishmen
persisted in going forward. One thing alone could justify the
proposition thus ascribed to the guides by their friends--a fog so
thick as to prevent them from striking the summit of the col at the
proper point, and to compel them to pursue their own traces backwards.
The only part of the col hitherto regarded as dangerous had been
passed, and, unless for the reason assumed, it would have been simply
absurd to recross this portion instead of proceeding to Courmayeur. It
is alleged that a fog existed; but the summit had been reached, and
the weather cleared afterwards. Whether, therefore, the Englishmen
refused to return or not on the Montanvert side, it ought in no way
to influence our judgment of what occurred on the Courmayeur side,
where the weather which prompted the proposal to go back ceased to be
blameable.
A statement is also current to the effect that the travellers were
carried down by an avalanche. In connection with this point M. Curie
writes to me thus: ‘Il paraît qu’à Chamounix on répand le bruit que
c’est une _avalanche_ qui a fait périr les voyageurs. C’est là
une fausseté que le premier vous saurez démentir sur les lieux.’
I subscribe without hesitation to this opinion of M. Curie. That
a considerable quantity of snow was brought down by the rush was
probable, but an avalanche properly so called there was not, and it
simply leads to misconception to introduce the term at all.
We are now prepared to discuss the accident. The travellers, it is
alleged, reached the summit of the col in a state of great exhaustion,
and it is certain that such a state would deprive them of the caution
and firmness of tread necessary in perilous places. But a knowledge
of this ought to have prevented the guides from entering upon the
snow-slope at all. We are, moreover, informed that even on the gentler
portion of the slope one of the travellers slipped repeatedly. On being
thus warned of danger, why did not the guides quit the snow and resort
to the ridge? They must have had full confidence in their power to
stop the glissade which seemed so imminent, or else they were reckless
of the lives they had in charge. At length the fatal slip occurred,
where the fallen man, before he could be arrested, gathered sufficient
momentum to jerk the man behind him off his feet, the other men were
carried away in succession, and in a moment the whole of them were
rushing downwards. What efforts were made to check this fearful rush,
at what point of the descent the two guides relinquished the rope,
which of them gave way first, the public do not know, though this ought
to be known. All that is known to the public is that the two men who
led and followed the party let go the rope and escaped, while the three
Englishmen and Tairraz went to destruction. Tairraz screamed, but, like
Englishmen, the others met their doom without a word of exclamation.
At the bottom of the slope a rocky ridge, forming the summit of a
precipice, rose slightly above the level of the snow, and over it they
were tilted. I do not think a single second’s suffering could have
been endured. During the wild rush downwards the bewilderment was too
great to permit even of fear, and at the base of the precipice life and
feeling ended suddenly together. A steep slope of rocks connected the
base of this precipice with the brow of a second one, at the bottom of
which the first body was found. Another slope ran from this point to
the summit of another ledge, where the second body was arrested, while
attached to it by a rope, and quite overhanging the ledge, was the body
of the third traveller. The body of the guide Tairraz was precipitated
much further, and was much more broken.
The question has been raised whether it was right under the
circumstances to tie the men together. I believe it was perfectly
right, if only properly done. But the actual arrangement was this:
The three Englishmen were connected by a rope tied firmly round
the waist of each of them; one end of the rope was held in the hand
of the guide who led the party; the other end was similarly held by
the hindmost guide, while Tairraz grasped the rope near its middle.
Against this mode of attachment I would enter an emphatic protest. It,
in all probability, caused the destruction of the unfortunate Russian
traveller on the Findelen Glacier last year, and to it I believe is to
be ascribed the disastrous issue of the slip on the Col du Géant. Let
me show cause for this protest. At a little depth below the surface
the snow upon the fatal slope was firm and consolidated, but upon it
rested a superficial layer, about ten inches or a foot in depth, partly
fresh, and partly disintegrated by the weather. By the proper action
of the feet upon such loose snow, its granules are made to unite so as
to afford a secure footing; but when a man’s body, presenting a large
surface, is thrown prostrate upon a slope covered with such snow, the
granules act like friction wheels, offering hardly any resistance to
the downward motion.
A homely illustration will render intelligible the course of action
necessary under such conditions. Suppose a boy placed upon an oilcloth
which covers a polished table, and the table tilted to an angle of
forty-five degrees. The oilcloth would evidently slide down, carrying
the boy along with it, as the loose snow slid over the firm snow on
the Col du Géant. But suppose the boy provided with a stick spiked with
iron, what ought he to do to check his motion? Evidently drive his
spike through the oilcloth and anchor it firmly in the wood underneath.
A precisely similar action ought to have been resorted to on the Col
du Géant. Each man as he fell ought to have turned promptly on his
face, pierced with his armed staff the superficial layer of soft snow,
and pressed with both hands the spike into the consolidated mass
underneath. He would thus have applied a break, sufficient not only
to bring himself to rest, but, if well done, sufficient, I believe,
to stop a second person. I do not lightly express this opinion: it is
founded on varied experience upon slopes at least as steep as that
under consideration.
Consider now the bearing of the mode of attachment above described upon
the question of rescue. When the rope is fastened round the guide’s
waist, both his arms are free, to drive, in case of necessity, his
spiked staff into the snow. But in the case before us, one arm of
each guide was virtually powerless; on it was thrown the strain of
the falling man in advance, by which it was effectually fettered. But
this was not all. When the attached arm receives the jerk, the guide
instinctively grasps the rope with the other hand; in doing so, he
relinquishes his staff, and thus loses the sheet-anchor of salvation.
Such was the case with the two guides who escaped on the day now in
question. The one lost his bâton, the other his axe, and they probably
had to make an expert use of their legs to save even themselves from
destruction. Tairraz was in the midst of the party. Whether it was in
his power to rescue himself or not, whether he was caught in the coil
of the rope or laid hold of by one of his companions, we can never
know. Let us believe that he clung to them loyally, and went with them
to death sooner than desert the post of duty.