AVALANCHES ON THE JUNGFRAU--THE GUIDES OF GRINDELWALD.
The avalanche about to be described started just below the peak of
the Silberhorn, a few minutes before midday. At that hour the sun was
beginning to make his rays felt in the frozen bosom of the Jungfrau.
The Silberhorn is the showiest ornament of that most bewitching of
mountains. It is an acute pyramid, and has a surface like frosted
silver. It seems so dead and cold that one does not suspect its latent
capacity for motion and sound. Yet it is from this statuesque spur that
some of the most terrible avalanches of the Jungfrau are let loose.
The sides are so steep that the ice and snow are always about to slide
off, and, when the afternoon sun shines straight and hot upon them, the
watcher for avalanches is never disappointed. I had been staring at
the dazzling Jungfrau through smoke-colored glasses for some time, and
waiting for the show to begin. My point of observation was on a knoll
or excrescence of the Wengern Alp--itself no mean mountain--from which
the peerless Jungfrau can be seen at the shortest range. The day was
perfect, the sky cloudless and the wind hushed. The only signs of life
around me were the fluttering of butterflies and the humming of bees.
The silence was awful. Far off, down in the Lauterbrunnen Valley, I
could see the Staubbach Fall sparkling in the sunshine. From my exalted
station its course could be tracked for a long distance before it flung
itself into the abyss and kept its horse-tail form complete for nearly
a thousand feet. It looked so near, through the transparent air, that
sometimes I fancied I could hear its roar. But this was an illusion.
The only sound that breaks the stillness of the solitary height is that
of the avalanche for which I was so patiently waiting.
Suddenly there was a gleam as of particles in motion on a part of the
Silberhorn at which I had often looked with keen expectations. For just
there could be discerned, without a glass, a series of long, parallel
scratches such as avalanches always make. These are the grooves in
which, like many human institutions, they may be said to run from year
to year by force of habit. The rate of the motion was so slow and
indeterminate--for a reason which I afterward found out--that one
might, for a moment, question if the shining atoms were not stationary,
after all. But no! though the pace seemed to be that of a snail, it
was real and downward, and was soon too accelerated to be mistaken.
The whole breadth of one side of the Silberhorn was moving, beyond a
doubt. I was witnessing the sublime spectacle of a great avalanche.
More swiftly it descended, and yet it seemed to crawl. In this way
it slid along for a short distance--about 2,000 feet, as I afterward
learned--when the mass fell over a jutting piece of ice or rock. Then
it looked something like a waterfall. Below was another steep slope
scored with the furrows of old avalanches. Here the motion was more
rapid, but still surprisingly slow. Then, and not before, I heard
a sound as of thunder. If the sky had not been one unspotted blue,
I should have supposed a storm to be bursting somewhere among the
mountains. It was the noise of the avalanche, at that moment reaching
my ears from a distance, which was so deceptive. Later on, studying
the phenomena of avalanches more deliberately, I ascertained that the
scene of action--apparently not more than half a mile off--was often
seven miles and never less than three. By noting the avalanche at the
instant of its birth and counting the seconds of time till the first
boom reported itself, one can calculate the distance with sufficient
accuracy.
The Silberhorn being many miles from my standpoint in an air-line, it
follows that the terms “small” and “slow,” used in connection with its
avalanches, are irrelevant. The breadth of the falling mass should be
expressed in rods and not in feet. Its movement was exceedingly swift.
What seemed to start as snow was, in fact, a great ice-cake, acres in
extent, and perhaps fifty feet thick. This, striking against rocks in
its course, broke into fragments which were indistinguishable in the
distance. The apparent waterfall was composed chiefly of large lumps
of ice. These were destined to be pulverized in good earnest as they
continued their descent. Then I heard a sound as of hissing mingled
with the deeper reverberations. A short distance--more than a thousand
feet, probably--was thus traversed when the avalanche entered upon
another stage of its career. It tumbled over another ridge--this time
looking more like a waterfall than before. Here its volume was much
contracted, and I could clearly see that this fact was due to the depth
of the rock-bound channels through which it ran. Then it sprawled quite
freely over a great open space or plateau, where it rested and formed
a perceptible heap, thick at the center, and flattening out gradually
toward the edges. Judging of its dimensions by my revised standards, I
should say that it covered many acres, and was deep enough to bury an
Alpine village of the average size.
Between noon and two o’clock, when I left the fascinating scene to seek
for luncheon at the Hôtel des Avalanches, about three hundred feet
below my mound of solitary observation, the Silberhorn had contributed
nothing further to the pile at its base. But, at other points of the
imposing range visible from the Wengern Alp, and especially on the
main body of the Jungfrau, on a shoulder of the Monch, and on the
steepest part of the Eiger, some avalanche was always in sight of the
attentive observer. They usually resembled cascades from beginning to
end. Rarely could one see the popular idea of an avalanche realized.
Most people, I find, think of avalanches as broad tracts of snow which
are transferred from the upper part of a mountain into a valley at its
foot, keeping their general shape all the way. The Silberhorn specimen
corresponded to this ideal for a short distance, as I have said. But
all the others trickled down in a water-like way from top to bottom.
The behavior of the falling ice and snow was so much like that of water
that one could be convinced that he was beholding an avalanche only
when he saw what took place at its terminus. For, in five cases out of
six, the icy torrent ended in a white heap, which still remained far
up the mountain-sides, though below the true snow-line. Except that
they lacked the well-known green tint, the tracts of snow and ice thus
deposited looked like glaciers. Brooks ran from the lower end of them
into the valleys far beneath.
The grooves--or deeply worn passage-ways--through which these
avalanches descend, seem as if made by human hands. Some of them run
as straight as bowling-alleys. Others have easy and graceful curves,
as if laid out for a railway. But, almost without an exception, the
transit of the avalanche from peak to base is interrupted by narrow
rock-gorges. Against these it dashes itself with a fury expressed to
my ear by a sound like that of a small cannon, which is heard far
above the rest of the racket. The latter generally reminds one of
the irregular firing of infantry, and appears to be caused by large
fragments of ice and stones which are brought down with the lighter
material. It is only an avalanche of the broadest pattern that imitates
the deep roll of thunder. And this reminds me to mention that some of
the most deafening sounds that one hears in the Alps are not easily
explained. As he is gazing intently upon the Jungfrau, he is startled
by an ear-splitting report as of a 500-pounder. He expects, as a
matter of course, to see some enormous cornice of ice tumbling down.
But all is motionless up there. He asks his guide what has happened.
The man tells him that probably a big rock has fallen on the other
side of the Jungfrau, or in some ravine on the spectator’s side, but
out of his sight. I have observed that, wherever there is a glacier,
this loudest and most striking of all the mountain sounds is most
often heard. At our hotel (de l’Ours), in Grindelwald, from which two
glaciers can be seen, these extraordinary noises called the guests to
the doors and windows many times on sunny afternoons. But not once did
they see anything which served to explain the mystery. In defiance
of the guides, I attribute the sounds to the cracking of ice in the
glaciers under the influence of heat. There is something strangely
uncanny in the occurrence of such appalling noises without any visible
cause.
The guides of Grindelwald, and of all the Bernese Oberland, are an
aristocracy. I am referring to those who pilot you safely among the
real dangers of the Jungfrau, the Wetterhorn, the Schreckhorn, the
Finsteraarhorn, and the other first-class peaks. The most distinguished
of them are named in all the hand-books. They pose as objects of
admiration in the streets. And they are well worth looking at. They are
lithe and sinewy, with frank, resolute faces. They mostly dress in
corduroy velveteen, with slouch hats of the same. Their yellow beards
sweep their breasts. A provokingly slow gait also identifies them. They
walk--unless under the spur of necessity--about half as fast as the
ordinary American or Englishman. A friend of mine, in tow of a guide,
consumed six hours in the ascent of the Wengern Alp from Grindelwald.
The usual time is only three hours. But he arrived at the top perfectly
unblown, and then appreciated the wisdom of going slowly. These men
are very taciturn. They give opinions about the weather with great
reluctance, if at all, and will not converse about anything while in
the act of climbing. Thus they save their wind, the want of which is
so trying to inexperienced Alpine tourists. But, what they lack in
affability they make up in essential service. They will stand by their
employer in every tight place, and will rescue his remains and bear
them back to the valley, if he persists in despising the guide’s advice
and perishes in consequence.
These trusty fellows make great friends of members of the Alpine Club,
and are sometimes well paid for leaving their beloved Switzerland and
aiding in the conquest of high mountains in the antipodes. One of the
corps has visited both India and New Zealand for this purpose. He
showed as much sagacity in attacking the redoubtable giants of those
distant countries as if he had known all about their weakest points
from his infancy. In every case he took his patron successfully to the
top, by a route which he instinctively chose as the easiest and the
best. This guide returned home through London, and, while there, his
employer made him the subject of an interesting experiment to test
his “bump” of locality. One evening the man was asked to take a ride
across London in a cab. He was driven a distance of many miles, and the
route was purposely made as tangled and intricate as possible. Arriving
at their destination--the house of an Alpine celebrity--the cab was
dismissed. After a short detention, the guide was told to return with
his employer through the same streets which they had traversed in their
roundabout journey. And he did it without making a single mistake,
although an entire stranger in the great city. The man had not the
faintest suspicion that he would be asked to do this difficult thing.
He had almost unconsciously marked down the whole labyrinthine route.
He did in London exactly what he would have done without the least
effort among the mountains of his native land. His observation and
memory of trifles supplied the unerring clews by which he retraced his
way through the maze of the metropolis.