ASCENT OF THE AIGUILLE VERTE.
Michel Croz now parted from us. His new employer had not arrived at
Chamounix, but Croz considered that he was bound by honor to wait for
him, and thus Christian Almer of Grindelwald became my leading guide.
Almer displayed aptitude for mountaineering at an early age. Whilst
still a very young man he was known as a crack chamois-hunter, and he
soon developed into an accomplished guide. Those who have read Mr.
Wills’ graphic account of the first ascent of the Wetterhorn[57] will
remember that when his party was approaching the top of the mountain
two stranger men were seen climbing by a slightly different route, one
of whom carried upon his back a young fir tree, branches, leaves and
all. Mr. Wills’ guides were extremely indignant with these two
strangers (who were evidently determined to be the first at the
summit), and talked of giving them blows. Eventually they gave them a
cake of chocolate instead, and declared that they were good fellows.
“Thus the pipe of peace was smoked, and tranquillity reigned between
the rival forces.” Christian Almer was one of these two men.
[57] _Wanderings among the High Alps_, 1858.
This was in 1854. In 1858-59 he made the first ascents of the Eigher
and the Mönch, the former with a Mr. Harrington (?), and the latter
with Dr. Forges. Since then he has wandered far and near, from Dauphiné
to the Tyrol. With the exception of Melchior Anderegg, there is not,
perhaps, another guide of such wide experience, or one who has been so
invariably successful; and his numerous employers concur in saying that
there is not a truer heart or a surer foot to be found amongst the
Alps.
[Illustration: CHRISTIAN ALMER]
Before recrossing the chain to Courmayeur we ascended the Aiguille
Verte. In company with Mr. Reilly I inspected this mountain from every
direction in 1864, and came to the conclusion that an ascent could more
easily be made from the south than upon any other side. We set out upon
the 28th from Chamounix to attack it, minus Croz, and plus a porter (of
whom I will speak more particularly presently), leaving our comrade
very downcast at having to kick his heels in idleness, whilst we were
about to scale the most celebrated of his native aiguilles.
Our course led us over the old Mer de Glace, the glacier made famous by
De Saussure and Forbes. The heat of the day was over, but the little
rills and rivulets were still flowing along the surface of the ice;
cutting deep troughs where the gradients were small, leaving
ripple-marks where the water was with more difficulty confined to one
channel, and falling over the precipitous walls of the great crevasses,
sometimes in bounding cascades, and sometimes in diffused streams,
which marked the perpendicular faces with graceful sinuosities.[58] As
night came on, their music died away, the rivulets dwindled down to
rills, the rills ceased to murmur, and the spark sparkling drops,
caught by the hand of frost, were bound to the ice, coating it with an
enameled film which lasted until the sun struck the glacier once more.
[58] Admirably rendered in the accompanying drawing by Mr. Cyrus
Johnson. The “ripple-marks” are seen in the engraving upon p. 356.
[Illustration: ON THE MER DE GLACE]
The weathering of the walls of crevasses, which _obscures_ the internal
structure of the glacier, has led some to conclude that the
stratification which is seen in the higher glacier-regions is
_obliterated_ in the lower ones. Others—Agassiz and Mr. John Ball, for
example—have disputed this opinion, and my own experiences accord with
those of these accurate observers. It is, undoubtedly, very difficult
to trace stratification in the lower ends of the Alpine glaciers, but
we are not, upon that account, entitled to conclude that the original
structure of the ice has been obliterated. There are thousands of
crevasses in the upper regions upon whose walls no traces of bedding
are apparent, and we might say, with equal unreasonableness, that it
was obliterated there also. Take an axe and clear away the ice which
has formed from water trickling down the faces and the weathered ice
beneath, and you will expose sections of the mingled strata of pure and
of imperfect ice, and see clearly enough that the primitive structure
of the glacier has not been effaced, although it has been obscured.
[Illustration: ICE-PINNACLES ON THE MER DE GLACE.]
We camped on the Couvercle (seventy-eight hundred feet) under a great
rock, and at 3.15 the next morning started for our aiguille, leaving
the porter in charge of the tent and of the food. Two hours’ walking
over crisp snow brought us up more than four thousand feet, and within
about sixteen hundred feet of the summit. From no other direction can
it be approached so closely with equal facility. Thence the mountain
steepens. After his late severe piece of ice-work, Almer had a natural
inclination for rocks; but the lower rocks of the final peak of the
Verte were not inviting, and he went on and on, looking for a way up
them, until we arrived in front of a great snow-couloir that led from
the Glacier de Talèfre right up to the crest of the ridge connecting
the summit of the Verte with the mountain called Les Droites. This was
the route which I intended to be taken, but Almer pointed out that the
gully narrowed at the lower part, and that if stones fell we should
stand some chance of getting our heads broken; and so we went on still
more to the east of the summit, to another and smaller couloir which
ran up side by side with the great one. At 5.30 we crossed the schrund
which protected the final peak, and a few minutes afterward saw the
summit and the whole of the intervening route. “Oh, Aiguille Verte!”
said my guide, stopping as he said it, “you are dead, you are dead!”
which, being translated into plain English, meant that he was cock-sure
we should make its ascent.
Almer is a quiet man at all times. When climbing he is taciturn, and
this is one of his great merits. A garrulous man is always a nuisance,
and upon the mountain-side he may be a danger, for actual climbing
requires a man’s whole attention. Added to this, talkative men are
hindrances: they are usually thirsty, and a thirsty man is a drag.
Guide-books recommend mountain-walkers to suck pebbles to prevent their
throats from becoming parched. There is not much goodness to be got out
of the pebbles, but you cannot suck them and keep the mouth open at the
same time, and hence the throat does not become dry. It answers just as
well to keep the mouth shut, without any pebbles inside—indeed, I
think, better; for if you have occasion to open your mouth you can do
so without swallowing any pebbles.[59] As a rule, amateurs, and
particularly novices, _will not_ keep their mouths shut. They attempt
to “force the pace;” they go faster than they can go without being
compelled to open their mouths to breathe; they pant, their throats and
tongues become parched; they drink and perspire copiously, and,
becoming exhausted, declare that the dryness of the air or the
rarefaction of the air (everything is laid upon the air) is in fault.
On several accounts, therefore, a mountain-climber does well to hold
his tongue when he is at his work.
[59] I heard lately of two well-known mountaineers who, under the
influence of sudden alarm, _swallowed their crystals_. I am happy to
say that they were able to cough them up again.
At the top of the small gully we crossed over the intervening rocks
into the large one, and followed it so long as it was filled with snow.
At last ice replaced snow, and we turned over to the rocks upon its
left. Charming rocks they were—granitic in texture, gritty, holding the
nails well. At 9.45 we parted from them, and completed the ascent by a
little ridge of snow which descended in the direction of the Aiguille
du Moine. At 10.15 we stood on the summit (13,540 feet), and devoured
our bread and cheese with a good appetite.
I have already spoken of the disappointing nature of purely panoramic
views. That seen from Mont Blanc itself is notoriously unsatisfactory.
When you are upon that summit you look down upon all the rest of
Europe. There is nothing to look up to—all is below; there is no one
point for the eye to rest upon. The man who is there is somewhat in the
position of one who has attained all that he desires—he has nothing to
aspire to: his position must needs be unsatisfactory. Upon the summit
of the Verte there is not this objection. You see valleys, villages,
fields; you see mountains interminable rolling away, lakes resting in
their hollows; you hear the tinkling of the sheep-bells as it rises
through the clear mountain air, and the roar of the avalanches as they
descend to the valleys; but above all there is the great white dome,
with its shining crest high above; with its sparkling glaciers, that
descend between buttresses which support them; with its brilliant
snows, purer and yet purer the farther they are removed from this
unclean world.
Even upon this mountain-top it was impossible to forget the world, for
some vile wretch came to the Jardin and made hideous sounds by blowing
upon a horn. Whilst we were denouncing him a change came over the
weather: cumulous clouds gathered in all directions, and we started off
in hot haste. Snow began to fall heavily before we were off the
summit-rocks, our track was obscured and frequently lost, and
everything became so sloppy and slippery that the descent took as long
as the ascent. The schrund was recrossed at 3.15 P.M., and thence we
raced down to the Couvercle, intending to have a carouse there; but as
we rounded our rock a howl broke simultaneously from all three of us,
for the porter had taken down the tent, and was in the act of moving
off with it. “Stop, there! what are you doing?” He observed that he had
thought we were killed, or at least lost, and was going to Chamounix to
communicate his ideas to the _guide chef_. “Unfasten the tent and get
out the food.” But instead of doing so, the porter fumbled in his
pockets. “Get out the food,” we roared, losing all patience. “Here it
is,” said our worthy friend, producing a dirty piece of bread about as
big as a half-penny roll. We three looked solemnly at the fluff-covered
morsel. It was past a joke—he had devoured everything. Mutton, loaves,
cheese, wine, eggs, sausages—all was gone past recovery. It was idle to
grumble and useless to wait. We were light, and could move quickly—the
porter was laden inside and out. We went our hardest—he had to shuffle
and trot. He streamed with perspiration; the mutton and cheese oozed
out in big drops; he larded the glacier. We had our revenge, and dried
our clothes at the same time, but when we arrived at the Montanvert the
porter was as wet as we had been upon our arrival at the Couvercle. We
halted at the inn to get a little food, and at a quarter-past eight
re-entered Chamounix amidst firing of cannon and other demonstrations
of satisfaction on the part of the hotel-keepers.
One would have thought that the ascent of this mountain, which had been
frequently assailed before without success, would have afforded some
gratification to a population whose chief support is derived from
tourists, and that the prospect of the perennial flow of francs which
might be expected to result from it would have stifled the jealousy
consequent on the success of foreigners.[60]
[60] The Chamounix tariff price for the ascent of the Aiguille is now
placed at £4 _per guide_.
It was not so. Chamounix stood on its rights. A stranger had ignored
their regulations, had imported two foreign guides, and furthermore he
had added injury to that insult—he had not taken a single Chamounix
guide. Chamounix would be revenged! It would bully the foreign guides:
it would tell them they had lied—they had not made the ascent! Where
were their proofs? Where was the flag upon the summit?
Poor Almer and Biener were accordingly chivied from pillar to post,
from one inn to another, and at length complained to me. Peter Perm,
the Zermatt guide, said on the night that we returned that this was to
happen, but the story seemed too absurd to be true. I now bade my men
go out again, and followed them myself to see the sport. Chamounix was
greatly excited. The _bureau_ of the _guide chef_ was thronged with
clamouring men. Their ringleader—one Zacharie Cachat, a well-known
guide, of no particular merit, but not a bad fellow—was haranguing the
multitude. He met with more than his match. My friend Kennedy, who was
on the spot, heard of the disturbance and rushed into the fray,
confronted the burly guide and thrust back his absurdities into his
teeth.
There were the materials for a very pretty riot, but they manage these
things better in France than we do, and the gensdarmes—three
strong—came down and dispersed the crowd. The guides quailed before the
cocked hats, and retired to cabarets to take little glasses of absinthe
and other liquors more or less injurious to the human frame. Under the
influence of these stimulants they conceived an idea which combined
revenge with profit. “You have ascended the Aiguille Verte, you say.
_We_ say we don’t believe it. _We_ say, Do it again! Take three of us
with you, and we will bet you two thousand francs to one thousand that
you won’t make the ascent!”
This proposition was formally notified to me, but I declined it with
thanks, and recommended Kennedy to go in and win. I accepted, however,
a hundred-franc share in the bet, and calculated upon getting two
hundred per cent, on my investment. Alas! how vain are human
expectations! Zacharie Cachat was put into confinement, and although
Kennedy actually ascended the aiguille a week later with two Chamounix
guides and Peter Perm, the bet came to nothing.[61]
[61] It should be said that we received the most polite apologies for
this affair from the chief of the gensdarmes, and an invitation to
lodge a complaint against the ringleaders. We accepted his apologies,
and declined his invitation. Needless to add, Michel Croz took no part
in the demonstration.
The weather arranged itself just as this storm in a teapot blew over,
and we left at once for the Montanvert, in order to show the
Chamouniards the easiest way over the chain of Mont Blanc, in return
for the civilities which we had received from them during the past
three days.
[Illustration: WESTERN SIDE OF THE COL DE TALÈFRE]