CAUGHT IN AN AVALANCHE ON THE MATTERHORN
The following exciting account is taken from an article by Herr
Lorria, which appeared in _The St Moritz Post_ for 28th January 1888.
The injuries received were so terrible that, I believe, Herr Lorria
never entirely ceased to feel their effects.
The party consisted of two Austrian gentlemen, Herren Lammer and
Lorria, without guides, who, in 1887, had made Zermatt their
headquarters for some climbs. They had difficulty in deciding which
ascent to begin with, especially as the weather had recently been bad,
and the peaks were not in first-class condition. Herr Lorria writes:
"I fancied the Pointe de Zinal as the object of our tour; but Lammer,
who had never been on the Matterhorn, wished to climb this mountain by
the western flank--a route which had only once before been attacked,
namely by Mr Penhall. We had with us the drawing of Penhall's route,
published in _The Alpine Journal_.
"After skirting a jutting cliff, we reached the couloir at its
narrowest point. It was clear that we had followed the route laid down
in _The Alpine Journal_; and although Mr Penhall says that the rocks
here are very easy, I cannot at all agree with him.
"We could not simply cross over the couloir, for, on the opposite
side, the rocks looked horrible: it was only possible to cross it some
forty or fifty mètres higher. We climbed down into the couloir: the
ice was furrowed by avalanches. We were obliged to cut steps as we
mounted upwards in a sloping direction. In a quarter of an hour we
were on the other side of the couloir. The impression which the
couloir made upon me is best shown by the words which I at the moment
addressed to Lammer: 'We are now completely cut off.' We saw clearly
that it was only the early hour, before the sun was yet upon the
couloir, which protected us from danger. Once more upon the rocks, we
kept our course as much as possible parallel to the N.W. arête. We
clambered along, first over rocks covered with ice, then over glassy
ledges, always sloping downwards. Our progress was slow indeed; the
formation of the rock surface was ever becoming more unfavourable, and
the covering of ice was a fearful hindrance.
"Such difficult rocks I had rarely seen before; the wrinkled ledges of
the Dent Blanche were easy compared to them. At 1 P.M., we were
standing on a level with the "Grand Tower"; the summit lay close
before us, but as far as we could see, the rocks were completely
coated with a treacherous layer of ice. Immediately before us was a
precipitous ice couloir. All attempts to advance were fruitless, even
our crampons were of no avail. Driven back! If this, in all cases, is
a heavy blow for the mountain climber, we had here, in addition, the
danger which we knew so well, and which was every moment increasing.
It was one o'clock in the afternoon; the rays of the sun already
struck the western wall of the mountain; stone after stone, loosened
from its icy fetters, whistled past us. Back! As fast as possible
back! Lammer pulled off his shoes and I stuffed them into the
knapsack, holding also our two ice-axes. As I clambered down the first
I was often obliged to trust to the rope. The ledges, which had given
us trouble in the ascent, were now fearfully difficult. Across a short
ice slope, in which we had cut steps in the ascent, Lammer was
obliged, as time pressed, to get along without his shoes. The
difficulties increased; every moment the danger became greater; and
already whole avalanches of stones rattled down. The situation was
indeed critical. At last, after immense difficulty, we reached the
edge of the couloir at the place we had left it in the ascent. But we
could find no spot protected from the stones; they literally came down
upon us like hail. Which was the more serious danger, the threatening
avalanches in the couloir or the pelting of the stones which swept
down from every side? On the far side of the couloir there was safety,
as all the stones must in the end reach the couloir, which divides the
whole face of the mountain into two parts. It was now five o'clock in
the afternoon; the burning rays of the sun came down upon us, and
countless stones whirled through the air. We remembered the saying of
Dr Güssfeldt, in his magnificent description of the passage of the Col
du Lion, that only at midnight is tranquility restored. We resolved,
then, to risk the short stretch across the couloir. Lammer pulled on
his shoes; I was the first to leave the rocks. The snow which covered
the ice was suspiciously soft, but we had no need to cut steps. In the
avalanche track before us on the right a mighty avalanche is
thundering down; stones leap into the couloir, and give rise to new
avalanches.
"Suddenly my consciousness is extinguished, and I do not recover it
till twenty-one days later. I can, therefore, only tell what Lammer
saw. Gently from above an avalanche of snow came sliding down upon us;
it carried Lammer away in spite of his efforts, and it projected me
with my head against a rock. Lammer was blinded by the powdery snow,
and thought that his last hour was come. The thunder of the roaring
avalanche was fearful; we were dashed over rocks, laid bare in the
avalanche track, and leaped over two immense bergschrunds. At every
change of the slope we flew into the air, and then were plunged again
into the snow, and often dashed against one another. For a long time
it seemed to Lammer as if all were over, countless thoughts went
thronging through his brain, until at last the avalanche had expended
its force, and we were left lying on the Tiefenmatten Glacier. Our
fall was estimated at from 550 to 800 English feet.
"I lay unconscious, quite buried in the snow; the rope had gone twice
round my neck and bound it fast. Lammer, who quickly recovered
consciousness, pulled me out of the snow, cut the rope, and gave me a
good shake. I then awoke, but being delirious, I resisted with all my
might my friend's endeavours to pull me out of the track of the
avalanche. However, he succeeded in getting me on to a stone (I was,
of course, unable to walk), and gave me his coat; and having thus done
all that was possible for me, he began to creep downwards on hands and
knees. He could not stand, having a badly sprained ankle; except for
that he escaped with merely a few bruises and scratches. At length
Lammer arrived at the Stockje hut, but to his intense disappointment
there was nobody there. He did not pause to give vent to his
annoyance, however, but continued his way down. Twice he felt nearly
unable to proceed, and would have abandoned himself to his fate had
not the thought of me kept him up and urged him on. At three o'clock
in the morning he reached the Staffel Alp, but none of the people
there were willing to venture on the glacier. He now gave up all hope
that I could be saved, though he nevertheless sent a messenger to Herr
Seiler, who reached Zermatt at about 4.15 A.M.
"In half an hour's time a relief party set out from Zermatt. When the
party reached the Staffel Alp, Lammer was unconscious, but most
fortunately he had written on a piece of paper the information that I
was lying at the foot of Penhall's couloir. They found me about
half-past eight o'clock. I had taken off all my clothes in my
delirium, and had slipped off the rock on which Lammer had left me.
One of my feet was broken and both were frozen into the snow, and had
to be cut out with an axe.
"At 8 P.M. I was brought back to Zermatt, and for twenty days I lay
unconscious at the Monte Rosa Hotel hovering between life and death."
Herr Lorria pays a warm tribute to the kindness of Seiler and his
wife, and the skill of Dr de Courten, who saved his limbs when other
doctors wished to amputate them. He ends his graphic account as
follows: "The lesson to be learnt from our accident is not 'Always
take guides,' but rather 'Never try the Penhall route on the
Matterhorn, except after a long series of fine, hot days, for
otherwise the western wall of the mountain is the most fearful
mouse-trap in the Alps.'"
THE ICE AVALANCHE OF THE ALTELS.
Those who climbed in the Alps during the summer of 1895 will recollect
how wonderfully dry and warm the weather was, denuding the mountains
of snow and causing a number of rock-falls, so that many ascents
became very dangerous, and, in my own case, after one or two risky
encounters with falling stones, we decided to let the rock peaks alone
for the rest of that campaign.
[Illustration: In the centre of the picture may be seen an Avalanche,
which a non-climber might mistake for a Waterfall, dropping down the
Rocks of the Wetterhorn.]
In _The Alpine Journal_ of August 1897, Mr Charles Slater gives an
admirable description of a great ice-avalanche which overwhelmed one
of the fertile pastures near the well-known Gemmi route. From this
account I make some extracts, which will give an idea of the magnitude
of the disaster and its unusual character, as the ice from a falling
glacier rarely ever approaches cultivated land and dwellings.
The scene of the catastrophe was at Spitalmatten, a pasturage with
châlets used in summer by the shepherds, in a basin at the beginning
of the valley which extends to the pass. Steep slopes bound it on the
east, and above them rises the glacier-capped peak of the Altels. The
glacier was well seen from the Gemmi path, and all tourists who passed
that way must have noticed and admired it. It is believed that a big
crevasse, running right across the glacier, was noticed during the
month of August, and the lower part of the glacier seemed to be
completely cut off from the upper portion by it.
On the evening of 10th September, the Vice-President of the commune of
Leuk (to which commune the Alp belonged) arrived at the châlets to
settle the accounts of the past summer. Several of the women had
already gone down, taking some of the calves with them, and the rest
of the inhabitants of the little settlement were to follow next day.
The weather was warm but cloudy, with a strong _föhn_ wind.[2]
On the morning of 11th September, about 5 A.M., the few people who
lived at or near the Schwarenbach Inn heard a roar like an earthquake,
and felt a violent blast of wind. A servant, rushing out of the inn,
saw "what appeared to be a white mist streaming down the Altel's
slope. The huge mass of ice forming the lower end of the glacier had
broken away, rushed down the mountain side, leapt from the Tateleu
plateau into the valley, and, like an immense wave, had swept over the
Alp, up the Uschinen Grat, as if up a 1500 sea-wall, and even sent
its ice-foam over this into the distant Uschinen Thal."
The only other eye-witness of this appalling catastrophe was a
traveller who was walking up the Kanderthal from Frutigen in the early
morning. "He saw in the Gemmi direction a fearful whirlwind, with dust
and snow-clouds, and experienced later a cold rain falling from a
clear sky, the rain being probably due to the melting of the
ice-cloud."
The scene after the disaster must have been a terrible one. "Winter
had apparently come in the midst of summer"; the whole pasture was
covered with masses of ice. "The body of the Vice-President was found
lying 180 yards away from the hut. Another body had been flung into
the branches of an uprooted tree, while a third was found still
holding a stocking in one hand, having been killed in the act of
dressing."
There was no chance of escape for the people, as only a minute or
little more elapsed from the time the avalanche started till it
reached the settlement. The cows were nearly all killed, "they seem to
have been blown like leaves before a storm to enormous distances."
A year later, much of the avalanche was still unmelted.
The thickness of the slice of glacier which broke away is believed to
have been about 25 feet, and it fell through a vertical height of 4700
feet. It moved at about the average rate of two miles a minute.
"It is difficult to realise these vast figures, and a few comparisons
have been suggested which may help to give some idea of the forces
which were called into play. The material which fell would have
sufficed to bury the City of London to the depth of six feet, and Hyde
Park and Kensington Gardens would have disappeared beneath a layer
six-and-a-half feet deep. The enormous energy of the moving mass may
be dimly pictured when we think that a weight of ice and stones ten
times greater than the tonnage of the whole of England's battle-ships
plunged on to the Alp at a speed of nearly 300 miles an hour."
An almost exactly similar accident had occurred in 1782.
AN AVALANCHE WHICH ROBBED A LADY OF A GARMENT
One of the greatest advantages in mountaineering as a sport is the
amount of enjoyment it gives even when climbing-days are past. While
actually engaged in the ascent of difficult peaks our minds are apt
to be entirely engrossed with the problem of getting up and down them,
but afterwards we delight in recalling every interesting passage,
every glorious view, every successful climb; and perhaps this gives us
even more pleasure than the experiences themselves.
If we happen to have combined photography with mountaineering we are
particularly to be envied, for an hour in the company of one of our
old albums will recall with wonderful vividness many an incident which
we should have otherwise forgotten.
Turning over some prints which long have lain on one side, a wave of
recollection brings before me some especially happy days on snowy
peaks, and makes me long to bring a breath of Alpine air to the
cities, where for so much of the year dwell many of my brother and
sister climbers.
With the help of the accompanying photographs, which will serve to
generally illustrate my remarks, let me relate what befell me during
an ascent of the Schallihorn--a peak some twelve thousand and odd feet
high, in the neighbourhood of Zermatt.
Now, although Zermatt is a very familiar playground for mountaineers,
yet even as late as ten years ago one or two virgin peaks and a fair
number of new and undesirable routes up others were still to be found.
I had had my share of success on the former, and was at the time of
which I write looking about for an interesting and moderately safe
way, hitherto untrodden, up one of the lesser-known mountains in the
district. My guide and my friend of many years, Joseph Imboden, racked
his brains for a suitable novelty, and at length suggested that as no
one had hitherto attacked the south-east face of the Schallihorn we
might as well see if it could be ascended. He added that he was not at
all sure if it was possible--a remark I have known him to make on more
than one peak in far away Arctic Norway, when the obvious facility of
an ascent had robbed it of half its interest. However, in those days I
still rose satisfactorily to observations of that sort, and was at
once all eagerness to set out. We were fortunate in securing as our
second guide Imboden's brilliant son Roman, who happened to be
disengaged just then. A further and little dreamed-of honour was in
store for us, as on our endeavouring to hire a porter to take our
things to the bivouac from the tiny village of Taesch no less a person
than the mayor volunteered to accompany us in that capacity.
[Illustration: MR WHYMPER. ZERMATT, 1896.]
[Illustration: MRS AUBREY LE BLOND ON A MOUNTAIN TOP.
_Photographed by her Guide, Joseph Imboden_]
[Illustration: A HOT DAY IN MID-WINTER ON THE SUMMIT OF A PEAK 13,000
FEET HIGH.]
So we started upwards one hot afternoon, bound for some overhanging
rocks, which, we were assured by those who had never visited the spot,
we should find. For the regulation routes up the chief peaks the
climber can generally count on a hut, where, packed in close proximity
to his neighbours, he lies awake till it is time to get up, and sets
forth on his ascent benefited only in imagination by his night's
repose. Within certain limits the less a man is catered for the more
comfortable he is, and the more he has to count on himself the better
are the arrangements for his comfort. Thus I have found a well-planned
bivouac under a great rock infinitely preferable to a night in a hut,
and a summer's campaign in tents amongst unexplored mountains more
really luxurious than a season in an over-thronged Alpine hotel.
Two or three hours' walking took us far above the trees and into the
region of short grass and stony slopes. Eventually we reached a hollow
at the very foot of our mountain, and here we began to look about for
suitable shelter and a flat surface on which to lay the sleeping-bags.
The pictured rocks of inviting appearance were nowhere to be found,
and what there were offered very inferior accommodation. But the
weather was perfect, and we had an ample supply of wraps, so we
contented ourselves with what protection was given by a steep, rocky
wall, and turned our attention to the Schallihorn. The proposed route
could be well seen. Imboden traced out the way he intended taking for
a long distance up the mighty precipice in front of us. There were
tracks of avalanches at more than one spot, and signs of falling
stones were not infrequent. My guide thought he could avoid all danger
by persistently keeping to the projecting ridges, and his idea was to
descend by whatever way we went up, as the ordinary route is merely a
long, uninteresting grind.
We now lit a fire, made soup and coffee, and soon after got into our
sleeping-bags. The night passed peacefully, save for the rumble of an
occasional avalanche, when great masses of ice broke loose on the
glacier hard by. Before dawn we were stirring, and by the weird light
of a huge fire were making our preparations for departure. It
gradually grew light as our little party moved in single file towards
the rocky ramparts which threatened to bar the way to the upper world.
As we ascended a stony slope, Imboden remarked, "Why, ma'am, you still
have on that long skirt! Let us leave it here; we can pick it up on
our return." Now, in order not to be conspicuous when starting for a
climbing expedition, I always wore an ordinary walking-skirt over my
mountaineering costume. It was of the lightest possible material, so
that, if returning by a different route, it could be rolled up and
carried in a knapsack. I generally started from the bivouac without
it; but the presence on this occasion of the Mayor of Täsch had quite
overawed me; hence the unusual elegance of my get-up. Lest I be
thought to dwell at undue length on so trifling a matter, I may add
that the skirt had adventures that day of so remarkable a nature that
the disappearance of Elijah in his chariot can alone be compared to
them.
The skirt was now duly removed, rolled up and placed under a heavy
stone, which we marked with a small cairn, so as to find it the more
easily on our return. Shortly after, the real climb began, and,
putting on the rope, we commenced the varied series of gymnastics
which make life worth living to the mountaineer. We had several
particularly unpleasant gullies to cross, up which Imboden glanced
hastily and suspiciously, and hurried us over, fearing the fall of
stones. At length we came for a little time to easier ground, and as
the day was now intensely hot the men took off their waistcoats,
leaving them and their watches in a hole in the rock. Above this
gentler slope the mountain steepened again, and a ridge in the centre,
running directly upwards, alone gave a possible route to the summit.
This ridge, at first broad and simple, before long narrowed to a
knife-edge. There was always enough to hold; but the rocks were so
loose and rotten that we hardly dared to touch them. Spread out over
those treacherous rocks, adhering by every finger in our endeavour to
distribute our weight, we slowly wormed ourselves upwards. Such
situations are always trying. The most brilliant cragsman finds his
skill of little avail. Unceasing care and patience alone can help him
here. Throwing down the most insecure of the blocks, which fell
sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other of the ridge, we
gradually advanced. The conversation ran rather in a groove: "Not that
one, ma'am, or the big fellow on the top will come down!" "Don't touch
the red one or the little white one!" "Now come up to where I am
without stepping on any of them!" "Roman! look out! I'm letting this
one go!" Then bang! bang! bang! and a disgusting smell as of
gunpowder, while a great boulder dashed in leaps towards the glacier
below, grinding and smashing itself to atoms before it reached the
bottom.
[Illustration: JOSEPH IMBODEN. MRS AUBREY LE BLOND.
ZERMATT, SEPTEMBER, 1896.]
[Illustration: CROSSING A SNOW COULOIR (page 73).]
Thus with untiring thoroughness Imboden led his little band higher and
higher, till at last the summit came in sight and our muscles and
overstrained nerves saw rest ahead.
I readily agreed to Imboden's decision that we should go down the
ordinary way.
After descending for a considerable distance we stopped, and the
guides held a short consultation. It seemed that Roman was anxious to
try and fetch the waistcoats and watches and my skirt, and his father
did not object.
Wishing him the best of good-luck, we parted by the rocks and trudged
on over the snow towards Zermatt. We moved leisurely, as people who
climb for pleasure, with no thought of record-breaking; and as it was
late in September it was dusk as we neared the village.
Later in the evening I saw Imboden, and asked for news of Roman. He
had not arrived, and as time passed we grew uneasy, knowing the speed
at which, if alone, he would descend. By 10 P.M. we were really
anxious, and great was our relief when a figure with knapsack and
ice-axe came swinging up the narrow, cobbled street.
It was an exciting tale he had to tell, though it took a good deal of
danger to impress Roman with the notion that there was any at all.
Soon after leaving us he came to the first gully. Just as he was about
to step into it he heard a rumble. Springing back, he squeezed himself
under an overhanging piece of rock, while a huge mass of stones and
snow dashed down the mountain, some of the fragments passing right
over him--though, thanks to his position, none actually touched him.
When tranquility was restored he dashed across to the other side, and
immediately after a fresh fall commenced, which lasted for a
considerable time. At length he approached without injury the spot he
was looking for, far down on the lower slopes, where my skirt had been
left, and here he felt that all danger was past. But the
extraordinarily dry season had thrown out most people's calculations,
and at that very moment he was really in the direst peril. As he ran
gaily down the slope of earth and stones a tremendous crash brought
him to a standstill, and looking back he saw the smoke of a mighty
avalanche of ice coming in a huge wave over the cliffs above. He
rushed for shelter, which was near at hand, and from beneath the
protection of a great rock he saw the avalanche come on and on with
the roar of artillery, and he gazed, fascinated, as it swept
majestically past his place of refuge. He could see the mound where
lay my skirt with its heap of stones. And now a striking sight met
his eyes, for before ever the seething mass could touch it the whole
heap rose from the ground and was carried far out of the path of the
avalanche, borne along by the violence of the wind which preceded it.
The late John Addington Symonds has related in one of his charming
accounts of winter in the Alps that an old woman, sitting peaceably
before her châlet door in the sun, was transported by the wind of an
avalanche to the top of a lofty pine-tree, where, quite uninjured, she
calmly awaited assistance; but that my skirt should have such an
adventure brought very strongly home to me the dangers Roman had
passed through that afternoon and the escape we had had ourselves.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] The exact origin of the _föhn_ wind is still disputed. It is
thought to have no connection with the sirocco, a wind which in Europe
blows always from the south, bears with it sometimes particles of
sand, and is impregnated with damp from its passage over the
Mediterranean. The _föhn_ blows from any quarter (though usually from
the south), and is a dry, warm wind, which causes the snow to melt
rapidly. In German Switzerland it is called the _Schneefresser_, or
Snow Devourer, and it has been said that if no _föhn_ visited the
Alps, Switzerland would still be in the glacial period.