AN ADVENTURE ON THE TRIFT PASS
Few passes leading out of the Valley of Zermatt are oftener crossed
than the Trift. It is not considered a difficult pass, but the rocks
on the Zinal side are loose and broken and the risk of falling stones
is great at certain hours in the day. The Zinal side of the Trift is
in shadow in the early morning, and therefore most climbers will
either make so early a start from the Zermatt side that they can be
sure of descending the dangerous part before the sun has thawed the
icy fetters which hold the stones together during the night, or else
they will set out from the Zinal side, and sleep at a little inn on a
patch of rocks which jut out from the glacier at the foot of the pass,
from which the top of the Trift can be reached long before there is
any risk from a cannonade.
One of the earliest explorers of this pass, however, Mr Thomas W.
Hinchliff, neglected the precaution of a sufficiently early start,
and his party very nearly came to grief in consequence.
He has given us an excellent description in _Peaks, Passes, and
Glaciers_ of what befell after they had got over the great
difficulties, as they seemed in those days, of descending the steep
wall of rock on the Zinal side. I will now begin to quote from his
article:
"Being thoroughly tired of the rocks, we resolved as soon as possible
to get upon the ice where it swept the base of the precipices. The
surface, however, was furrowed by parallel channels of various
magnitudes; some several feet in depth, formed originally by the
descent of stones and avalanches from the heights; and we found one of
these troughlike furrows skirting the base of the rocks we stood upon.
One by one we entered, flattering ourselves that the covering of snow
would afford us pretty good footing, but this soon failed; the hard
blue ice showed on the surface, and we found ourselves rather in a
difficulty, for the sides of our furrow were higher here than at the
point where we entered it, and so overhanging that it was impossible
to get out.
"Delay was dangerous, for the _débris_ far below warned us that at any
moment a shower of stones might come flying down our channel; a
glissade was equally dangerous; for, though we might have shot down
safely at an immense speed for some hundreds of feet, we should
finally have been dashed into a sea of crevasses. Cachat in front
solved the puzzle, and showed us how, by straddling with the feet as
far apart as possible, the heel of each foot could find pretty firm
hold in a mixture of half snow and half ice, his broad back, like a
solid rock, being ready to check any slip of those behind him.
"We were soon safe upon a fine open plateau of the _névé_, where we
threaded our way among a few snow crevasses requiring caution, and
then prepared for a comfortable halt in an apparently safe place.
"The provision knapsacks were emptied and used as seats; bottles of
red wine were stuck upright in the snow; a goodly leg of cold mutton
on its sheet of paper formed the centre, garnished with hard eggs and
bread and cheese, round which we ranged ourselves in a circle. High
festival was held under the deep blue heavens, and now and then, as we
looked up at the wonderful wall of rocks which we had descended, we
congratulated ourselves on the victory. M. Seiler's oranges supplied
the rare luxury of a dessert, and we were just in the full enjoyment
of the delicacy when a booming sound, like the discharge of a gun far
over our heads, made us all at once glance upwards to the top of the
Trifthorn. Close to its craggy summit hung a cloud of dust, like dirty
smoke, and in few seconds another and a larger one burst forth several
hundred feet lower. A glance through the telescope showed that a fall
of rocks had commenced, and the fragments were leaping down from ledge
to ledge in a series of cascades. The uproar became tremendous;
thousands of fragments making every variety of noise according to
their size, and producing the effect of a fire of musketry and
artillery combined, thundered downwards from so great a height that we
waited anxiously for some considerable time to see them reach the
snow-field below. As nearly as we could estimate the distance, we were
500 yards from the base of the rocks, so we thought that, come what
might, we were in a tolerably secure position. At last we saw many of
the blocks plunge into the snow after taking their last fearful leap;
presently much larger fragments followed; the noise grew fiercer and
fiercer, and huge blocks began to fall so near to us that we jumped to
our feet, preparing to dodge them to the best of our ability. 'Look
out!' cried someone, and we opened out right and left at the approach
of a monster, evidently weighing many hundredweights, which was
coming right at us like a huge shell fired from a mortar. It fell with
a heavy thud not more than 20 feet from us, scattering lumps of snow
into the circle."
Years afterwards a very sad accident occurred at this spot, a lady
being struck and killed by a falling stone. In this case the fatality
was unquestionably due to the start having been made at too late an
hour. An inn in the Trift Valley makes it easy to reach the pass soon
after dawn.
THE PERILS OF THE MOMING PASS.
In 1864 many peaks remained unsealed, and passes untraversed in the
Zermatt district, though now almost every inch of every mountain has
felt the foot of man. Yet even now few passes have been made there so
difficult and dangerous (if Mr Whymper's route be exactly followed) as
that of the Moming, from Zinal to Zermatt. Mr Whymper gives a most
graphic and exciting description of what befell his party, which
included Mr Moore and the two famous guides Almer and Croz. Having
slept at some filthy châlets, the climbers, first passing over easy
mountain slopes, gained a level glacier. Beyond this a way towards the
unexplored gap in the ridge, which they called the Moming Pass, had
to be decided on. The choice lay between difficult and perhaps
impassable rocks, and an ice-slope so steep and broken that it
appeared likely to turn out impracticable. In fact it was the sort of
position that whichever route was chosen the climbers were sure, when
once on it, to wish it had been the other. Finally, the ice-slope,
over which a line of ice-cliffs hung threateningly, lurching right
above the track to be taken, was decided on, and the whole party
advanced for the attack. Mr Whymper writes:
"Across this ice-slope Croz now proceeded to cut. It was executing a
flank movement in the face of an enemy by whom we might be attacked at
any moment. The peril was obvious. It was a monstrous folly. It was
foolhardiness. A retreat should have been sounded.[4]
"'I am not ashamed to confess,' wrote Moore in his Journal, 'that
during the whole time we were crossing this slope my heart was in my
mouth, and I never felt relieved from such a load of care as when,
after, I suppose, a passage of about twenty minutes, we got on to the
rocks and were in safety.... I have never heard a positive oath come
from Almer's mouth, but the language in which he kept up a running
commentary, more to himself than to me, as we went along, was stronger
than I should have given him credit for using. His prominent feeling
seemed to be one of _indignation_ that we should be in such a
position, and self-reproach at being a party to the proceeding; while
the emphatic way in which, at intervals, he exclaimed, 'Quick; be
quick,' sufficiently betokened his alarm.
"It was not necessary to admonish Croz to be quick. He was fully as
alive to the risk as any of the others. He told me afterwards that
this place was the most dangerous he had ever crossed, and that no
consideration whatever would tempt him to cross it again. Manfully did
he exert himself to escape from the impending destruction. His head,
bent down to his work, never turned to the right or to the left. One,
two, three, went his axe, and then he stepped on to the spot he had
been cutting. How painfully insecure should we have considered those
steps at any other time! But now, we thought only of the rocks in
front, and of the hideous _séracs_, lurching over above us, apparently
in the act of falling.
"We got to the rocks in safety, and if they had been doubly as
difficult as they were, we should still have been well content. We sat
down and refreshed the inner man, keeping our eyes on the towering
pinnacles of ice under which we had passed, but which, now, were
almost beneath us. Without a preliminary warning sound, one of the
largest--as high as the Monument at London Bridge--fell upon the slope
below. The stately mass heeled over as if upon a hinge (holding
together until it bent thirty degrees forwards), then it crushed out
its base, and, rent into a thousand fragments, plunged vertically down
upon the slope that we had crossed! Every atom of our track that was
in its course was obliterated; all the new snow was swept away, and a
broad sheet of smooth, glassy ice, showed the resistless force with
which it had fallen.
"It was inexcusable to follow such a perilous path, but it is easy to
understand why it was taken. To have retreated from the place where
Croz suggested a change of plan, to have descended below the reach of
danger, and to have mounted again by the route which Almer suggested,
would have been equivalent to abandoning the excursion; for no one
would have passed another night in the châlet on the Arpitetta Alp.
'Many' says Thucydides, 'though seeing well the perils ahead, are
forced along by fear of dishonour--as the world calls it--so that,
vanquished by a mere word, they fall into irremediable calamities.'
Such was nearly the case here. No one could say a word in
justification of the course which was adopted; all were alive to the
danger that was being encountered; yet a grave risk was
deliberately--although unwillingly--incurred, in preference to
admitting, by withdrawal from an untenable position, that an error of
judgment had been committed.
"After a laborious trudge over many species of snow, and through many
varieties of vapour--from the quality of a Scotch mist to that of a
London fog--we at length stood on the depression between the Rothhorn
and the Schallhorn.[5] A steep wall of snow was upon the Zinal side of
the summit; but what the descent was like on the other side we could
not tell, for a billow of snow tossed over its crest by the western
winds, suspended o'er Zermatt with motion arrested, resembling an
ocean-wave frozen in the act of breaking, cut off the view.[6]
"Croz--held hard in by the others, who kept down the Zinal
side--opened his shoulders, flogged down the foam, and cut away the
cornice to its junction with the summit; then boldly leaped down and
called on us to follow him.
"It was well for us now that we had such a man as leader. An inferior
or less daring guide would have hesitated to enter upon the descent in
a dense mist; and Croz himself would have done right to pause had he
been less magnificent in _physique_. He acted, rather than said,
'Where snow lies fast, there man can go; where ice exists, a way may
be cut; it is a question of power; I have the power--all you have to
do is to follow me.' Truly, he did not spare himself, and could he
have performed the feats upon the boards of a theatre that he did upon
this occasion, he would have brought down the house with thunders of
applause. Here is what Moore wrote in _his_ Journal "('The descent
bore a strong resemblance to the Col de Pilatte, but was very much
steeper and altogether more difficult, which is saying a good deal.
Croz was in his element, and selected his way with marvellous
sagacity, while Almer had an equally honourable and, perhaps, more
responsible post in the rear, which he kept with his usual
steadiness.... One particular passage has impressed itself on my mind
as one of the most nervous I have ever made. We had to pass along a
crest of ice, a mere knife-edge,--on our left a broad crevasse, whose
bottom was lost in blue haze, and on our right, at an angle of 70°, or
more, a slope falling to a similar gulf below. Croz, as he went along
the edge, chipped small notches in the ice, in which we placed our
feet, with the toes well turned out, doing all we knew to preserve our
balance. While stepping from one of these precarious footholds to
another, I staggered for a moment. I had not really lost my footing;
but the agonised tone in which Almer, who was behind me, on seeing me
waver, exclaimed, "Slip not, sir!" gave us an even livelier impression
than we already had of the insecurity of the position.... One huge
chasm, whose upper edge was far above the lower one, could neither be
leaped nor turned, and threatened to prove an insuperable barrier. But
Croz showed himself equal to the emergency. Held up by the rest of the
party, he cut a series of holes for the hands and feet down and along
the almost perpendicular wall of ice forming the upper side of the
_schrund_. Down this slippery staircase we crept, with our faces to
the wall, until a point was reached where the width of the chasm was
not too great for us to drop across. Before we had done, we got quite
accustomed to taking flying leaps over the _schrunds_.... To make a
long story short; after a most desperate and exciting struggle, and as
bad a piece of ice-work as it is possible to imagine, we emerged on to
the upper plateau of the Hohlicht Glacier.')"
From here, in spite of many further difficulties necessitating a long
_detour_, the party safely descended to Zermatt by the familiar Trift
path.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] The responsibility did not rest with Croz. His part was to advise,
but not to direct.
[5] The summit of the pass has been marked on Dufour's map, 3793
mètres, or 12,444 feet.
[6] These snow-cornices are common on the crests of high mountain
ridges, and it is always prudent (just before arriving upon the summit
of a mountain or ridge), to _sound_ with the alpenstock, that is to
say, drive it in, to discover whether there is one or not. Men have
often narrowly escaped losing their lives from neglecting this
precaution.
These cornices are frequently rolled round in a volute, and sometimes
take extravagant forms.