THE GRAND COMBIN
The Panossière hut--Tropical winter heat--Schoolboys and
the Matterhorn--Shall it be rock or snow?--The Combin
de Valsorey--My third ascent of the Grand Combin--The
track home--Col des Avolions--Natural highways of a new
character--Twenty-three thousand feet ascended on ski.
On the sixth day of my expedition we left Lourtier shortly before 10
o’clock a.m., knowing full well that we were in no hurry, that we meant
to thoroughly enjoy our day’s work, and that the hospitable door of the
Cabane de Panossière would be no more difficult to open after sunset than
before.
As soon as we had passed the last houses of Lourtier, we put on our ski,
and, practically, did not remove them from our feet till eight o’clock
that evening, allowing for two hours’ rest in the heat of the day, from
two to four. We branched off from the Fionnay direction to turn to the
right at Granges Neuves, crossing the bridge to Mayens du Revers, and
hence rising towards the path that leads in summer from Fionnay to the
Alpe de Corbassière. We thus reached, by two o’clock, after passing the
wooden cross at the point 1,967, and just beyond the chalets of the Alpe
de Corbassière, the point 2,227 of the map. We spent there two hours,
under a tropical sun. Then we plunged down a gully to the west, on our
right, so as to advance on ground which the sun had not softened, and
rose again along the side moraine to the point 2,644, whence there lay
before us a most romantic moonlit landscape.
The hut was still in darkness when I reached it, the last of the party,
in order to enjoy the sensation of seeing the windows dimly lit by the
candlelight within, and the smoke curling up out of the chimney. The
impression was one of charming “cosiness,” in the middle of a more
than Arctic landscape, and there was that sublimity above and around
which beggars the art of description. A snow and wind-tight Alpine hut,
well stocked with fuel and blankets, well supplied with plain food and
wholesome drink from the provision bag of its guests, is, in midwinter,
one of the snuggest “ingle-nooks” a natural epicure may wish for, and,
strange to say, what he may therein find most pleasurable is the shade
and coolness of the shelter, so fairly could I compare our tramp of that
day to a trip in the “scrub” under the equator. Forsooth, the prejudice
which still prevails against roaming in winter at high altitudes is a
remnant of that state of mind which kept early explorers of the High Alps
tramping round and round the foot of such hills as the Matterhorn, which
Macaulay’s healthy “schoolboy” would now think nothing of rushing at,
with his sisters trailing behind.
If it is possible, in sporting circles, to speak of the _Zeit Geist_
without pedantry, we should say that the spirit of the time, in matters
mountaineering, has undergone a remarkable change since the advent of
Macaulay’s proverbial schoolboy.
Or is the change not rather a return to a healthier frame of mind?
It is quite true that in few sports is the extreme penalty, death,
so constantly near at hand as in mountaineering. But is it not quite
apparent, too, that the early lovers of the Alps were full-grown,
leisured, and cultured men, whose training, occupation, or temper, had
not properly prepared them to see the risk in its true proportions? From
them a whole generation took the cue. Then came another, for which the
taking of risks exceeding the _modicum_ attached to a passive existence
was the touchstone of manliness. They sought in the Alps opportunities
for strenuous displays, as well as haunts where the harassed soul could
take holiday. They are the generation which made of Switzerland the
playground of Europe. It is they who brought mountaineering to the
present period, when first ascents have become a hackneyed amusement, and
schoolboys marvel at the facility of undertakings which, when attempted
for the first time in bygone days, rightly called forth the admiration
of the civilised world. Is it in the modern spirit that, on the morning
of my seventh day, with the grand unconcern of an ever-victorious squad,
hitherto scratchless, bruiseless, and unwearied, we took the route, well
known to all of us, which leads up the Glacier de Corbassière to the Col
des Maisons Blanches? On reaching the plateau which precedes the col, we
made up our minds as to the choice between the two routes to the top of
Grand Combin.
The choice lay between rock and snow. Rock won the toss. From the Plateau
des Maisons Blanches we turned full south, and left our ski at the foot
of the steep snow and ice slope which leads to the Col de Meiten. The
track over this col, dotted upon the map (Siegfried Atlas, Swiss military
survey), crosses the Combin rocks upon a snow belt from north to south,
where it ends upon the so-called Plateau du Couloir. The ascent to the
col--we were roped--presented no difficulty. The crusted snow was easily
kicked into foot-holds.
The rocks of the Combin de Valsorey, which we ascended from the col, now
looking east, were absolutely free from snow or ice, the only discomfort
being exposure to a hot sun in an excessively dry atmosphere--just the
thing, I should say, for salamanders, which, unfortunately, we were
not. In this respect our experience totally differed from that, already
alluded to, of Mr. Tauern and his friends. Not only did they take to the
peak further east, from the corridor, _viâ_ Grand Combin de Zessetta
(this summit is immediately south of the figures 3,600 on the Siegfried),
using climbing-irons on the steep ice, but they experienced a cold so
intense that they were driven back.
For my part, being no longer a young man at all, I felt so overcome with
the dry heat on Combin de Valsorey, that I remembered with complacency
how fully acquainted I was with the top of Grand Combin, and how useless
it would be to bore such an old friend with another visit at an unusual
time of year. I went, nevertheless, and spent some minutes of that
triumphant afternoon in amicable nods to Mont Viso, which somehow I had
missed on my previous visits.
The reader will gather from the late hours noted in the following
time-table what confidence a rock-climber may gain from the knowledge
that his ski are waiting for him below, firmly planted in the snow, and
that a secure track marked on the friendly element runs uninterruptedly
from the spot where they stand to a trustworthy refuge hut. We cheerfully
cut through the loops of our ascending track, by a perpendicular course,
and, as the reader will see, returned to the hut in an incredibly short
time, enjoying with untroubled mind the afterglow of a magnificent sunset
gradually whitening into mellow moonlight.
_Time-table_: Left Panossière hut at 7.15 a.m.; reached first plateau
by 8.20 a.m.; reached Maisons Blanches, 10 a.m.; reached foot of Col de
Meiten, 10.55 a.m.; lunch, thirty-five minutes; reached top of Meiten
pass, 12.20 p.m.; reached top of Combin de Valsorey, 2.30 p.m.; reached
top of Grand Combin, 3.30 p.m. (14,164 feet); afternoon tea on top of
Combin de Valsorey, thirty minutes; left Combin de Valsorey, 5 p.m.,
resumed our ski, 7.15 p.m.; back to hut, 7.45 p.m.
Remember that in runs like this, extending over 8 kilometres (5 miles),
the runners must keep together from beginning to end.
The eighth day of this fascinating circular tour was an easy one. It is
worth noting, as an instance of many of the same kind, which moderately
trained ski-runners would find extremely remunerative. Our eight days’
work would form the third and last portion of a typical ski trip, such as
the Val de Bagnes enables the intelligent amateur to compose in various
ways, in this instance as follows: First day, from Lourtier (where night
lodging can be had at the telegraph office), to Cabane de Panossière,
_viâ_ Fionnay; second day, Col des Maisons Blanches, and back to the
hut; third day, back to Lourtier _viâ_ Col des Avolions, leaving plenty
of time to reach Martigny by sledge, and catch the evening trains to
Lausanne, Geneva, Milan, or Berne.
The Col des Avolions is an insignificant incision in the range of rocky
heights which run along the tongue of the Glacier de Corbassière on its
west side, from north to south. From the hut you cross the glacier very
much to the north, though slightly inclining to the west. In an hour’s
time you will be on the col, the vertical displacement from the hut down
to the foot of the pass being about 190 yards (the difference between
2,713 metres and 2,523 metres is the amount “dipped”), while the rise
from the foot of the pass is 125 yards, approximately. These 125 yards
were practically all the climbing we got that day. You will ascend with
your ski slung over your shoulders, the most convenient way when the
gullies are steep, short, and full of compact snow.
No man in his senses will attempt High Alp ski-running without strong,
heavily soled and nailed mountain boots to his feet. The big nails round
the toe of the boot are most valuable for lodging one’s feet into steep
snow slopes or couloirs, and a broad, flat, nail-fringed heel need never
interfere with the running, unless the heads of the nails are uneven.
Nails on the sides of the boots are less necessary.
From the Col des Avolions there is a delightful run down, full
north-west, to the stream which the path crosses (see map) to lead up to
the Chalets de Sery. Keep well to the right (east) of the point marked
2,419. We found the bed of the stream quite practicable on ski, as far
as we required it to get round the point 2,419. Then we made for point
2,243, so as to keep on the level (about 2,190 metres), while leaving
that point on our left, slightly above us. Then we proceeded down to
the Alpe de la Lys, keeping above the tree-line, till we could ski down
to Tougne on fairly open ground. Thence, to the bridge that crosses the
Dranse to Lourtier, the ground is not complicated, or you may ski down
to Champsec. We left the hut at 8 o’clock a.m., sat astride the Avolions
saddle at nine, and entered Lourtier at twelve, having in nowise hurried
ourselves.
It is a distinctive feature of mountaineering on ski that its votaries
look for natural highways of a new character.
The winter snow opens up quite unexpected routes, and it will soon be
the business of ski-ing clubs to issue maps revised from that point of
view. A well-filled-up steep gully becomes an opportunity for building
up a stairway that summer is unaware of. A gorge in which a dangerous
stream brawls in summer on slippery rocks may now appear in the guise
of an open and straight line of communication between upper and lower
reaches separated by impassable shelves of rock. Glacier tails, at other
times bristling with spiky _séracs_ and riddled with gaping blue pits,
turn into smooth bridges thrown over blanks in nature that were a torture
to contemplate. Torrents are reduced to the size of tiny transparent
rivulets closely hemmed in between narrow banks of solid snow and easily
spanned by the long, pliable boards. A frozen-over and snow-wadded Alpine
lake, toilsomely skirted in summer by winding up and down its rocky,
broken shores, may be crossed from point to point by a smiling navigator.
The word snowcraft acquires a new meaning. The runner eyes the country in
its broad, general aspect, determines, map in hand, the bee-line leading
to his destination, fixes upon the stretches of unbroken snow that will
bring him round any unskiable places, and in the end gets home more after
the style of birds borne through the air than after the fashion of the
clod-hopping kind. Here is, to wind up with, a note of the total vertical
displacement which we have shown may be attained, with ski, in the course
of eight days. From Orsières to Cabane d’Orny, 1,802 metres; to Aiguille
du Tour, 839; to Aiguille Chardonnet, 1,131; from Bourg St. Pierre to
Grand St. Bernard hospice, 839; thence to Col de Fenêtre, 228; from
Lourtier to Panossière hut, 1,613; thence to Grand Combin, 1,617; Col des
Avolions, 125; metres, 8,194. Of course, the measurement on the ground
would show a still more significant total, but I do not really believe
that more than 600 yards need be added on that score. On the other side
the following items may be deducted, as done on foot, climbing: Tour,
270; Chardonnet, 500; Combin, 1,000--metres, 1,770. This leaves, as
actually ascended on ski, a minimum of 7,000 metres, a trifle under
23,000 feet.
[Illustration]