THE BIFERTENSTOCK
Far to the north of the main chain of the Alps there lies a range of
mountains crowned by the two outstanding summits of the Tödi and the
Bifertenstock. The former, rising from the lowlands of the Linth Valley
to an altitude of 11,887 feet, is the loftier of the two and justly
gives its name to the group; but the latter far excels it in beauty
and impressiveness, and gives its name to the greatest glacier of the
group, which flows down the deep cleft valley between the “King of the
Little Mountains,” as the Tödi has appropriately been named, and the
stupendous precipices of the north-west wall of the Bifertenstock. The
range is within easy reach of Zürich by rail, and affords climbing of
almost any degree of difficulty, from the simplest of snow trudges to
the most desperately hard ice or rock ascents. Small wonder, then,
that climbers flock hither in their numbers during the week-ends, and
that daily throughout July and August the more accessible club-huts
are crowded to overflowing. The vast majority of these mountaineers,
however, have designs upon the Tödi alone. For hours on end they trudge
up the wearisome upper slopes of the Biferten Glacier to the summit,
whence, after enjoying one of the most wonderful panoramic views in
the Alps, they return contented to the valleys. A few, imbued with the
pioneering spirit, or to whom the spice of danger and the sense of
achievement after hard-fought battles are of stronger allure than the
wonders of the summit view, desert the well-trodden glacier track and
sally forth to grapple with unsolved problems, or problems so seldom
attacked that they are still clothed in the nimbus of the mysterious
and superlatively difficult.
A glance at the three main stages in the history of the exploration
of these “Little Mountains” is astonishingly interesting, not
only for its own sake, but for the light it throws on the trend
of modern mountaineering. The story of the conquest of the range
begins with Pater Placidus à Spescha, a jovial monk and surely one
of the stoutest-hearted men that ever lived. Climbing alone or with
the most inefficient of companions, and inadequately equipped, he
accomplished some astonishing feats, which even to-day would stand well
to the credit of an expert mountaineer. To give the details of his
many conquests and valuable contributions towards the topographical
knowledge of the Bündner Alps, would be beyond the scope of this
book; but as an example of his outstanding perseverance it may be
mentioned that this Swiss priest made no less than six attempts to
reach the summit of Piz Rusein, the highest of the three summits of
the Tödi, and that his last attempt, also unsuccessful, was made at
the age of seventy-two. When we consider that his explorations were
carried out towards the close of the eighteenth and beginning of the
nineteenth century, at a time when the belief had not yet died out
that the mountains were the abode of fearsome and savage dragons, and
when the inhabitants of a secluded valley, such as the one whence this
valiant pioneer hailed, were still ready to condemn as sacrilegious
any unwonted activities on the part of a member of their community, we
are filled with amazed admiration at the intrepidity, resolution and
prowess of this valiant monk. Contemptuous of discomfort and danger,
defiant of criticism and defeat, ever aspiring towards the highest his
little mountain world held forth to him, actuated only by love of the
mountains and a lively, intelligent curiosity as to what secrets lay
hidden therein, without hope of gain, Pater Placidus à Spescha well
deserves recognition as one of the fathers of mountaineering. With the
cessation of his climbing career in 1824 ends the first stage in the
history of the exploration of the Tödi range.[4]
The second stage sees the rise of a protagonist of other mettle, the
chamois hunter, strong, sure-footed, quick to grasp the use of rope and
axe, and possessing valuable local knowledge, but for the most part
lacking in initiative and slow to understand the joy in climbing for
climbing’s sake. He was soon induced by offers of generous payment to
turn guide and place his skill and physical strength at the disposal of
the stranger, whose self-imposed task it was to supply the initiative
in which his employee was deficient and to arouse in him the energy
and will-power without which nothing would have been accomplished.
From 1830 onwards, the summits of the range of the Tödi shared the
fate of mountains throughout the length and breadth of the Alps, and
fell before the onslaughts of parties composed of amateurs aided by
professional mountaineers, or, in short, guided parties. But the
conquest of the last virgin peak still left much work to be done; only
the fringe of the pioneering had been touched, for, as a rule, the
first ascent opened up but one way to the summit, and that usually
the easiest and least interesting. And so it came about that, as the
numbers of unclimbed mountains decreased, the attention of the more
ambitious climber turned towards the discovery of new routes. In the
greater mountain groups of the Alps, success in this new line again
fell almost exclusively to guided parties, the amateur members of
which, generally speaking, continued to supply the mental stimulus,
while the guides, by virtue of their greater climbing ability, superior
physical strength and improving knowledge in all practical matters
pertaining to their new craft, were able not only to help them to
overcome the mountaineering difficulties encountered, but also to
ensure their immunity from the subjective--that is avoidable, given the
exercise of due skill and precaution--dangers inherent in the pursuit.
In the range of the Tödi, however, it was otherwise. After the conquest
of the individual peaks, little was done by way of opening up new
routes, and a period of comparative stagnation set in.
Towards the latter end of the last century, the old style amateur
climber, a true lover of mountain adventure, was rarely seen in this
corner of the Alps. Not that there was any deficiency of climbers, for
even then had appeared the sure signs of the impending deluge. The
little Grünhorn club-hut, the first of many huts built by the Swiss
Alpine Club for the benefit of mountaineers, and which still stands
on a rocky spur of the Tödi hard by the Biferten Glacier, no longer
harboured an occasional party at distant intervals, but was regularly
so overcrowded that a larger hut, the St. Fridolin’s, was built to
relieve the congestion. Whence came these throngs of climbers, and who
were they?
So far the Alps had been almost exclusively the playground of a small,
select circle composed of men of leisure and means who could afford to
pay for the by no means inexpensive services of guides and the charges
for their upkeep while engaged. Within the circle there soon moved
two classes; the first consisted of the real pioneers, true lovers of
mountain adventure, and the second of imitators, who climbed because
climbing was deemed fashionable. In course of time, here and there from
out the ranks of these early amateur climbers would come one or two,
vaguely moved perhaps by the supreme joys that unaided achievement
might bring, to dispense for a space with professional help and climb
“on their own.” From them sprang the modern guideless climber. Rendered
inarticulate at first by the appearance of the new species, it was not
long ere certain members of the climbing fraternity of the day had
collected themselves enough to pour unstinted abuse upon those who
dared to indulge in the new form of mountaineering. They condemned
climbing without guides as suicidal, and therefore wicked and immoral,
and started out to strangle the new tendency in its cradle. They all
but succeeded. Yet one of their strongest contentions, to the effect
that the practice was fraught with undue danger and likely to lead
to unnecessary loss of life, will not bear the cold light of fact;
statistics of mountaineering accidents show, if anything, that the
percentage of casualties amongst the guided exceeds that amongst the
unguided. In condemning climbing without guides, they were attempting
to deny for ever to the youth, who could not afford the luxury of a
guide, the adventure, health and happiness that are to be found in
the mountains, and did their utmost to pinion his wings. Fortunately,
the new movement weathered the storm and steadily pursued its course,
until to-day purely amateur parties completely outnumber the guided.
Nor are the ranks of the guideless recruited solely from those who
cannot afford the expense of guides; on the contrary, many of the old
faith, having once tasted of the more satisfying joys of the new, have
definitely embraced the latter.
The statement has been made more than once, and may even be seen in
print, that the first-class amateur is superior, as a mountaineer,
to the first-class guide. Surely such a statement can emanate only
from those who have no actual, _personal_ experience of the highest
capacities of a great guide. The truth is, that the first-class guides
of the Alps number less than the fingers of one’s two hands, and--let
us be humble--the first-class, British, all-round amateur mountaineers
less than one third of that. The ideal, strongest mountaineering party
would be composed of two or more first-rate guides; but obviously such
a party has no _raison d’être_. The next strongest party, therefore,
would be a combination of first-class guides and first-class amateurs.
Such a party would be able to attack the most difficult mountaineering
problems with the greatest possible prospects of success and a wide
margin of safety. Herein is probably the chief reason why a few
proficient amateurs still endeavour to obtain the services of the few
guides of the highest rank.
With the firm establishment of guideless mountaineering, the
exploration of the range of the Tödi entered upon its last phase.
Diffident of their powers, the new climbers who thronged the Grünhorn,
St. Fridolin’s, and other club-huts were at first content to feel
their feet on the old familiar paths; but soon the more adventurous
began to yield to the lure of the unknown and seek their chosen summit
by hitherto untrodden ways. Almost without exception, the discovery
of every subsequent new route up the mountains of the Tödi group has
fallen to the lot of guideless climbers. To-day, in this part of the
Alps, a guided party is seldom seen, and then, as a rule, only on the
well-beaten track which marks the easiest way up one or other of the
more popular summits. So successfully have these keen young men carried
out their work that the end of the era of exploration in the range of
the Tödi is in sight. Possibilities of new routes still exist, though
it is only too obvious that these will provide climbing of exceptional
difficulty and tax the capabilities of the guideless climber to the
uttermost. Of the few fine problems still awaiting solution, perhaps
the most alluring is the crossing of the Bifertenlücke, one of the
wildest and grandest of Alpine passes.
Early in September, 1913, persistent snowfalls having seriously
impaired climbing conditions in the Mont Blanc group, Guy Forster
and I turned our attention to the range of the Tödi where, thanks
to its position well to the north of the main chain of the Alps and
comparatively low elevation, climbing possibilities were still at their
best and likely to remain so for some time. Our main interest centred
on the Bifertenstock, whose culminating point reaches an altitude of
11,241 feet above sea-level. Belted, as it were, from head to foot
with girdle upon girdle of bronze-coloured rock besprinkled with the
crystal of snow and ice, the Bifertenstock was unique not only in
appearance, but in that its west ridge, which rears itself up out of
the Bifertenlücke towards the summit in a series of huge, precipitous,
even overhanging buttresses, had never suffered the imprint of human
foot. Here was one of the few problems that still awaited the explorer
in the Tödi. More than one party of mountaineers had gone up to the
Bifertenlücke with the avowed intention of climbing this ridge; but the
aspect of the first buttress, a tremendous overhanging corner rising
straight out of the pass, had so successfully repelled them all that no
one had ever even come to grips with it. On September 5, 1913, in the
hope of meeting with better fortune, Forster and I set out from Zürich
to investigate the chances of success. As there is so far no direct
approach from the north to the Bifertenlücke, whence the climb must
begin, we selected as our base the Ponteglias hut which stands on the
southern side of the range.
[Illustration: _The Bifertenstock from the Bündner Tödi._
_The west ridge commences in the Bifertenlücke, just beyond the snow
slope in the foreground._
_Facing page 128._
]
A five-hours’ rail journey _via_ Coire brought us to the village of
Truns in the Rhine Valley, whence professional help in the shape of
a guide assisted in carrying up to the hut our ponderous rucksacks
replete with a full week’s provisions, ropes, spare clothes,
photographic equipment and all the other things that add to the
interest and comfort of life in the solitudes. Towards nightfall, after
a laborious three hours’ walk through the narrow, steep Ponteglias
Valley, we arrived at the hut where our guide, having dumped his load,
was paid off and returned to the village. Plans for the following day
provided only for an ascent of the Bündner Tödi, a little snow-capped
summit to the west of the Bifertenlücke, whence a commanding view
of the west ridge of the Bifertenstock could be obtained, and for a
reconnaissance, at close quarters, of the first great buttress of the
ridge. There was, therefore, no need for an early start on the morning
of the 6th. It was daylight when we arose to cook a breakfast which
proved so much to our liking that we immediately set to and prepared
another even more sumptuous one. At length, in the bright sunshine of
a cloudless day we sallied forth. For an hour we strolled leisurely
up the gently-rising, stone-strewn surface of the Ponteglias Glacier
which reaches from just below the Bifertenlücke to within a few hundred
yards of the hut. At the point where the glacier becomes snow-covered
and crevassed and rises more steeply towards its source, we put on the
rope and steered an uneventful, zig-zag course round the more fissured
zones towards a little scree slope lying just below the Bifertenlücke.
At 9 a.m. we were in the pass, and looking down the breathless
precipice that falls away to the Biferten Glacier. Here we deposited
the knapsacks and, after twenty minutes’ trudge up a broad snow ridge,
gained the summit of the Bündner Tödi.
A careful glance at the west ridge of the Bifertenstock sufficed to
show that the only really crucial sections were the first and last
buttresses. But these two steps, the first rising out of the pass
and the last leading on to the final easy summit ridge, were so
awe-inspiring and immense that they seemed fashioned only for Titans.
The first, in particular, looked absolutely impregnable, and, had the
usual everyday conception of the sporting element been present, there
is no doubt that the betting would have been largely in favour of the
Bifertenstock’s west ridge remaining inviolate. But we were both too
old hands at the game to be dismissed by mere appearances, and returned
to the Bifertenlücke to prepare for a closer examination of the
initial difficulty. Back at the spot where the knapsacks were dumped,
we settled down to a meal and a smoke; and then, as the rock was
limestone, upon which nails can get but little grip, we replaced our
boots by rope-soled canvas shoes and roped on at each end of one of the
two one-hundred-foot climbing ropes. Leaving almost all our kit behind,
we moved up to the attack, Forster armed with the second rope and my
camera and I with a _piton_.[5] While still only a short distance
along the narrow but not very steep ridge from the Bifertenlücke, we
found ourselves at the foot of the obstacle, a smooth, perpendicular,
at times even overhanging, corner of rock about one hundred and sixty
feet in height. Further progress along the crest of the ridge was out
of the question. To the right, smooth, vertical slabs crowned by an
overhang and utterly devoid of hand- or foothold, completely excluded
any possibility of climbing on that side. But in the wall on our left
lay the semblance of a chance. It was very steep, indeed beetling in
places; but the rock was not so pitilessly smooth as elsewhere, and it
looked sufficiently broken to afford some hand- and foothold. The route
would lead us on to the face of the giddy precipice that falls away to
the Biferten Glacier over three thousand feet below; but it was the one
possible line of ascent. Forster placed himself securely at the foot of
the great step and, well-braced to hold me in the event of a slip, paid
out my rope inch by inch whilst I made my way leftwards along a narrow,
sloping, terribly exposed ledge.
After working along the ledge for about thirty feet, I saw above me
an ill-defined, shallow chimney which, though overhanging towards the
top, might have afforded some possibility of climbing directly upwards;
but to attempt it seemed likely to prove such a desperate venture
that I decided to keep to the route across the precipice in the hope
of finding a better way up. This further search failed in its object,
and there remained nothing but to go back and try conclusions with
the chimney. First I returned to where Forster was standing, then,
making sure that my shoelaces were tightly tied and the ends well
tucked away, and that the rope about my chest was not so tight as to
interfere with freedom of movement, I returned to the ledge and at 10
a.m. began to grapple with the chimney. Handholds and footholds proved
to be of the minutest, and the rock was unreliable. Every hold had to
be carefully tested before use. Inch by inch, painfully slowly and
exerting every effort of which I was capable, I gained in height. The
upper, overhanging portion of the chimney required an almost desperate
struggle before it yielded, but I was at last able to grasp a large
and firm handhold and drag myself on to a platform at the top. This
platform was none too commodious; about a foot wide and no more than
eighteen inches long, it sloped slightly downwards and afforded room
for only one man. Nevertheless, it gave me an opportunity to stand and
rest while I nerved myself for the next pitch. A little to the left,
a fairly clean-cut chimney commenced, which led up towards and ended
underneath a gigantic, protruding tooth. I thought, however, that it
might be possible to avoid the overhang by leaving the chimney about
half-way up and, by traversing over some slabs to the right, gain
the crest of the ridge of the great buttress at a point where it was
climbable. So I set out to put my idea to the test, but had not gone
far up the chimney before the weight of the rope between myself and
Forster, who was now a good thirty feet below and as much to one side,
threatened to destroy my balance. Returning to the platform, I took in
the rope while Forster climbed up towards me. At the very moment when
he grasped the good handhold and was ready to pull himself on to the
platform, I vacated it and recommenced work on the chimney. We were
now in a situation which should rarely, if ever, occur in mountain
climbing. A slip on the part of either would have involved the fall of
both. There was no projecting piece of rock within reach over which
to belay the rope, neither did the platform on which he stood afford
sufficiently good footing to enable Forster to hold me in the event
of an ill-judged movement or false step on my part. Climbing the
chimney which was already taxing my powers to the full, I should have
been powerless to arrest a slip on my companion’s part. No matter who
fell first, he would drag the other after him. Fully realising the
precariousness of the position, we climbed on, determined not to slip,
and exercising all the care and skill at our command.
On drawing level with the slabs across which I had thought to reach
the ridge, they looked so forbidding that, situated as we were, the
risk of embarking upon them without the safeguard of a belay appeared
too great. So I proceeded farther up the chimney until my way was
blocked by the overhang at the top. Jamming myself securely in the now
narrower and deeper cleft, I took the _piton_ from my pocket and with
the help of a stone hammered it well into a little fissure seaming the
smooth rock wall on my left. Then I unroped, passed the end of the rope
through the ring of the _piton_ and tied myself on once more. It was
a lengthy process, for I had only one hand to spare for the work, but
well worth the trouble, as it put an end to the unpleasant situation
in which we had found ourselves ever since Forster had come up to the
platform. The _piton_ was firm, and it would now be an easy matter for
either of us to hold the other in the event of a slip. After retreating
half-way down the chimney, I worked out across the slabs to the right.
They by no means belied their appearance and afforded most difficult
climbing. But as the rope passed from me up to the _piton_ and then
down to Forster, any tendency to slip could be immediately and easily
checked. Once across the treacherous slabs, a quick scramble up firm
and easy rocks landed me on a spacious platform on the very crest of
the ridge. Glancing upwards, I saw that, in so far as the rest of the
buttress was concerned, all serious difficulties were over.
Forster now prepared to join me. Climbing up to the _piton_, he
unroped, withdrew his end of the rope from the ring and tied himself
on again. He then descended the upper half of the chimney, carefully
negotiated the slabs and climbed swiftly up to me. Together on the
roomy ledge, we yelled ourselves hoarse in giving vent to our hitherto
pent-up feelings and in anticipating the triumph of which we now felt
assured. It was half-past noon; so exigent had been the ascent that we
had taken two and a half hours to accomplish this small section. We
had, however, made up our minds to push on the reconnaissance as far as
the top of the buttress; so, after regaining our breath, we set to to
tackle what remained of it.
The crest of the ridge once again became too smooth and precipitous,
but close to it, on the right, a feasible route could be detected. It
led up steep slabs to the foot of a crack which debouched on the very
summit of the buttress. The rope was all paid out before I had gained
the crack, and Forster had to make his way up towards me. But I had
good standing ground on a fairly wide ledge and could hold his rope
securely. He was about fifteen feet below me and just about to wrestle
with the hardest part of the ascent when, in an effort to improve my
footing the better to cope with a slip, I felt the greater part of the
ledge, which I had hitherto looked upon as solid with the mountain,
break away from under my feet, and a great mass of rock slithered
down the slabs, aiming with deadly accuracy at Forster. Powerless to
move out of its way, he received a glancing blow which inflicted a
deep scalp wound and all but stunned him. Swept out of his holds by
the impact, he was left hanging helpless in mid-air. By all that is
merciful, however, sufficient had remained of the ledge to leave me
with just enough footing to withstand the strain on the rope and hold
Forster up. Blood was spurting freely from the wound in his head, the
extent of the injury was unknown, and no time was to be lost in getting
to a place of safety, where it would be possible to staunch the flow.
Staggered though he was and dripping with blood, Forster still had his
wits about him. As I held his rope taut, he climbed up to me and took
his stand on what was left of the ledge, while I made my way up to the
foot of the crack and, with all possible haste, gained the broad level
platform at the top of the buttress. There he rejoined me. Inspection
revealed the reassuring fact that the extent of his injuries was
limited to the scalp wound, which, however, still bled freely. By means
of a few sheets of paper kept firmly in position underneath a knitted
silken cap, the flow was eventually stopped. Except in its purely
physical result, the little drama had not adversely affected either
of us. Indeed, if there had previously been any doubt as to the final
conquest of the west ridge of the Bifertenstock, there could be none
now. The rough handling had got our blood up, and we felt the ridge was
doomed. For the present we had fulfilled the object with which we had
set out, namely the reconnaissance of the first great obstacle, and
it behoved us to return to the Bifertenlücke where we had deposited
our kits. We did not, however, hasten our retreat; for Forster was
weakened through loss of blood, and, that he might recover his strength
as far as possible, we rested on top of the buttress for over an hour.
Building a cairn, smoking and chatting the while, the time flew past
merrily enough, and at 2 p.m. we turned to face the problem of the
descent.
Exercising the greatest possible care, all went well as far as the
platform whence it was necessary to traverse out across the slabs
leading to the chimney near which the _piton_ was fixed. It was obvious
that the last man down could neither venture across these slabs nor
descend the final, shallow chimney below without the steadying help
of a rope from above. Held firmly on the rope by me, Forster moved
out across the slabs and climbed up to the _piton_, where he unroped,
threaded his rope through the ring of the _piton_, re-roped, and then
descended right down on to the lowest ledge and over to the good
standing ground on the ridge at the foot of the buttress. There he
again unroped and tied the spare rope on to the end of the one passing
through the _piton_ to me. It was now my turn to go down. I crossed the
slabs with due care, but, thanks to the assistance of the improvised
belay, the rest of the descent was a simple matter, and in a few
minutes I had rejoined my companion. I untied myself, and, by hauling
on the spare, the climbing rope was pulled down through the ring of the
_piton_ and recovered. A little later, in the Bifertenlücke, my camera
had made a faithful record of Forster’s blood-bespattered condition.
Our sensational entry into the Ponteglias hut was witnessed only by the
too friendly sheep that haunt the surrounding grassy slopes.
On the following day the weather broke and snow fell. But we cared
little, and time passed pleasantly in the preparation and consumption
of oft-repeated meals. On September 8, the weather was once more fine,
but the desire to be up and doing had to be curbed until the sun should
melt the fresh snow that lay on the Bifertenstock, and yet another
day was spent in cooking and eating, and in frustrating the effects
of over-indulgence with spasmodic bouts of step-cutting practice on
the snout of the Ponteglias Glacier. Towards evening we packed the
rucksacks and made everything ready for an early start on the morrow.
[Illustration: “... _a faithful record of Forster’s blood-bespattered
condition._”
_Facing page 136._
]
At 5 a.m. on September 9, we left the comfort of the hut and in little
more than two hours had gained the Bifertenlücke. Then, exchanging the
heavy mountain boots for rope-soled shoes, we commenced the attack
upon the west ridge in real earnest. Leaving my knapsack and ice-axe
with Forster at the foot of the great buttress, I worked out along the
ledge, climbed up the shallow chimney and, gaining the little platform,
paused to rest after my exertions. Then, being now familiar with the
position of every handhold in the next chimney, I climbed quickly up
to the _piton_, threaded the rope through the ring and crossed over
the slabs lower down to the broad ledge on the right. As soon as I
had firmly established myself, Forster unroped. Drawing the rope free
from the _piton_, I flung it down to him so that he might tie on to
it our knapsacks and axes; the latter were necessary, for it was our
intention to traverse the mountain, descending by the south ridge
and the Frisallücke. The goods were soon pulled up to my level and
removed, and once more the coils of rope swished through the air to
Forster, who again tied himself on and was soon up beside me. From here
onwards, past the scene of the accident to the foot of the last great
buttress, all was plain sailing. Five intermediate steps or buttresses
had to be surmounted. One yielded to a frontal attack; the others were
turned without great difficulty either on their right or left. Twice
we had to take to steep snow, a change of footgear being necessary on
both occasions. At length we stood on the ridge at the foot of the
last buttress, the most formidable barrier remaining between us and
success. The ridge itself and the wall to the left both overhung to
such an extent that they defied attack. To the right, however, the
rocks were less steep and more broken up, and for about one hundred
feet we made our way across them under the great wall of the step. On
attempting to strike upwards, however, we found that we had misjudged
the gradient, and after a stern struggle I recoiled defeated. We then
continued our traverse still further to the right across a series of
smooth, precipitous slabs where, for the second time on this ridge, in
spite of the great length of rope at our disposal, the utter absence of
belays or suitable standing grounds forced us into a situation in which
the protection afforded by the rope was nil, and a slip on the part of
one of us would have involved the destruction of both. Each knowing
that where one could climb the other could follow, and both confident
that neither would slip, we did not dream of retreat. But had we been
at the mercy of a companion who was clumsy and frequently in need of
assistance, even at this advanced stage where we were so near our goal,
we would have broken off the climb. Why, one may ask, not dispense with
the rope altogether in such a situation where it is little more than
a dangerous encumbrance? My reply is a simple statement of fact, from
which each may draw his own inferences. I would prefer not to climb
with the man who advocates such a policy.
Safely over the slabs, we came to the foot of a very steep, shallow
gully leading to a great snow cornice on the ridge above the buttress.
With much difficulty we climbed the first hundred feet and reached a
broad, almost level shelf barely fifty feet below the cornice. A huge
lump of the latter had fallen away, leaving a gap that gave easy access
to the ridge. Between us and the gap lay a stretch of easy, broken
rocks, so, once more changing footgear and donning mountain boots, we
scrambled up and at last stepped out through the cornice back on to the
ridge.
A north breeze, cool and bracing, met us. The snow under foot sparkled
in the brilliant noonday light. The neighbouring peaks stood up bold
and sharp in the clear atmosphere. The sun flooded all with warmth.
It was good to be alive. A last, half-whimsical glance at the little
St. Fridolin’s hut, a tiny brown speck at the foot of the great
four-thousand-foot wall, and we turned our steps along the snow-crested
ridge towards the summit. Chipping a step here and there where the
cornice forced us out on to the steep north flank, we mounted speedily.
One more clamber over a pitch of easy, broken rocks and the fight was
over. At 2 p.m. we stood atop of the Bifertenstock.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Those interested in the exploits of Placidus à Spescha would do
well to consult the articles contributed to the Alpine Journal by Dr.
H. Dübi and Mr. D. W. Freshfield. Mr. Freshfield, the greatest living
British mountaineering explorer, was one of the pioneers of climbing in
the range of the Tödi.
[5] A stout iron pin or nail provided with a ring at one end.