ALPINE NOTES AND THE CLIMBING FOOT
[Illustration: W. ALOIS KALBERMATTEN. XAVER IMSENG. A. B.]
Alpine Notes
&
The Climbing Foot
By
George Wherry
MA., M.C.Cantab., F.R.C.S.
Surgeon to Addenbrooke’s Hospital,
Cambridge; University Lecturer in
Surgery; Member of the Alpine Club
[Illustration]
Cambridge: Macmillan & Bowes
1896
PREFACE
The following pages were mostly written with pencil in the railway train
when the writer was returning from Alpine holidays. The letters were
published in the _Cambridge Chronicle_ as a record of the mountaineering
season, and extend over the past five years.
A few serious remarks on the climbing foot, and on accidents, are added
separately, and little attempt has been made to retouch these yearly
letters. Being “touched for the evil” has been known, according to the
court wags, to kill a feeble son of Tom Esmond’s. There being little but
evil in the lad’s composition, the royal touch which expelled the evil
from the patient was a fatal performance. Fearing it might prove so for
my poor tracts, they remain much as they were originally printed. Only of
this I feel assured, that similar notes, put into my hands when I began
climbing, would have been read by me with avidity.
If one of these papers be found now and then somewhat technical, and
to savour of another craft, more useful even than mountaineering, that
possible usefulness must be my excuse for these digressions.
The series of pictures to illustrate the chapter on the climbing foot
I hope will prove of interest. Mr. Stearn, the photographer, of Bridge
Street, Cambridge, has caught the expression in the infant’s foot, which
I kept in position with my finger, and the remarkable adaptation of the
tiny infant’s foot for climbing and all-four progression is very well
shown; also those by Captain Abney of the Swiss guides have come out
exceedingly well.
These notes may be found acceptable to any novitiate, who, after making
his first climb, can feel what Meredith’s hero in _The Amazing Marriage_
so well expresses to his comrade:
“I shall never forget the walk we’ve had. I have to thank you for the
noblest of pleasures. You’ve taught me—well, a thousand things; the
things money can’t buy. What mornings they were! and the dead-tired
nights! Under the rock, and up to see the snowy peak pink in a gap of
thick mist. You were right: it made a crimsoning colour shine like a new
idea. Up in those mountains one walks with the divinities, you said. It’s
perfectly true. I shall remember I did. I have a treasure for life! Now
I understand where you get your ideas. The life we lead down there is
hoggish. You have chosen the right.”
A small matter will suggest pleasant memories of mountaineering to those
(harmless degenerates, according to Max Nordau) who see the Mer de Glace
in every frozen puddle, as a child sees pictures in the fire.
Many a man helping a dish of Devonshire junket on his table, thinking of
Forbes’s viscous theory, watches for the place opposite the first gap
made by the spoon, where in the junket there forms a chasm parallel with
the side, still leaving a fringe or shelf attached to the edge of the
dish—for him at the moment that crack is a _bergschrund_—there he finds
at one point a bridge convenient for crossing, at another an impossible
yawning crevasse.
Such a man will not find these notes dull, for he can enjoy the plainest
junket, and though he finds recorded few new things, yet pleasant
thoughts will be suggested of the past, and infinite possibilities for
the future.
CAMBRIDGE, May 1, 1896.
CONTENTS
PAGE
AN ALPINE LETTER, 1895, 1
MOUNTAINEERING IN DAUPHINÉ, 1894, 19
SWITZERLAND AND SAVOY IN 1893, 42
AN ALPINE LETTER, 1892, 67
A MONTH UPON THE MOUNTAINS, 1891, 93
ON THE CLIMBING FOOT, 119
ON ACCIDENTS, 145
INDEX, 168
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
GROUP OF CLIMBERS, _Frontispiece_
“THE NEW ROUTE,” _Vignette_
A REGIMENT OF LARCHES ADVANCING ON VETERAN PINES, 6
MELCHIOR ANDEREGG, 1895, 16
SKETCH MAP OF THE HIGHEST POINT OF THE DAUPHINÉ, 20
LES ECRINS FROM THE GLACIER BLANC, 26
GROUP OF CLIMBERS, 32
LA MEIJE FROM THE VAL DES ETANÇONS, 36
ICEBERGS STRANDED ON THE BED OF THE MÄRJELEN SEE, 80
OLD STONE BRIDGE AT SAAS FÉE, 108
FOOT OF AN INFANT FIVE WEEKS OLD, SHOWING THE INSTEP TOUCHING
THE SHIN ON SLIGHT PRESSURE OF THE FINGER, 122
FOOT OF AN INFANT FIVE WEEKS OLD, TOUCHED WITH THE FINGER TO
SHOW THE ANGLE OF THE FOOT WITH THE LEG AND THE PREHENSILE
TOES, 124
FOOT OF AN INFANT FIVE WEEKS OLD. THE INSTEP IS MADE TO TOUCH
THE SHIN BY SLIGHT PRESSURE OF THE FINGER, 126
FOOT OF AN INFANT NEARLY A YEAR OLD—
FIRST POSITION, 128
SECOND POSITION, 130
GUIDE’S FOOT IN CLIMBING POSITION AGAINST THE SHOEHORN ROCK
AT ZERMATT (ALOIS KALBERMATTEN), 134
DO. (PETER PERREN), 136
GUIDE’S FOOT, TO SHOW THE ANGLE MADE BY THE FOOT WITH THE LEG
WITHOUT PRESSURE, 138
DO., ANOTHER POSITION, 140
FOOT OF EXPERIENCED AMATEUR, 143
ACT OF SITTING DOWN, USING ONLY ONE LIMB—
FIRST POSITION, 142
SECOND POSITION, 144
ALPINE NOTES
An Alpine Letter
1895
Training at Kandersteg—Climbing the south face of the
Birrenhorn—The viper’s cast—The larches replacing the pines—The
ascent of the Doldenhorn—The Petersgrat—The ascent of the
Bietschhorn—An interesting anniversary ascent—Ascent of Monte
Rosa by the Lys Pass—Cold feet on the glacier—The Furggen
Joch—Accident to a guide—Traverse of the Matterhorn—Naked feet
of guides photographed in climbing position—The Traverse of the
Charmoz—Farewell to Melchior—Lines to my lantern.
Every one should try to be in good training once a year, and experience
has confirmed my opinion that Kandersteg, in the Bernese Oberland, is a
good place to train for a climbing holiday. There the expeditions are
interesting enough without being too serious. The enervating effect
of what is ironically called carriage exercise, which only exercises
the carriage, and does nothing for the man inside, must be gradually
counteracted by hard work in fine air. Also it must be remembered that as
one grows older, training is more difficult, and too often hurried in the
process.
With a friend of former years, our first little climb up the
Tschingellochtighorn resulted in a ducking, and for myself it must be
confessed that the bodily fatigue of the first tug up steep slopes hardly
permits of the usual interests and enjoyments of the way. Now it is
rather sad to reflect upon those two black sluggish lizards that I was
too lazy to collect, and that a fine crop of yellow Gentians were merely
noticed without pleasure. Climbing the Tschingellochtigrat—a yellow
Gentian it was that: and very little more.
Every struggle makes the next more easy—at first it is a purgatory for
the pie-crust of the past year, then the later labour is all delight.
Mr. M., that veteran climber, hailed me on my arrival at Kandersteg with
a shout: with him was his son, already at sixteen well experienced in
mountain craft, and the well-beloved Melchior Anderegg. Mr. M. says “a
man is always at his best on the Alps,” and surely this is true; his body
is most freed from disorder, and his mind from cant, as he climbs away
from all the worries of life.
We had an expedition together, a pretty climb up the steep south face
of the Birrenhorn; on our way up to the rock we killed an adder. Near
this spot last year I found a perfect viper’s cast (eye-covers and lips
also quite entire). It is now in the Cambridge Museum, and proves that
Gilbert White is correct in his statement that the snake’s cast is turned
completely inside out. Here too are a great number of large white snails
like escargots—“O helix infelix tui quam miseresco sine sheetis aut
blankets dormientis al fresco.”
As my friend had made with me this same ascent last year, we were allowed
to lead the way up, and had a nice scramble, notes of which are to be
found in the _Alpine Journal_, and seen on a later page. This excursion
gives a good view of the forests of the two valleys seen from many points
above the Kander stream and Oeschinen See. No one can fail to note, when
once attention is aroused to it, how the larch is gaining ground in the
struggle for existence, and the pine is rapidly diminishing. Rarely does
one see a young Arolla pine, and the old trees are picturesque ruins.
In the Arolla valley the same observation may be made, and there are
decaying stumps of trees, 200 or 300 years old, remaining high up, near
the glaciers, where once a forest stood. A great advantage the larch
has in being a deciduous tree, shedding its thin and spiky leaves every
winter, and riding out the storm with bare poles, when the pine holds
on its evergreen branches a great weight of snow, and presents a large
surface for the tempest to burst upon.
When these pine trees stand together collecting snow, more opportunities
for avalanches occur, and ruin is scattered on the forest beneath. The
lovely green tints of the sprouting larches in Spring will bring us some
compensation if the pines are to be lost.
[Illustration: A REGIMENT OF LARCHES ADVANCING ON VETERAN PINES.]
According to Mr. Sowerby, in his _Forest Cantons_, the larches always
choose the crystalline rocks, while the pines prefer the limestone.
Starting from the Hotel at half-past one in the morning, we had a
roasting hot day on that beautiful snow-peak, the Doldenhorn. With Hari
as guide, we followed a large swinging oil-lamp, instead of the usual
lantern, and toiled up through jungle, to find the snow all fresh and
soft; lovely to look upon, but wearisome to travel up; a long ice-slope
at the top gave rest to all except our leader, who had to cut steps to
the final corniced ridge; there we held him with the rope in leaning over
to judge whether we might safely sit down upon the summit.
On our departure from Kandersteg, a lady and her husband joined us in
a delightful walk over the Petersgrat. We rested a night at the Selden
châlets in the hay, giving the lady the only bed of the place, and,
starting the next morning early, had an easy day over that beautiful
glacier pass, arriving at Ried in the Lötschen Thal in a broiling sun.
Nothing more was then known of those two poor fellows who went for their
last climb a few weeks before, left the little inn and never returned.
My companion had come with me to ascend the Bietschhorn, and we found
it a first-rate climb, requiring continual care because of the rotten
state of the rock arête. Every stone has to be tested before the weight
is allowed to rest upon it, and the movements over the ridge must be
lovingly and embracingly made without jerk or hurry. In Alpine slang
the mountain is badly in need of repair. We were on the summit during
an earthquake, of which we felt nothing, though at Zermatt there was
considerable alarm, and a climber on the Rothhorn is reported to have
had to sit tight as though on a bucking horse!
Next day we walked down to the Rhone valley, and came to Zermatt with
our guides, Alois Kalbermatten and Peter Perren. Here again Mr. M. was
actively at work with Melchior, and as he came down from Monte Rosa,
he told me how pleased he was to have made an anniversary ascent of a
mountain he had climbed forty years ago!
We made for the highest point of Monte Rosa by starting from the hut by
lantern-light, and going up the glacier as if to cross the Lys Joch, then
taking a rock arête to the summit, we descended by the usual snowy route
to the Gorner glacier, and so back to Zermatt. My feet had been very cold
on the glacier; the mass of nails carried, unless the soles of the boots
be very thick, chills the feet as the iron gets cold upon the ice, and
in this respect there is more to say for Mummery spikes, which carry
the feet slightly off the ice. F. Andenmatten, of Zermatt, made such a
successful improvement in clumping my boots, that he obtained an order
for another pair on the spot, and I believe him to be an artist of the
first rank for climbing boots.
On our next climb, in crossing the Furggen Joch to reach the Italian hut
above the Col du Lion, on the Italian side of the Matterhorn, we had an
awkward adventure. Perren was helping a porter, who carried up wood for
us, over the bergschrund, and was leaning forwards to reach him with his
axe, when down came a stone from above—“a bolt from the blue” and struck
poor Perren on the head. The blood ran over his face and gave him a
ghastly look. The blow did not result in ordinary shock, it only excited
him so that he would not sit down to have his hurt dressed, but shouted
out a noisy account of the accident. Fortunately I had an antiseptic
dressing and bandage in my rücksack, and though he had a nasty torn wound
of the scalp, I decided to proceed at least as far as the hut, though it
was five hours’ hard climb, and I felt doubtful as to whether he would be
fit to traverse the Matterhorn in the morning.
The main object of our expedition was to climb over the top of the
mountain from Italy and down the Swiss side to Zermatt. However, when
day broke he wished to proceed, and assured me that he could manage the
climbing. Rather than risk the success of the expedition, I offered to
come down with him, and pay him the same price, but he would not hear
of it, and the other guide being quite confident, with some misgiving
I went over the mountain with the wounded man. My fear was of brandy
combined with a hot sun, and images arose before me of a strong man
delirious on the awful precipices of this south side of the Matterhorn.
It was very soon apparent that my guide’s powers were fully equal to his
work, for our party went strongly and at a fair pace. We had breakfast
and rested half an hour on the classic rocks of the Tyndallgrat, and
reached the summit in less than five hours from the start, the second
time we have stood together on that snowy ridge which crowns the majestic
mountain. “Long Biner,” a Zermatt guide, who came up with a party from
the other side, here told us of the death of Emile Rey, and we were
filled with wonder that the famous climber should have ended his career
by a fatal slip when all his serious work was done on the Aiguille du
Géant—a mountain which he knew so well.
Returning to the Monte Rosa Hotel for a rest, I was fortunate in falling
in with Captain Abney, who kindly photographed for me the naked feet
of my guides in the act of climbing a rock. It has often been noticed
that a guide can go face forward, and whole-footed up a slope, while the
amateur following, and coming to the steep part, has to go on his toes
or turn sideways. It seems possible that the angle made by the foot with
the leg may be more acute in the guide who has climbed from infancy,
and though it is probably very much a matter of balance, I wished to
compare photographs of amateurs’ feet when put into similar action. The
guides wear thick leather boots loosely laced at the top, so that it is
difficult to see the play of the ankle.
There is a most interesting discussion by Darwin, in his voyage of the
_Beagle_, on muscular action and balance in riding, but of course in
the case of the guides’ feet there may be some structural difference,
hereditary and acquired, actually permitting more freedom of movement at
the ankle joint, which neither muscular action nor power of balance could
give to the amateur. These points are separately considered in another
chapter on the “Climbing Foot.”
On a memorable morning at the end of August, the morning of Miss
Sampson’s fatal accident upon the Triftjoch, while we were packing up to
travel over that same pass, my friend had a telegram to report the death
of his mother at Chamounix. It was his first great grief, and seemed the
one unbearable thing in life. With him I travelled to join his afflicted
family. The sorrow of others thus threw a strong shadow over me, and
my friend having gone to England, I had now little heart for further
climbing.
Nevertheless, taking my guides to Montanvers I traversed the Charmoz, a
very fine rock climb, in which five points of varying size are scrambled
over. There is a good deal of standing on one another’s shoulders in
acrobatic fashion in the ascents, and the use is frequent of a second
rope looped over a point of rock in the descents. The highest peak is the
last climbed, and its couloir is descended to the base of the rock to
join the route below the couloir of the first ascent. The glacier which
it is necessary to cross is, this year, in a dangerous state; falls of
ice are seriously frequent. When on the highest point of the Charmoz, the
most awful avalanche of stones came thundering down from near the top of
the adjacent Grépon. The noise was deafening, and a strong sulphurous
smell, which lasted some time afterwards, suggested, as Whymper says,
that the Devil was at the bottom of the business.
[Illustration: MELCHIOR ANDEREGG, 1895.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY MR. MYLES MATHEWS.]
Wandering into Couttets’ Hotel at Chamounix quite without intention, I
witnessed a touching farewell between Mr. M. and Melchior. To see an
undemonstrative Englishman kiss his grey-bearded old guide on both
cheeks, when these two have climbed together for forty years, gives one
suddenly a glimpse of the pathos of life impossible to recall without
emotion.
Beautiful for weather, dreadful for disasters, this season will be
remembered as the year in which Emile Rey was killed on the Alps, and
Mummery lost in the Himalayas. All who knew the strong and genial
Benjamin Eyre have felt his loss, and he was a man with many friends.
Then alas! there were others to whom we say farewell for ever.
For this season I have said good-bye to my faithful guides, one of whom
is a friend of many other climbs, giving them a modest addition to their
moderate fees and the old rope, which I leave behind. My folding lantern
shall come away with me for future use; it shuts up into a leather case
no larger than the little sketch-book in which I write the following
somewhat heathenish, but very hopeful hymn:
Guide, who breaks my midnight sleep,
Leads me up the glacier steep,
Where the lantern’s feeble beams
Shine on snow and icy streams;
We fear no darkness in the night
While your strong hand controls the light.
Dawn will for the climber rise,
Daylight point him to the skies—
What if all be mist and cloud
When we reach that summit proud?
Who, conquering, can victory cry,
More gladly lives, dreads less to die!
Mighty Guide! who woke and led me here,
Lend Thy light to make my pathway clear.
Though dim at first on Life’s all doubtful way,
The struggle ends in dawn and perfect day;
Obscuring daylight hides my lantern and Thy star,
But purple glows with gold on glorious peaks afar.
Mountaineering in Dauphiné
1894
Wet weather at Kandersteg—Fly-fishing there—The fisherman’s
fear of a precipice—Birrenhorn ascent—Ascent of the
Blümlis-Alphorn—Chateau at Vizille—La Bérarde in the
Dauphiné—Accident to a guide’s tongue—Traverse of the
Pointe des Ecrins—Guide’s hand benumbed—Wild and impressive
scenery—Ascent of the Grande Aiguille—A frost-bitten porter—My
ascent of the Meije with a broken rib—The heel spikes of the
district.
The Alps of Dauphiné, which may be said to lie in France between the Mont
Blanc range and the Mediterranean Sea, would be best approached by Paris,
Lyons, and Grenoble, but as my climbing friend, A. B., was at Kandersteg,
I went there to meet him and a guide, and to stretch my legs on the
Swiss mountains. On the first day after my arrival we inspected, with a
view to attack the steep south face of the Birrenhorn, and surmounted the
only difficulty of the climb, a steep chimney where a rope is useful to
avoid risk. We planned to complete the ascent on the first fine day. On
this little mountain I found the most perfect snake’s cast I ever saw,
which I gave to Professor Newton. Its head end was in the hole where its
owner got rid of it. The films over the eyes were present, and by blowing
into the mouth I could inflate the cast to a lively resemblance of the
creature it had covered.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE HIGHEST MOUNTAINS IN THE DAUPHINÉ.
_Walker & Bontall sc._]
The weather in the Bernese Oberland was very bad, every day it rained
in the valleys and snowed on the peaks; on any expedition one was sure
to get wet, and mountains of any magnitude were impossible. With a
Surgeon-Major on leave from India I took a turn at fly-fishing, not
in the glacier water of the Kander, but in a pretty stream with pools,
where the trout, though small, would rise to a fly. His Himalayan
experience made the Surgeon-Major anxious to stock the glacier torrents
of Switzerland with Mahsir, a fish more powerful than the salmon, whose
first wild rush on tasting the hook gives such a fierce joy to the
sportsman.
My companion, who was a strong walker, described to me his horrible
sensations at the sight of a precipice. He told me that his father,
though he had shot game in the Himalayas, could never overcome this
fear. If the idea of space was absent my friend could climb well, but
I gathered that horizontal as well as vertical distance was concerned,
because he could not comfortably eat his lunch on a flat platform of an
acre of grassland when there were miles of country far distant below and
beyond. Mountain climbing for him was out of the question, his condition
was almost that of one suffering from agoraphobia or _la peur des
espaces_.
We engaged Joseph Truffer as guide, and as soon as he joined us we
completed the Birrenhorn expedition. It was a satisfaction to me to find
that he did not climb the couloir easily or at the first attempt, but we
had a good scramble on an interesting arête rather like the Portjengrat,
in which there is a rock hole or window to crawl through. We went home by
a long route up by way of the Ober-Oeschinen Alp, and got thoroughly wet
as usual.
To climb the Blümlis-Alphorn, the highest point of the range, we slept
out at a hut, which was unluckily occupied by workmen, who were building
another hut close by. Our night in dirty straw was not so pleasant
in dirty company, and the early morning was dark and threatening; we
started however at 4.30, led by Joseph Hari, a local man. After crossing
the glacier he took us over some smooth slabs of rock arranged like a
slated roof and coated with ice to make us careful. These safely crossed,
Truffer took the lead, and up the final steep everything was ice wherein
steps had to be laboriously cut to the summit. We stood on the top at 10
o’clock, but saw little of our surrounding glories, except occasionally
a brief glance round through the mists while standing perched in an ice
step. The weather ended up in snow, which shut us in on the glacier
below, and made us thankful to be well off the ice, and safely quit of
a mountain which, though usually an easy climb, could assert itself
seriously in a storm.
Taking Truffer with us, A. B. and I travelled to Dauphiné; we spent a
few hours at Grenoble to see the old church and the Bayard statue. While
at lunch at the Hotel Monnet I admired the oak wine jugs, which are
called there “Brocs.” There is a charming old chateau at Vizille, with a
lovely trout stream in the grounds full of big fish. The tennis court no
longer stands in which in 1788 a memorable meeting took place to protest
against the tax. The late President Carnot unveiled a statue in 1888 in
memory of this Revolutionary event and slept at the chateau as the guest
of Madame Casimir-Périer. The old soldier who took us round showed an
oubliette in the old part of the building—beneath its horrible shaft he
had seen armour-coated skeletons dug up.
[Illustration: LES ECRINS FROM THE GLACIER BLANC.]
We walked up to La Bérarde, a mule carrying our baggage. Immediately on
my arrival I was told of an awkward accident which had just happened.
Two parties were ascending a slope of ice when the last man of the first
caravan slipped out of his step and sent his iron-shod heel into the
jaw of the leader of the second caravan, who was too near. Poor Maximin
Gaspard got a bad torn wound of his tongue, cut by his teeth, which I had
to stitch up with silk and horse-hair. As he was in fine health the wound
healed well, and in a few days, in fact, as soon as ever he could feed,
he was climbing again. Maximin’s father, Pierre Gaspard, is the fine old
fellow who has made so many first ascents in these districts, and still
makes the great climbs.
The highest mountain in the Dauphiné, is the Pointe des Ecrins, 13,462
feet, its summit is a ridge of several beautiful points of snow and
rock. With Hippolyte Rodier to assist Truffer we started to traverse
this peak. We met on the way to the Challeret hut, a native with a dead
sheep on his shoulders; it had been killed by a stone falling from the
height above, and no doubt was to be made into “precipice mutton.” After
sleeping a few hours at the hut we got off at 1.30 in the morning, over
the glacier to the Col des Avalanches. Rodier led us to the couloir on
the south face, and we began to crawl up; this was a rock couloir, which
at a steep part was iced and caused some delay. Our leader, however, got
up to a firm position and I followed, but no one else came, and looking
down I saw Truffer wringing his hands and in distress. He explained that
his right hand was frost-bitten and he could not proceed; nevertheless,
he was pulled up by the help of the rope, and finding from the appearance
of the hand and from the pain, which is really a good sign of reaction,
that recovery was sufficient, we decided to proceed, with some misgiving
on my part. We gained the highest part of the Ecrins about 10 o’clock.
There was a great deal of fresh snow on the arête, and in coming down to
the glacier Blanc on the north side we worked hard for five hours without
a halt to reach the Col des Ecrins. Here we rested and then descended
a couloir of 1,000 feet to the glacier de la Bonne Pierre, with its
long and dreary moraine. There is a measurement station on this moraine
to register the movements of the glacier, and here we found a marmot
recently killed, its flesh almost entirely eaten, the entrails strewn
around. An eagle’s feather on the body suggested the mode of death. The
sight of the sheep killed by a stone, and still more the beautiful furry
marmot killed by an eagle, added in a strange way to the savagery of
the scene. In this wild region stern Nature seems to cry, “I care for
nothing, all shall go.” We had a long walk home, the last half-hour by
lantern light, having been eighteen hours over our expedition.
We wished next to traverse the Meije from La Bérarde to La Grave, which
neither of our guides had ever done, so it seemed best to let Truffer go
back to Switzerland, lest on a serious expedition his hand should fail
him again and its recovery be delayed. His helpless condition in the iced
couloir was explained by the fact that months before he had been ill with
a bad hand, and its vitality had been impaired by what was probably a
previous attack of frost-bite. Before his departure we had a lovely day
on the Grande Aiguille; on the top we basked and slept in the sun after
a lunch of tinned fruits and bread and butter. There is a little ice and
snow requiring care on this beautiful peak, but we climbed it up and
down without a rope, and here we passed over the slope where the tongue
accident occurred.
One evening I was aware of a pain in my chest, especially when I laughed,
and I was reminded that at Easter I had broken a rib—in climbing to the
top of a cromlech on Dartmoor called “The Spinster’s Rock,” but the bone
seemed to have mended in spite of some neglect, and was forgotten until
my compass box in the breast pocket jammed against the hurt in some
scramble and found out the weak point. I was warned by pains in certain
movements of the arms against any attempt to traverse the Meije, and
very sadly I had to see my friend take off our guides for a successful
expedition; for though with a suitable bandage on my chest I was quite
active, yet could not pull myself up by my arms in climbing.
[Illustration: JOSEPH TURC. PIERRE GASPARD. MATHON. HIPPOLYTE RODIER.
W. HERR VON RATH. A. B. HERR GRISAR.]
We had parted from Truffer with mutual regrets, for he was a very good
fellow, and taken on Joseph Turc, a more experienced man than Rodier, and
they worked well together. This Turc had just come over from La Grave
with a porter named Etienne. The latter, a poor wizened sun-baked little
man, had all his finger tips on each hand blackened with frost-bite;
his thumbs had escaped. It appears that a Frenchman who could not climb
well was taken by Turc to traverse the Meije from La Bérarde. They got
no further than the Pic Central, there they had to spend the night—next
day getting into La Grave. The poor porter was allowed to sleep with his
fingers in this bad state, and come back over a pass to La Bérarde where
in the afternoon I saw him. He had had some pain in the morning of this
day, and this encouraged me to attempt treatment; so during two or three
hours I rubbed him and watched him, and was assisted by my friend; it
was satisfactory to find a considerable improvement, especially in his
right hand, which next morning was even more apparently improved when
the limits of the black dead portions were more defined—his nails will
probably come off, and there will be ulcerated surfaces on his finger
ends, which will be months in healing. The aspect of this man presented
a pitiable combination of apathy and patience, reminding me of the
wolf-bitten Russian peasants I saw in Pasteur’s laboratory in the Rue
D’Ulm years ago. The guide with the frost-bitten feet, of whom I wrote in
my letter last year, is only now hobbling about with sticks, the wounds
of his amputated toes still unhealed, so much is the process of repair
hindered in tissues damaged by frost-bite.
What I call determination, but my friends describe as obstinacy, now
induced me, after three days’ rest, to climb the Meije, 13,081 feet. It
is a serious rock climb, decidedly stiffer than the Matterhorn, and I did
not attempt the traverse, but it was an error of judgment to have climbed
it in my crippled condition. Doubtless the fine air, which makes a man
laugh so easily, and makes the careworn light-hearted, steals away the
reason like champagne—making the old man seem young—so the poet writes—
“The plague of guide and chum, and wife and daughter
Is Senex who will climb and didn’t oughter.”
[Illustration: LA MEIJE FROM THE VAL DES ETANÇONS.]
My friend having returned to rest from his expeditions I took off the
guides for the ascent of the Meije. We walked up the valley and halted
at the hut. Joseph Turc wanted to put his skin of wine, containing over
five bottles, into my rücksack, and we had a difference, as I objected to
his claret leaking into my shirts, so he had to carry it separately; it
was quite an easy matter, as I had a porter to carry my sleeping bag to
a rock gîte where the night was to be passed, a climb of several hours.
On reaching the glacier, Joseph and I being in front of the others, who
carried the rope, he asked me if I was afraid to go over the glacier.
Probably he meant without the rope. I said it was what I had come for;
but when we began to get to steep ice I found he did not cut steps, and
as he had three large spikes in each of his heels he could go where I
could not follow without using my axe vigorously. He then said he could
not cut the steps because of his wine skin, and thus I was left either
to cut on up all the slopes or carry his skin. After a little hesitation
I offered to carry the wine for fear of hurting my rib, and I carried
it up to the sleeping place, though I did not find the steps cut much
better after his burden was removed.
We went to sleep under the stars on a lovely night, but the day broke
dark and gloomy, so that it was half-past four before we could start. We
roped at once, leaving the porter to take the things back, and Turc led,
but instead of placing me second I was left to the last. With my own rope
of 80 feet long it happened frequently that the men passed out of sight,
and I had no sort of communication with them unless I chose to pull and
shout. But this is well enough when going straight up. It is a difficult
corner or traverse where the position is a bad one; the experts who have
been on their own mountain before, leave the traveller alone to get round
his corner as best he can. “In medio tutissimus ibis,” is a good motto.
I gained the summit at nine o’clock, but just at the final struggle,
where it is necessary to straddle on a sharp red rock ridge, called the
“cheval rouge,” with fine precipices below, my rib gave way, and went
completely broken through. In spite of firm bandaging, the coming down
was a painful experience, for I could feel and even hear the ends of the
broken bone grating together; but I kept at it, going down steadily and
slowly with groans and grunts. The guides sang and shouted and drowned
my feeble exclamations. They had had a good feed with tinned peaches and
plenty of wine on the top when we rested, and it seemed to make them very
happy. They carried seven bottles of wine on this expedition, besides
each man a flask of brandy, and as I do most of my climbing on cold tea,
they had a good allowance.
Joseph Turc is a real genius at rock climbing, a truly brilliant
performer; but on ice, as he can’t cut steps, another time I should get
spikes or crampons. The guides here use three spikes in each heel, driven
in, fixed by gomphosis, not like the Mummery spikes with a screw.
I got to the Inn in time to change for the table d’hôte, not in the
least fatigued, only blaming myself for the painful ordeal I had passed
through. While changing my garments in the small bedroom we occupied
together, my companion could plainly hear across the room the grating of
my fractured rib. So soon as exertion ceased I was entirely well, and had
a good dinner and night’s rest.
No traveller who goes for mountain expeditions to the Dauphiné district
will leave without feeling a debt of gratitude (mixed with envy) to his
own countrymen who have climbed and walked all over this wonderful
country. The maps and climber’s guide by Mr. Coolidge are marvels of
convenience and accuracy, and must be carried by everyone who wishes to
learn his way about these very difficult regions. Mr. Whymper ought to be
as proud of the conquest of the Pointe des Ecrins as of the Matterhorn.
My friend had a good climb on the Pic Bourcet, but of course I did
not attempt this, returning to England by easy stages, halting at
Aix-les-Bains and at Paris. In London I found laughing at “Charley’s
Aunt” a serious matter for my damaged rib, though I thoroughly enjoyed
this absurd farce, as I enjoyed every day of my vacation, and there was
no day I would not willingly live over again.
Switzerland and Savoy
1893
Begin at Kandersteg—Benighted on the Zinal glacier—Glacier
tables and baths—Wild beasts in the hut—The Col Durand—Guide
in a crevasse—Ascent of the Dent Blanche—A climber
exhausted—Ascent of the Weisshorn—A thunderstorm—Death of Mr.
Lucas and Mr. Seiler. The Furggen Joch—Italy and the Italian
side of Mont Blanc—The hut on the Aiguille Grise—The traverse
of Mont Blanc—Anxiety as to weather—The observatory on the
summit—Ascent of Aiguille du Dru. Ascent of the Aiguille
Verte—Frost-bitten guide—Peculiar dangers of a fine season.
When Albert Smith made the ascent of Mont Blanc in 1851, he did not seem
to enjoy himself much; he was thoroughly exhausted and done up, as well
he might be, with sixteen guides, and £20 worth of provisions. If he did
not have a good time our fathers did, in hearing his lecture, or in
reading his dear little book. They listened with the greatest interest
to his serio-comic groans. A hundred bottles of wine, sixty-seven fowls,
joints of meat in proportion, and ten cheeses carried up the mountain
ought to have led to trouble somewhere. On the other hand I enjoyed
myself so much in the ascent of Mont Blanc that I fear I have nothing
left to entertain others. My climbing friend was with me and two guides,
also friends of former years; we had no certificate and no cannon. Nor
was there any pretty Julie down below to give me a cornelian heart and
talk about “une alliance.”
But I will begin at the beginning, and travel first from Cambridge to
Kandersteg, from the land of fen and bog to the land of fine air and
bright mountains—the Bernese Oberland. At Kandersteg my friend was
staying in Egger’s most comfortable inn, and there we made a plan of
campaign. We were fortunate in crossing the Gemmi to obtain a fine view
of the mountains we were about to attack. We slept at Sierre in the
Rhone Valley, and in the morning went up the Val D’Anniviers, one of the
finest valleys in the Alps, a beautiful journey to Zinal, where we met
our trusty guides—Alois Kalbermatten and Xaver Imseng. We must needs try
and reach the hut high up the glacier that same night, and consequently
got benighted, and arrived very late at the Mountet Cabane, rather cross
and tired. While the daylight lasted I saw on the glacier hundreds of
glacier-tables, like a crop of gigantic mushrooms. The hot weather this
year may have made these more apparent, for on all the glaciers I walked
over they seemed more conspicuous than usual. A stone, as big as a teacup
or a cottage, when it lies upon the glacier, protects the ice beneath
from the sun, so that in time the ice melting all round leaves the stone
perched on a pedestal of ice. The icy pyramid gradually yields on the
sunny side, and allows the stone to tilt and fall always in the same
direction. On the Gorner Glacier I saw a stone supported by two separate
pyramids, but this is unusual. If the stone which lies upon the glacier
be thin enough, it may be so warmed through by the sun that it makes a
hole for itself in the ice, and is buried in a pit full of water. So may
dirt make a bath in the glacier, or if it be in large quantity, may leave
a cone of solid ice all dirt covered, looking like a large ant heap.
The deep pits full of water are started in the manner indicated, but the
sun-warmed surface water is continually being replaced by the ice-cold
water below, and the warmed water deepens the pit in the ice, until a
large bath is formed, often two or three feet deep, with steep sides, and
no warning ledge or ridge around, so that a careless walker might go in,
and in the dusk they are very difficult to avoid.
We had a dark experience on the glacier, and had to leave it for the
icy-hearted moraine for fear of accidents, thankful to find shelter after
some hours of weary stumbling along, when there was light enough to see
our dangers but barely enough to permit us to avoid them. When in the
welcome shelter of the hut, we shared with fleas and rats that rough
abode—whether the rats in the straw had guides to this place is a curious
problem; the fleas in the rugs were unusually fierce and hungry. There
was a rat in the hut before its building was completed; when I called
M. Constans’ attention to his first visitor, he remarked in surprise
“Déjà!” but it no doubt migrated from the old Mountet Cabane near by to
the Constantia, as the present place is called in honour of the architect.
All next day the weather was too bad to climb, and we had to give up our
traverse of the Rothhorn this season, having been beaten in the same way
last year after coming over the Triftjoch. We went to Zermatt over the
Col Durand, which led us to an ice slope of some steepness up which steps
had to be cut, and then over snow. As we neared the top of the pass,
with no suggestion of any crack in the smooth white surface of snow,
we walked along all roped together; quite suddenly our leading guide
disappeared down a crevasse. I was last on the rope and saw nothing but
his hat; however, he was soon out again by wrigglings on to his back,
shook himself free of snow, and appeared to mind it about as much as a
Newfoundland dog minds water. But it was a good lesson in the use of
the rope, which alone can make such an ordinary journey safe. My first
care in reaching Zermatt was to have my boots well nailed. English nails
are no good, though Flack’s boots stood me well. My next thought was to
present the local chemist with a prescription which puzzled him for the
moment—Mr. Pulex Irritans—Rx: Pulvis usque ad mortem pulicibus ferocibus
quantum sufficit. My friend said this dog Latin was appropriate, for dogs
and fleas were inseparable. I was soon supplied with a tin of Keating.
The weather was too good for dawdling, and we proceeded to attack the
Dent Blanche. Taking provisions and rugs to the Schönbühl rock, our men
cut bits of dry trees with their ice axes before we left the woods below
us to cross the glacier, and thus provided fuel to cook the excellent
supper we enjoyed before we slept. There were two other parties on the
rocks that night—the Stockje hut being in ruins. We crept into a hole
and had a good night there, in a natural cave which was warm and dry.
When in the small hours of the morning we were drinking our chocolate,
a cry suddenly arose from one of the other parties that their rope was
missing. We stirred the fires and searched with lanterns, and it was all
very picturesque, but did not lead to discovery—the rope was lost. So
only two parties started off early and began to climb, and reached the
summit after a hot fatiguing ascent up ice, snow, and rock. The younger
man of this other party climbed in a boating sweater, appeared to feel
the heat exceedingly, and went to sleep whenever there was a halt. Before
the descent was over he was decidedly ill, but fortunately not utterly
collapsed until after the more dangerous ice slopes had been descended;
his “legs” were then quite gone and he had to be supported by the guides
before he reached the sleeping place, where we left him wrapped in my
shawl with his friend faithfully beside him to pass the night.
The unlucky man whose rope had been lost was a Britisher not easily
beaten. He sent his guides back on their tracks, and by daylight the rope
had been found, where it had been carelessly dropped, upon the glacier;
so that, though rather delayed, his ascent was made successfully, and the
traveller returned by another route to Ferpècle. We, after having decided
that the sick man was safe enough and fast asleep, found our way with
difficulty in the dark, except for lanterns, across the glacier, whereon
we wandered nearly three hours, and Xaver refreshed himself by falling
into a big water bath. Finally we had to stay at Staffel Alp instead of
at our hotel at Zermatt. But we here enjoyed a sound refreshing sleep all
night, and walked down cheerfully in the sunlight of the early morning.
As the Weisshorn was to be our next peak we took train one afternoon to
Randa and climbed up the Schalliberg some hours to the rocks below the
ruined hut. This was a warm sleeping place, though rather exposed, where
we slept well beneath the stars, woke up quite fresh, and enjoyed the
climb immensely. On the rock arête at about 12,000 feet up, and while
the dawn was lighting the peaks around, a dense black cloud appeared
over Italy slowly moving towards the Matterhorn; lightning came flashing
out of it every few seconds. It was a strange sight to witness this
storm-cloud bursting over a distant land, while all about us the sky was
clear and the stars were seen fading before the rising sun. A climber has
related his experience in a thunderstorm which stopped him on the Dent
Blanche, when the electric current made his goggles hiss upon his head.
The hissing of the ice axe is generally near enough for an unpleasant
sensation, and is not a rare occurrence, but the snow glasses being
affected makes a more powerful appeal to the imagination. We had a good
day on the Weisshorn (14,804 feet), and rested at the gîte on the rocks
as we descended, then later had a refreshing tea at Randa, where we heard
the first sad news of the loss of life that morning upon the Täschhorn
just opposite us. A party of four, two gentlemen and two guides, trying
to traverse the Täschhorn from Saas Fée to Randa, got benighted in the
descent. By light of a lantern they got to a point of comparative safety
where all four lay down to sleep, but only three woke up; Mr. Lucas had
wandered off in the night and fallen over a precipice, where his body was
found in the morning.
At Zermatt, though the hotels seem crowded, there are not many climbers,
they go up higher or appear only for a day and off again. The place is
full of people—omnibuses run over you in the streets—and you may be there
some time before you notice that Mdlle. Biner has now started a cabin
near the Monte Rosa and shaves you as well as ever, advertising herself
as a coiffeuse. She is dressed in black, mourning for her brother, the
guide killed this year with young Seiler on the Matterhorn. Just up the
street is a tailleuse, a useful person sometimes after climbing rocks,
and when your wardrobe is scanty.
Leaving Zermatt we spent one night at the Schwarzsee Hotel, close to the
Matterhorn, intending to cross over into Italy by the Furgg-joch—this
pass skirts the Matterhorn; we climbed to the top in about two and a half
hours; starting from our inn at 4, we arrived at Valtournanche about 10
A.M. Then taking a carriage after a long rest and refreshment, our driver
just made us miss the train at Châtillon, when the Italian sun was at its
hottest; we had a siesta and dined there, and so in the evening to Aosta,
where we slept the night. We took places in the diligence to Courmayeur
next morning, and saw Mont Blanc before us in a few hours. The Aiguille
Blanche de Péteret is well seen from the road, a sad reminder to all
Cambridge men of Dr. Frank Balfour, who perished on that mountain in
1882. It has been climbed by Sir Seymour King, and again this year by Dr.
Güssfeldt with Emile Rey as guide. Six hundred francs is said to have
been paid as fee for guidance.
We were up early for an eight hours’ climb, with a final rock scramble to
the Italian Quintino Sella club hut on the Aiguille Grise (11,812 feet).
Here we had good food and sleep; our men went out for an hour and cut
steps up a steep ice slope, ready for the ascent of Mont Blanc in the
morning. As this ice slope appeared to be dangerous from falling stones,
we began early, and were greatly helped by the steps already cut; if any
stones came down we were not aware of them, though out of sight is not
out of mind in these steep places.
The weather when we began our climb in the dusk before the day broke was
very threatening, and later on a light fall of snow and hail gave us
anxiety, as we clambered up the steep rocks, lest we should be driven
back to our hut, the difficulty and danger of such a repulse increasing
every hour until it was necessary to go on and make the ascent whatever
befell us.
We passed on the higher rocks an enormous rusty ice axe of an ancient
pattern, which doubtless has a story; we left it on the spot for others
to wonder at. We made the ascent in about eight hours, including halts,
and I stood on the highest point in these Alps—the great snow summit of
Mont Blanc—15,780 feet. But let us not be proud, the highest mountain in
the world, Mount Everest, is nearly twice as high.