_ON AVALANCHES._
Those who during the summer of 1888 visited Switzerland had very
unusual opportunities for studying both the appearance and the effect
of avalanches. It is, indeed, rare to see a huge mass of winter snow
lying in the Rosegthal in mid-summer, and the remains of numerous other
avalanches were that year still unmelted in many high-lying Alpine
valleys. I wonder if the crowds who, out of curiosity, visited the
snowy _débris_, knew anything of the various causes which formed the
avalanche and launched it down the hill-side, or if they could tell to
what class of avalanche it belonged, and at what time of year it is
likely to have fallen.
Avalanches vary immensely in their characteristics, and can be
classed under three headings according to their peculiarities. The
different kinds of avalanches are as follows:--_Staublawinen_, or dust
avalanches; _Grundlawinen_, or compact avalanches; _Eislawinen_, or
ice avalanches. Dust avalanches are the most to be feared of any,
for while the others fall according to certain well-known rules and
at particular times of the year, the dust avalanches are erratic in
their movements, uncertain in the periods at which they come down, and
most terrible in their results. Dust avalanches consist of cold, dry,
powdery snow, which falling on a slope of ice or hard snow, or even on
a steep slope of grass, slides off on the slightest provocation.
Often, if a bit of overhanging snow falls on the upper part of the
hill-side, or if an animal disturbs the newly fallen mass, or perhaps
if a gust of wind suddenly detaches it from the surface on which it
rests, the whole accumulation begins to move down, gently and quietly
at first, and then with ever-increasing power and a deafening roar,
uprooting trees, carrying away châlets and whatever happens to be in
its course, and leaping like a huge stream of spray-covered water
from precipice to precipice, till it makes one final bound across the
valley, the impetus of its course frequently carrying it up for some
distance on the opposite slope. The wind which accompanies such an
avalanche is far more powerful than a raging hurricane, and it often
levels trees and buildings, forces in windows and doors, and carries
heavy objects to an incredible distance. One of the most remarkable
performances I know of in connection with dust avalanches took place in
the Engadine, when the wind preceding a huge mass of snow, rushing down
the hill-side, blew five telegraph posts flat down, although the snow
itself did not come within 500 feet of them.
“Constant readers” of the _St. Moritz Post_ will remember that in an
account of the avalanches of the winter of 1887-88 which appeared
in the first number of the summer issue, it was stated that, on the
occasion of the fall of two great avalanches into Saas-Grund, most of
the windows and doors in the village were forced in from the pressure
of air. While dealing with the subject of dust avalanches and the
effects of the powerful wind which accompanies them, I may mention that
Tschudi relates in his “Monde des Alpes” that such avalanches will
sweep châlets and trees from the ground, and carry them, whirling like
straws in a storm, through the air, dropping them at a distance of 400
feet. Châlets, filled with hay, and quite uninjured, have been found,
it is said, some two hundred yards and more from the termination of the
_débris_ of an avalanche, the wind preceding which had blown them right
across the valley.
In the year 1689 an enormous avalanche, which in the annals of the
Grisons is spoken of as the most fearful one on record in the canton,
came down from the heights above the village of Saas, in the Prättigau,
and demolished 150 houses. Amongst the _débris_, which had been swept
by the avalanche to a considerable distance, a rescue party discovered
a baby lying safe and sound in his cradle, while six eggs were found
uninjured in a basket close at hand.
Another sort of avalanche which can be roughly classed under the
above heading is formed by the sudden descent of an overhanging mass
of snow. The slightest movement in the air will often suffice to
break the cornice, and it straightway comes rolling down the slope.
Such avalanches are not usually much to be feared, though a notable
exception to this fact was furnished on the Bernhardino Pass, when
the mass of falling snow, overtaking the post in its passage, carried
thirteen persons and a number of sledges over the precipice into the
gorge beneath.
Dust avalanches are very frequently met with in summer after fresh snow
by climbers amongst the higher peaks of the Alps-. It was an avalanche
of this kind which caused the Matterhorn accident of 1887, and the
account which Herr A. Lorria has given of the event is so realistic,
and conveys so exactly to the mind what the nature of such an
avalanche is, that I extract the following from the _St. Moritz Post_
of January 28, 1888, for the benefit of my readers:--
“Gently from above an avalanche of snow came sliding down upon us;
it carried Lammer away in spite of his efforts, and it projected me
with my head against a rock. Lammer was blinded by the powdery snow,
and thought that his last hour was come. The thunder of the roaring
avalanche was fearful; we were dashed over rocks laid bare in the
avalanche track, and leaped over two immense _bergschrunds_. At every
change in the slope we flew into the air, and then were plunged again
into the snow, and often dashed against one another. For a long time it
seemed to Lammer as if all were over, countless thoughts were thronging
through his brain, until at last the avalanche had expended its force,
and we were left lying on the Tiefenmatten glacier. The height of our
fall was estimated by the engineer Imfeldt at from 550 to 800 feet.”
In winter, when a fall of snow takes place on steep mountain-sides,
scores of such avalanches may be seen dropping like shining threads
down the cliffs. The face of the Eiger seen from Grindelwald in early
spring is often fringed with tiny cascades of snow, while the rocks of
the Wetterhorn[4] send down avalanches almost incessantly on the first
sunny March morning after a snowfall.
The huge avalanches which, after a severe winter, summer visitors to
Switzerland see lying in high Alpine valleys, covered with dust and
stones, and with great trunks and branches of trees frozen into them,
belong to the class of avalanches known as _Grundlawinen_, or compact
avalanches. They usually fall from year to year in the same track, and
come down, according to the warmth or severity of the season, during
February and March. One year I saw a very large one fall in the Züge,
near Davos-Platz, as late as the 3rd May.
In order for a really large compact avalanche to form, something more
than the steep slope which is the birthplace of dust avalanches is
necessary. The most dangerous formation of a hill-side, as regards
compact avalanches, is the following. First, there must be, high up on
the mountain, a collecting basin or valley, sloping somewhat downwards,
in which a large amount of snow can accumulate. Secondly, leading from
this basin must be a treeless slope, not too steep, on which snow will
lie unless urged down by a considerable disturbance from above. In
some seasons, when but little snow falls, no avalanche will take place
under the conditions described. In others, when storm after storm has
piled tons of snow in the upland valley, the warm, dry _föhn_ wind will
cause the mass to become detached from the earth on which it rests, and
suddenly the entire winter’s store will come dashing down towards the
valley, forming an avalanche such as visitors to the Engadine in the
summer of 1888 saw in the Rosegthal and Beversthal.
These compact avalanches are composed, by the time they reach the end
of their course, of stones, earth, roots and branches of trees, all
frozen together by the heavy, wet snow in which they are encased. A
story is told of a man who was overtaken on the Splügen by such an
avalanche, and though he escaped from death, part of his coat was so
firmly frozen into the icy mass, that he could not get it away. It is
very remarkable that a person buried at a great depth in an avalanche
of this kind can distinctly hear every word that those who are trying
to find him may utter, though it is impossible for them to hear his
cries.
The snow of an avalanche has the same power as the ice of a glacier
in the preservation of whatever animal matter may be embedded in it.
On one occasion the bodies of a chamois and her young one were found
in an avalanche in Tyrol in a fit condition for food, on its melting
two years after it came down, its huge size having prevented its
disappearance the first summer.
These huge _Grundlawinen_ come down, as I have already said, in
the same track season after season; it is therefore reasonable to
suppose that the inhabitants of districts peculiarly exposed to such
avalanches would try and control their snowy invaders by every means
in their power; and, in truth, this is just what is done to a certain
extent, though a neglect of the most obvious precautions prevailed
in the country till quite within recent years. Even now one is often
astonished at the amount of unnecessary damage which the Swiss will
calmly allow an avalanche year after year to do, till they suddenly
awake to the fact that a wall or two across the _couloir_ (or avalanche
track) may make the whole difference between their being able or not
to cultivate a certain sunny meadow in the valley, which has hitherto
been plentifully strewn with stones and other _débris_ regularly every
spring.
It is a well-known fact that by far the best preservative against
avalanches is a thickly wooded slope, and the Swiss authorities, fully
recognising this, have of late years caused a very large amount of
replanting to be carried out, and are most stringent in their rules
regulating the cutting of trees. By great trouble and care being taken
concerning the forests, Switzerland could be freed to a large extent
from the destruction wrought by avalanches.
In many places travellers will notice avalanche-breakers, in the
form of triangular stone walls, which have been erected to protect
whole villages, or individual houses or churches. There is an
avalanche-breaker of this sort at Frauenkirch, near Davos-Platz,
where the north wall of the church is constructed so that, should
an avalanche sweep down upon it, the surface exposed to its full
fury being pointed in shape, tends to divide and turn aside the snow
directly the point comes in contact with the avalanche. Similar
breakers may be seen attached to several houses in the same and
other neighbourhoods. Fences or stone walls across steep slopes, or
stakes driven into the ground at intervals, are also a very efficient
hindrance to the descent of avalanches. Visitors at St. Moritz have
doubtless noticed the contrivances of this sort on the slope descending
from the Alp Laret to the Cresta Fussweg; they are well seen by
any one standing on the high-road near the Bär Inn (famed for the
quaint caricature fresco portraits on its exterior of the late Lord
Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone).
It is marvellous to notice how weak an obstacle will hold back the
largest avalanche before the snow is set in motion, and yet once the
great mass is launched down on its destructive career, it sweeps all
before it.
The balled structure of a compact avalanche, which those who visit
it within a few weeks of its fall will have remarked, is caused by
the damp snow having rolled over and over till the circular form of
its particles resulted. I remember an enormous avalanche of this kind
which fell near Bouveret (Vaud) at the end of March 1886. It came from
the Gramont, and rushing some 4000 feet down the mountain, dashed
across the railway and the road, and ended its course in the lake. It
fortunately came down at night--which seems odd, till one remembers
that the slope from which it descended faced north--so no accident
resulted, and the following afternoon all Montreux flocked across the
lake, to wonder at the high walls of the cutting which had been made to
allow the trains to pass, and to pelt each other with the snowy balls
which had rolled hither and thither amongst the violets and primroses
of spring.
_Grundlawinen_ often attain a mass of 100,000 cubic metres (Heim,
“_Gletscherkunde_”). The great “_Raschitsch_” avalanche near Zernez
(Lower Engadine), which fell on April 23, 1876, across the high-road
into the river, was 168 metres wide, 12 metres thick, and 300 metres
long, 600,000 cubic metres in bulk, and the tunnel cut through to allow
the traffic to be carried on was 75 metres long. This avalanche was
much exceeded in dimensions by the one which fell in February 1888 near
Glarus-Davos, of which the snow-tunnel was upwards of three hundred
feet in length, and over twelve feet high. This avalanche is noted
throughout Switzerland, and is known as the “_Schwabentobellawine_.” It
only falls in very snowy seasons, but when it does come down, it is of
enormous size.
In the year 1888 it carried away a road-mender, whose body was only
discovered some three months later; it was found on the right bank of
the Landwasser, having evidently been blown across the river by the
wind preceding the avalanche.
Avalanches have sometimes caused disastrous floods by falling into the
beds of rivers and damming up the water. On January 29, 1827, Süs
suffered from a similar occurrence, the Inn being completely blocked
up for several hours during the night, and the water flooding the
village in consequence. It would be wearying to give more than these
few examples of the effects of _Grundlawinen_, we will therefore pass
on to the subject of ice-avalanches. These must be a tolerably familiar
sight to most persons who have travelled in Switzerland, judging by
the crowds who, day after day throughout the summer, sit outside the
little inns of the Wengern Alp or Kleine Scheideck, dividing their
attention between their luncheons and the thundering falls of ice from
the glaciers of the Jungfrau.
Ice-avalanches are quite different to both the other kinds, inasmuch as
they always fall from glaciers.
As my readers doubtless know, a glacier moves downwards day by day,
sometimes an inch or two, sometimes as much as two feet. Well,
many glaciers, after quitting the snow-beds by which they are fed,
suddenly find themselves at the top of a precipice. Under these
circumstances, as they are unable to stand still, there is but one
thing for them to do, viz., go over; and as ice, though plastic, is
by no means so to the extent that treacle--to which glacier ice has
so often been likened--is, it is obvious that a slice will break
off the advancing tongue of the glacier, and come thundering down
the rocks, to form material for another glacier below, or, if the
quantity is insufficient, to melt gradually away. Now, this form of an
ice-avalanche is known in endless varieties to the mountain-climber,
but perhaps the most frequent thing of the kind which he meets with is
the fall of _séracs_ (or icy pinnacles) during his passage through an
ice-fall.
Those who have visited the upper part of the Morteratsch glacier will
recollect ice-falls such as I have referred to; the one, that of the
Pers glacier, the other, the so-called Labyrinth, coming down from
Piz Bernina; and fine ice-avalanches are often seen falling from the
ice-cap of Piz Morteratsch. The _séracs_ passed through in making the
passage of the Col du Géant from Chamonix or Courmayeur are also apt
to tumble about at inconvenient times, and many other glaciers are
conspicuous for these particular features.
Perhaps the best position in Switzerland from which to view
ice-avalanches is the Wengern Alp, from whence the glaciers which cling
to the Jungfrau can daily be seen dropping tons of ice down the scarred
slopes, a white cloud hanging for several minutes over the spot where a
great piece of ice has been ground to powder by its fall.
Even the proverbially safe Mont Blanc contrives occasionally to
allow one or two of the ice-pillars which fringe the Dôme du Gôuter
to overbalance and dash right across the Petit Plateau below, over
the very track by which parties make the ascent. It is odd that this
bombardment has never hitherto caused an accident on Mont Blanc, though
when one bears in mind the hundreds of stones which are annually kicked
down the Matterhorn regardless of the number of people on whose heads
they may descend, and that there, too, no fatal accident has resulted
from that cause, one feels sure that a special providence watches over
the inexperienced class of _intrépides_ who throng Mont Blanc and rush
in scores up the Cervin.[5]
Ice-avalanches have occasionally done immense damage when large falls
have taken place into inhabited valleys, as, for instance, when part of
the Bies glacier came down, and the wind preceding it overthrew Randa.
This circumstance is so well known, being so often referred to in
guide-books, that I will not enter into details here. Full particulars
can be found in Dr. Forbes’s work, “A Physician’s Holiday.”
FOOTNOTES:
[4] In October 1891, I was fortunate enough to secure a photograph of
an avalanche in the act of falling from the Wetterhorn. This may now be
seen at Messrs. Spooner’s, 379 Strand.
[5] Since writing the above, an accident resulting in the death of a
traveller and a guide took place on the Petit Plateau.