Above the Snow Line: Mountaineering Sketches Between 1870 and 1880

A scanty repast

As the shades of night were falling, four dripping and woe-begone travellers might, to borrow the novelist’s common mode of expression, have been observed toiling up the steep path towards the old Montanvert hotel – that is, they might have been observed by anybody who was foolish enough to be out of doors on such a detestable evening. We entered the familiar little room, an ingenious compound of a toyshop and a barrack, and notwithstanding that we were viewed with marked disfavour by the other guests therein assembled in consequence of our moist and steamy condition, we seated ourselves and called for refreshment. The atmosphere in the stuffy den called the salon was a trifle pungent, and having contributed a little additional dampness to the apartment we set off again. That familiar old room with its odd collection of curiosities, in which the fare was on the whole more disproportionate to the price than at any other institution of a similar kind in the mountains, has ceased to exist long ago. I fancy that it did not require much pulling down. It is happily replaced now by one of the best managed and most comfortable mountain hotels to be found in the Alps, a sure sign of which attraction is to be found in the fact that it is, at any rate, spoken of with disfavour by the inhabitants of the village below or by such as do not hold shares. Another hour’s descent and we passed through the few scattered houses just outside Chamouni. The attractions on the way down had not diverted us from our stern purpose of reaching Couttet’s hotel as soon as possible. We had politely declined the invitation of a perennially knitting young woman to view a live chamois. The spasmodic smile called up by each approaching tourist faded from her countenance as we passed by. Four times did we decline the gentle refreshment of limonade gazeuse, once did we sternly refuse to partake of strawberries, and twice to purchase crystals. It was dark as we neared the town; it may have been my fancy, but I cannot help thinking that I perceived our old friend the blind beggar with the lugubrious expression which he wore when on duty, and with the tall hat which served the purpose of an alms’-box, and which he did not wear when on duty, enjoying himself in a very merry manner by the side of a blazing fire. Notwithstanding that night had fallen there was still a little group by the bridge round the one-armed telescope man, anxiously crowding to hear the last news of the two insane Englishmen who had without doubt perished that day miserably on the rocks of the Midi. A project had already been started to organise an expedition on the morrow to search for the bodies; and we might very possibly, if we had cared for the excitement, have been allowed to join the party.

A projected expedition

As in a play the most striking situation is by the discreet author reserved to the conclusion, so in this contradictory chapter the most glaring deficiency comes now at the end. My readers, if they have generously followed me so far, will recognise that we not only went on something of a fool’s errand, incurring considerable difficulty and perhaps risk in that mission, but that we never got up the mountain at all. The force of contradictoriness can no further go. Still, it may be pointed out that we did actually accomplish all that was novel in the expedition. Once on the ridge, the remaining portion of the climb is, in fine weather, easy and well known, so the fact that the Aiguille du Midi can be ascended by this line by any one consumed with an ambition to do so, is beyond doubt. We were not probably at one point more than twenty minutes or half an hour from the actual summit. I cannot honestly advise anybody to follow our tracks; but in all probability, if someone should desire to do so, he need not, under favourable conditions, contemplate meeting with any unsurmountable difficulties.

CHAPTER VI.

ASCENT OF THE AIGUILLE DU DRU

“Decies repetita placebit”

Disadvantages of narratives of personal adventure – Expeditions on the Aiguille du Dru in 1874 – The ridge between the Aiguilles du Dru and Verte – “Défendu de passer par là” – Distance lends enchantment – Other climbers attack the peak – View of the mountain from the Col de Balme – We try the northern side, and fail more signally than usual – Showing that mountain fever is of the recurrent type – We take seats below, but have no opportunity of going up higher – The campaign opens – We go under canvas – A spasmodic start, and another failure – A change of tactics and a new leader – Our sixteenth attempt – Sports and pastimes at Chamouni – The art of cray-fishing – The apparel oft proclaims the man – A canine acquaintance – A new ally – The turning point of the expedition – A rehearsal for the final performance – A difficult descent – A blank in the narrative – A carriage misadventure – A penultimate failure – We start with two guides and finish with one – The rocks of the Dru – Maurer joins the party – Our nineteenth attempt – A narrow escape in the gully – The arête at last – The final scramble – Our foe is vanquished and decorated – The return journey – Benighted – A moonlight descent – We are graciously received – On “fair” mountaineering – The prestige of new peaks – Chamouni becomes festive – “Heut’ Abend grosses Feuerwerkfest” – Chamouni dances and shows hospitality – The scene closes in.

It is to some extent an unfortunate circumstance that in a personal narrative of adventure the result is practically known from the very beginning. The only uncertainty that can exist is the actual pattern on which the links of the chain are united together, for the climax is from the outset a foregone conclusion. The descriptive account will inevitably conduct the reader along a more or less mazy path to an assured goal. There is certainly one other variety, but that takes the less satisfactory form of an obituary notice. Even in a thoroughly well-acted play a perceptible shudder runs through the audience when two actors select each a chair, draw them down to the footlights, and one announces “’Tis now some fourteen years ago.” The expression in its pristine dramatic simplicity may still be heard in transpontine theatres, but modern realism insists usually on a paraphrase. The audience cannot but feel, however thrilling the story to be told, that at any rate the two players have survived the adventures they have to narrate, and on the whole a good many wish they hadn’t. There sit the heroes, and exert themselves as they will their recital is apt to fall somewhat flat. In like manner I will not attempt to conceal the fact that the ultimate result of our numerous attempts on the peak which forms the subject of this chapter was that we got up it, and the fact may also be divulged that we came down again, and in safety. Indeed, it seems difficult now to realise the length of time during which our ultimate success oscillated in the balance – at one time appearing hopeless, at another problematical, at times almost certain, and then again apparently out of our reach.

Expeditions on the Aig. du Dru

In 1874, with two guides, of whom Alexander Burgener was one, we started for the Montanvert with the intention of making for the ridge between the Aiguille du Dru and the Aiguille Verte, with the object of further investigating the route which Messrs. Pendlebury, Kennedy and Marshall had essayed on an occasion already described, when the bad condition of the rocks frustrated their hopes. The mountain was probably in a very different state on this occasion, and we experienced no very great difficulty in discovering a fairly easy route up the rocks. The chief trouble consisted in the fact that the rock gully by which the ascent is chiefly made was extensively plastered over with ice, a condition in which we nearly always found it. The last part of the climb up to the ridge affords a most splendid scramble. The face is so steep on either side that the climber comes quite suddenly to a position whence he overlooks the northern slope, if slope it may be called, and looks down on to the Glacier du Nant Blanc. Seen in grey shadow, or half shrouded in shifting mists and coloured only with half-tints, the precipice is magnificent; huge sheets of clear ice coat its flanks, and the almost unbroken descent of rock affords as striking a spectacle as the mountaineer fond of wild desolation can well picture.

If you would see this slope aright,Look at it by the pale grey light.

On the left the mass of the Aiguille du Dru cuts off the view of the fertile regions; far away on the right the huge tapering towers of rock form a massive foreground stretching away to the base of the Aiguille Verte. The spectator too seems strangely shut off, so that, gazing around, on either side he can see but a narrow extent of the mountain. We looked down and did not like what we saw; we looked up and liked it less. The day was fine and the mountain in good condition. I can recall now that our eyes must have wandered over the very route that ultimately proved to be the right one, and yet to none of us that afternoon did it appear in the least degree possible. Unquestionably the crags of the Aiguille du Dru looked formidable enough from this point of view, and we could not but think that nature must have provided some easier mode of access to the summit than this face seemed to afford. We climbed along the ridge till we were almost against the face of the mountain, but then we had to turn our gaze so directly upwards that matters looked still worse. Then we faced about and climbed in the other direction. The rocks seemed to grow bigger and bigger the more we looked at them. What the guides actually thought I do not quite know, but at the moment my own impression was that it would be impossible to ascend more than two or three hundred feet: so we turned and came back. Even while we yet descended the thought came that this face of the mountain was perhaps not so utterly hopeless as it had appeared a few minutes previously, and in my own mind I decided that, should we fail in discovering some much more promising line from another point of view, we would at least return to the ridge often enough to familiarise ourselves with this aspect of the mountain, with the idea that such familiarity if it did not succeed in breeding contempt might at least give birth to a more sanguine frame of mind. The farther we got from our point of view the more hopeful did the mental impression seem to become, and by the time we reached Chamouni we had all separately arrived at the conclusion – somewhat selfish perhaps, but justifiable under the circumstances – that if asked what we thought of the possibility of ascending by the face we had tried, we would give honestly the opinion we had formed while on the ridge, and not the opinion at which we had arrived subsequently.

Other climbers attack the peak

Other explorers were meanwhile at work on the mountain, but so far as I could learn all their attempts were made on the south-western peak. At any rate they followed more or less the line we had first struck out. Some thought that the lower peak alone was feasible, others that the higher peak was attainable only from the south-western side. So thought Mr. E. R. Whitwell; so again, Mr. J. Birkbeck, jun., both of whom reached probably a much higher point on the south-western face than we succeeded in obtaining in 1873.

In 1875 we were making our way once more by the Col de Balme to Chamouni, and being in somewhat of a reflective mood, induced by the consumption of a soup-tureen full of bread and milk at the hotel at the top of the pass, we sought a shady spot hard by whence a good view of the Aiguille du Dru could be obtained, and contemplated the precipices as seen from this point of view. The northern slope leading up to the ridge over which we had looked lay well before us. The upper part of the mountain looked distinctly different as far as accessibility was concerned. It seemed just possible, if a way could only be found up from the level of the ridge to a certain ledge some distance above, that the final mass might be feasible. There appeared to be a sort of gully sloping upwards in a direction curved away from us, in which the snow lay so thick that the rocks on either side could not, we thought, be very steep. At the least it seemed to be worth our while to make for this gully, which was obviously unattainable from the ridge itself, for it was here cut off by a belt of straight rock.

We try the northern side

A few days later we carried the idea into effect. It was necessary to engage some one to carry the tent, and Burgener was deputed to search for a porter of a willing disposition and suitable physical conformation. Presently he came back in company with a shambling youth of great length of limb and somewhat lanky frame. We inquired if he were willing to come with us, whereupon the young man was seized with violent facial contortions, and we perceived that he suffered from an impediment in his speech. Not wishing to render him nervous by our presence, we took a short turn in the garden, leaving him where he stood. On our return the young man’s efforts culminated in the remark, “How much?” We said, “Twenty-five francs,” and then started off to consult the barometer. On coming back after this interval we found that the young man had just previously succeeded in articulating “Yes.” The practical result of this one-sided colloquy was that the next day the tall young man was laden with the tent, with directions to carry it up to a point immediately opposite the Montanvert below the Glacier du Nant Blanc. The tall young man shouldered his burden and started off with great activity. We followed him somewhat later under the rather transparent pretence of going to hunt for crystals next day. Making our way up by a long ridge lying between the Glacier du Nant Blanc and a little snow patch dignified in some maps by the appellation of the Glacier du Dru, we skirted round the base of the Aiguille looking constantly upwards to find some practicable line of ascent, and hoping that we might discover one which would conduct us up on to the main mass of the mountain before we had got opposite to the point by which we had made our ascent from the southern side. It soon became evident that we were very unlikely to find a way. Far above jutted out a little horizontal table of rock. Burgener observed that if we could only get there it would be something. So far his remarks did not appear inaccurate, but it was perfectly clear before long that there was no chance of getting any higher, supposing we could get on to this platform; yet a little further, and we perceived that we could not even get to it. Ultimately we discovered that the platform itself was an optical delusion. It did not seem worth while to make any attempt to reach the summit of the ridge from the side we were on, even if we could have done so, which I doubt. The day may come when the climber will seek to discover some variation to the route up the peak; but mountaineering skill will indeed have improved out of all knowledge if anyone ever succeeds in getting up this northern face. From every point of view we surveyed it, and from every point of view, in our opinion, it was equally impossible. So in the evening we came back once more to the tent, from the door of which protruded a pair of thick boots. These encased the feet articulated to the lanky legs of the tall young man, who had been enjoying a siesta of some ten or twelve hours’ duration. Kicking gently at a prominent bulging of the canvas on the opposite side to the door had the effect of waking our slumbrous friend, who was exceedingly sarcastic at our want of success; so, at least, we judged by his expression of countenance. For a long while his efforts yielded no verbal result. But his words seemed as it were to stick fast in an endeavour to bring them out three or four abreast through a portal that was capable only of allowing egress to them in single file. Of a sudden the jostling syllables broke down the obstructing barrier, and he startled us by pouring forth a string of remarks with precipitate volubility. Knowing, however, that it would be some time before we could hope to try the peak again, we were not loth to leave him under the impression, to be communicated to his friends at Chamouni, that we had come to the conclusion that the mountain was inaccessible.

The mountain fever recurs

It was not till 1878 that we were able to revisit once more the scene of our many failures.

During the winter months, however, the thought of the stubborn Aiguille had been from time to time discussed, and when J. Oakley Maund and I came back to Chamouni we had very serious intentions. This time we were both possessed with one fixed determination with regard to the Aiguille. Either we would get up to the top or, at the worst, would, as far as lay in our power, prove that it was inaccessible by any line of attack. By my wish, our first attempts were to be made by the old route leading towards the lower peak; not that we were very sanguine of succeeding by this line of ascent, but rather because we felt that no very great amount of exploration would be necessary to determine whether the higher point could or could not be reached from this side; but though our intentions were good we were scarcely prepared for the difficulties that met us from the beginning. The elements seemed to have set their faces against us. Time after time when all was ready for a start we were baulked by snow, wind, or rain. Day after day we sat waiting in vain for the favourable moment, sometimes at our bivouac high up above the Mer de Glace, by the side of the Glacier de la Charpoua, till hope deferred and a series of table d’hôte dinners combined with want of exercise to make the heart sick and the individual despondently dyspeptic. Perhaps the wind would shift round a point or two towards the north and a couple of fine days occur. Straightway we set off for the tent which we left concealed at the bivouac. Then came the rain again, and we had to return soaked and dejected. Sometimes it rained before we got to the Montanvert and sometimes after, and in fact we seemed to be making perpetually fitful excursions from the kitchen fire at the Montanvert to that at Couttet’s hotel. On hydropathic principles we found the state of the elements no mean form of cure for the mountain fever. Still, like the hungry butler, we reflected that everything comes to him who waits, and seizing every possible opportunity did manage to achieve some climbing during the rare intervals of moderately favourable weather.

The campaign opens

The campaign was opened with an attempt made with Jaun and Andreas Maurer as guides. A youth of hollow visage and weak joints (a relation, possibly, of our friend with the one defective articulation), who did not much enter into the spirit of the expedition, and who seemed by his expression to echo Hamlet’s interrogation as to the necessity of bearing fardels, carried our tent up to the grass slopes by the Charpoua glacier. Here, on a smooth, level patch of turf surrounded on three sides by rocks, we established a little country seat, though we scarcely realised on this first occasion how often it would be our lot to run up and spend the night there, and to return to town the following morning. There are many and excellent camping places about these slopes; dry dwarf rhododendron bushes abound, and water is plentiful. There was no difficulty in rising early the next morning, for at some time in the small hours the spindle-legged porter was seized with terrible cramp. Under ordinary circumstances his lower limbs were imperfectly under his control, and when thus affected they became perfectly ungovernable, so that the neat order in which we had disposed ourselves overnight for slumber was rudely disarranged, and we were forced to rise and turn out till the spasms should have subsided. Under the influence of gentle friction the spasms quieted down, and when we left he was troubled only with a few twitching kicks, such as may be observed in a dreaming dog. At 2 A.M. we started and wended our way up the glacier, every step of which seemed familiar. To our surprise and delight the snow was in first-rate order, and our spirits rose at the prospect of a good climb; but the time had not yet come for success, and our hopes were soon to be dashed. There was still an immense amount of snow on the lower rock slopes over which access to the south-western peak is alone possible, and this snow was in a highly treacherous condition. Before we had ascended many feet the guides very properly refused to go on, a determination with which we felt ourselves bound to acquiesce. They pointed out that it would be unwarrantably dangerous to descend late in the afternoon over deep snow, soft, and but loosely adhering to the rocks. Under such conditions it is of course impossible to judge of the foothold, and there is nothing to hold on to with the hands. There was no other alternative, therefore, if we were to follow this route, than to wait till more of the snow should have melted, or else to find a track where the rocks were bare. As far as we could ascertain, however, there was no such track to be seen. We decided to go back, but still remained at Chamouni, for we durst not lose a single favourable opportunity. With an imperturbability bred of long experience did we meet the sniggers and sneers of certain croakers below, who looked with an unfavourable eye on our proceedings.

A new leader

Within the next fortnight we made two further attempts by much the same route and with the same guides, but only succeeded in going far enough to prove that the opinion of the guides was perfectly correct with regard to the state of the snow. Already matters seemed to justify some gloomy doubt as to whether we could carry out even the exploratory part of our programme, for Jaun was compelled to leave us in order to fulfil another engagement, and we scarcely knew where to turn to find another man capable of guiding us in the way we desired to go. Still our determination was unshaken by our run of ill-luck. We would not give it up. With no more definite object than that of justifying an impending table d’hôte dinner, I was walking up the Montanvert path one rainy afternoon, when a ray of sunlight suddenly burst upon me in the person of Alexander Burgener. He had come over the Col du Géant with a party of travellers, and to our delight was not only disengaged, but exceedingly anxious to attack once more, or, in fact, as often as we liked, the obstinate Aiguille. From the moment that he assumed the chief command matters began to wear a different complexion, for we learnt that he had taken every opportunity to consider and study the mountain. By his advice a complete change of tactics was adopted. We decided to abandon all idea of attacking the lower peak, and made up our minds to try the higher summit by the route we had first followed four years previously. We had often discussed together our chances of success on this peak, and had often come to the conclusion that its ascent was more than doubtful. But now Burgener was so positive of ultimate triumph, and so confident in his own powers, not only of getting up himself, but of getting us also to our goal, that the whole matter seemed placed before us in a different light. We might have to wait, we might have to try many times, but still we could not but believe the impression that now gradually formed that we must ultimately succeed. To the spirit which Burgener displayed that year, and which he imbued in us (at a time when it must be confessed that such a spirit was much wanted, for we were as downcast as water-cure patients during the process), and to his sagacity and great guiding qualities, the whole of our ultimate success was due. I knew that, as a guide, he was immeasurably superior to an amateur in his trained knack of finding the way, and that in quickness on rocks the two could hardly be compared. But previously it had always seemed to me that the amateur excelled in one great requisite, viz., pluck. Let this record show that in one instance at least this estimate was erroneous, for had it not been for Burgener’s indomitable pluck we should never have succeeded in climbing the Aiguille du Dru.

Our sixteenth attempt

Burgener was of opinion that from the summit of the actual ridge lying east of the higher peak, and between it and the Aiguille Verte, it was not feasible to ascend on to the face of the mountain, and he proposed accordingly that we should commence by making a study of the rocks lying to the left of the main gully running up to this same ridge, endeavouring if possible to discover some point where we could bear off to the left on to the real mass of the mountain. In addition he pointed out that the upper rocks might be very difficult and require much time (as we had already agreed together in previous years that they were altogether impossible, this remark seemed probable enough), and it was important therefore to discover the easiest and quickest way up the lower part of the rock slopes. Accordingly we departed – and this was our sixteenth attempt – from the Montanvert one morning at 1 A.M. We had long since cultivated a manner of going about our business in such a way as to avoid the gaze of the curious, and set forth on this occasion in much the same spirit that burglars adopt when on evil errands intent. The day was entirely spent as agreed in studying the lower rocks and working out accurately the most feasible line of assault. But though we ascended on this occasion to no very great height we were perpetually engaged in climbing, and the quantity of snow which still lay on the rocks rendered progress difficult and care necessary. Still it was no haphazard exploration that we were engaged in, and the spirit of deliberation in which we began begat a spirit of hopefulness as we went on. A fancied insufficiency of guiding strength, coupled with a decidedly insufficient supply of rope and an inherent idea that the new line of assault contemplated was not to be worked out to an end at the first attempt, all combined to drive us back to Chamouni late the same evening.