Above the Snow Line: Mountaineering Sketches Between 1870 and 1880

Sports and pastimes

Après cela le déluge, and for a long time high mountaineering of any description was out of the question. Desperate were the attempts we made to amuse ourselves, and to while away the time. Sports and pastimes within the limited area of the hotel premises were the fashion for a time. The courtyard in front of Couttet’s hotel was made into a lawn-tennis ground. The village stores being ransacked yielded a limited supply of parti-coloured india-rubber balls; the village carpenter constructed bats out of flat pieces of wood, and we sought to forget the unpropitious elements by playing morning, noon, and night. As a result several windows and a lamp were reduced to ruin. Then we went a-crayfishing. A basket carriage, which was constructed apparently of iron sheeting, but painted over with a wicker-work pattern in order to deceive a flea-bitten grey steed of great age with the impression that it was very light, conveyed us to Châtelard, which by a twofold inaccuracy was termed the fishing-ground, our object being to catch animals which were not fish and lived in water. There the sport began, and was conducted on this wise. Sticks with a cleft at the end, into which nondescript pieces of ill-smelling meat were wedged, were submerged in a little brook to tempt the prey, but the only bites we got were from the horse-flies and inflicted on our own persons; howbeit, one or two of the party when at a distance from their fellow-sportsmen averred that they had been on a point of catching monsters of the deep the size of lobsters. We did not discover till subsequently that, led astray by a plausible peasant possessed of riparian rights and untruthful propensities, we had been fishing (or “crustaceaning,” to speak correctly) all day in a stream untenanted by any crayfish whatever, the result being that we caught a chill and nothing else. The ancient steed, moreover, though he bowled along merrily enough down the hill to Châtelard and required no more stimulus than an occasional chirrup from the driver afforded, was yet very loth to draw the party back up the hill at the same pace, and required such constant stimulation of a more active kind on the way back that it was found necessary before we reached the village to stop and smooth out the creases on his sides. The next day the report came that the spotted grey was “très malade,” and the next day too my right arm was excessively stiff.

A subsequent sporting expedition yielded happier results. One of the party, gifted with diplomatic talents and a power of detecting the vulnerable points in the character of the natives, purchased, for the sum of one franc, information from a shockheaded juvenile suffering from a skin eruption as to the best stocked streams. Then did the deep yield up its carnivorous denizens. Artfully and in silence did the anglers wait for their prey to claw the reeking bait. Deftly and warily did they withdraw the rod, sometimes with two or three victims clinging in a bunch, and land the spoil on the bank. Then would the crayfish loosen their hold, roll over on their backs, flap their tails very briskly, and start off with amazing rapidity for short country walks, speedily to be captured and consigned to the recesses of a receptacle, bearing a suspicious resemblance to Madame Couttet’s work-basket. Ultimately they formed the basis of a “bisque” not unworthy of Brébant.

Apparel oft proclaims the man

What time the india-rubber balls were all burst and the fishing-ground had lost its attraction, seated on a tilted chair beneath the verandah we fell a-musing and studied human nature, and the various types that presented day after day round and about the hotel. Much was there to marvel at in many of the costumes, to many of which the late Mr. Planché himself would have been unable to assign a date. It has been noticed of course, times out of mind, as a characteristic of the Briton, that a costume in which he would not go coal-heaving at home is considered good enough for Sunday in the Alps. One gentleman indeed, whose own apparel would have been considered untidy even if he had been a member of a shipwrecked crew, had been enlarging on this topic with much fervour, to a select audience, dwelling especially on the discourtesy thus shown to the natives of the country. I looked, when Sunday came, that he should be clad in raiment of more than ordinary fitness and splendour, but the only changes that I could perceive from the week-day vesture consisted in a tall hat, which somebody had mistaken for an opera hat on some occasion, and a long strip of rag wound round a cut finger, while his wife, who had recently been on the glaciers, appeared in a low cut dress, so that she presented a curious piebald appearance. The lateness of the season may have accounted for the fact that many of the garments seemed rapidly to be resolving into their pristine condition of warp and woof, especially about the region where it is usual in the Alps to light the poison-darting lucifer matches of the country. There were flannel shirts with collars on some, and flannel shirts without them on others, while yet a third set wore white chokers round their necks made of vulcanite, so that they looked like favourite pug-dogs, or fashioned of a shiny paper, which obviously had no more to do with the garment with which they were temporarily associated than the label of an expensive wine at a second-rate restaurant has to do with the contents of the bottle. Then we fell to anatomical study, and marvelled at the various imperfections of development the muscle known to the learned as the gastrocnemius4 could exhibit in the legs of our countrymen, and wondered why they took such pains in their costume to display its usually unsymmetrical proportions, and wondered too if they really believed that a double folding back of the upper part of the stocking below the knickerbocker deceived anyone with an appearance of mighty thews. Then we went off and tapped the barometer, which was as devoid of principle as a bone setter, and kept on persistently rising. We made friends with a little stray waif of a dog of obsequious demeanour and cringing disposition, prone to roll over on its back when spoken to, thereby displaying a curiously speckled stomach, but which was withal inclined to be amiable, and wagged its tail so vigorously on being noticed that I quite feared it might sustain a sprain at the root of that appendage. But our friendship was short-lived. Before long our little friend found an acquaintance in the shape of a small semi-shaved mongrel with a tail like a stalk of asparagus run to seed. After a little preliminary walking about on tiptoe, friendly overtures were made. The game commenced by the playmates licking each others’ noses; next they ran round with surprising rapidity in very small circles, and then fell to wrestling in the middle of the courtyard. These canine acquaintanceships always end in the same way. Before long a sudden, sharp squeak was heard, and the last I saw of my little friend was a vanishing form darting round the nearest corner, with his tail as much between his legs as the excessive shortness of that excrescence would permit. His playmate, somewhat disturbed for a moment by this abrupt termination of the acquaintanceship, gazed pensively, with ears erect, for a while in the direction in which his friend had vanished: then investigated two or three unimportant objects by the sense of smell, consumed a few blades of grass, yawned twice, stretched himself once, rolled on something which had puzzled him, and retired to repose at a little distance to await the expected medicinal effects of the herb of which he had partaken.

A canine acquaintance

This is a true saying, that “There’s small choice in rotten apples,” and a description of boredom in one place is much like the same in another. Gradually, weariness of the flesh below in the valley became almost intolerable, while we were longing for an opportunity to weary the flesh, in another way, on the mountain. Ultimately, to my infinite regret, Maund found himself obliged to depart to fulfil an engagement elsewhere, but I still held on, though the conviction was daily becoming stronger that the rain would go on till the winter snows came.

Turning point of the expedition

On a mountain such as we knew the Aiguille du Dru to be it would not have been wise to make any attempt with a party of more than four. No doubt three – that is, an amateur with two guides – would have been better still, but I had, during the enforced inaction through which we had been passing, become so convinced of ultimate success that I was anxious to find a companion to share it. Fortunately, J. Walker Hartley, a highly skilful and practised mountaineer, was at Chamouni, and it required but little persuasion to induce him to join our party. Seizing an opportunity one August day when the rain had stopped for a short while, we decided to try once more, or at any rate to see what effects the climatic phases through which we had been passing had produced on the Aiguille. With Alexander Burgener and Andreas Maurer still as guides we ascended once again the slopes by the side of the Charpoua glacier, and succeeded in discovering a still more eligible site for a bivouac than on our previous attempts. A little before four the next morning we extracted each other from our respective sleeping bags, and made our way rapidly up the glacier. The snow still lay thick everywhere on the rocks, which were fearfully cold and glazed with thin layers of slippery ice; but our purpose was very serious that day, and we were not to be deterred by anything short of unwarrantable risk. We intended the climb to be merely one of exploration, but were resolved to make it as thorough as possible, and with the best results. From the middle of the slope leading up to the ridge the guides went on alone while we stayed to inspect and work out bit by bit the best routes over such parts of the mountain as lay within view. In an hour or two Burgener and Maurer came back to us, and the former invited me to go on with him back to the point from which he had just descended. His invitation was couched in gloomy terms, but there was a twinkle at the same time in his eye which it was easy to interpret —ce n’est que l’œil qui rit. We started off and climbed without the rope up the way which was now so familiar, but which on this occasion, in consequence of the glazed condition of the rocks, was as difficult as it could well be; but for a growing conviction that the upper crags were not so bad as they looked we should scarcely have persevered. “Wait a little,” said Burgener, “I will show you something presently.” We reached at last a great knob of rock close below the ridge, and for a long time sat a little distance apart silently staring at the precipices of the upper peak. I asked Burgener what it might be that he had to show me. He pointed to a little crack some way off, and begged that I would study it, and then fell again to gazing at it very hard himself. Though we scarcely knew it at the time, this was the turning point of our year’s climbing. Up to that moment I had only felt doubts as to the inaccessibility of the mountain. Now a certain feeling of confident elation began to creep over me. The fact is, that we gradually worked ourselves up into the right mental condition, and the aspect of a mountain varies marvellously according to the beholder’s frame of mind. These same crags had been by each of us independently, at one time or another, deliberately pronounced impossible. They were in no better condition that day than usual, in fact in much worse order than we had often seen them before. Yet, notwithstanding that good judges had ridiculed the idea of finding a way up the precipitous wall, the prospect looked different that day as turn by turn we screwed our determination up to the sticking point. Here and there we could clearly trace short bits of practicable rock ledges along which a man might walk, or over which at any rate he might transport himself, while cracks and irregularities seemed to develop as we looked. Gradually, uniting and communicating passages appeared to form. Faster and faster did our thoughts travel, and at last we rose and turned to each other. The same train of ideas had independently been passing through our minds. Burgener’s face flushed, his eyes brightened, and he struck a great blow with his axe as we exclaimed almost together, “It must, and it shall be done!”

A difficult descent

The rest of the day was devoted to bringing down the long ladder, which had previously been deposited close below the summit of the ridge, to a point much lower and nearer to the main peak. This ladder had not hitherto been of the slightest assistance on the rocks, and had indeed proved a source of constant anxiety and worry, for it was ever prone to precipitate its lumbering form headlong down the slope. We had, it is true, used it occasionally on the glacier to bridge over the crevasses, and had saved some time thereby. Still we were loth to discard its aid altogether, and accordingly devoted much time and no little exertion to hauling it about and fixing it in a place of security. It was late in the evening before we had made all our preparations for the next assault and turned to the descent, which proved to be exceedingly difficult on this occasion. The snow had become very soft during the day; the late hour and the melting above caused the stones to fall so freely down the gully that we gave up that line of descent and made our way over the face. Often, in travelling down, we were buried up to the waist in soft snow overlying rock slabs, of which we knew no more than that they were very smooth and inclined at a highly inconvenient angle. It was imperative for one only to move at a time, and the perpetual roping and unroping was most wearisome. In one place it was necessary to pay out 150 feet of rope between one position of comparative security and the one next below it, till the individual who was thus lowered looked like a bait at the end of a deep sea line. One step and the snow would crunch up in a wholesome manner and yield firm support. The next, and the leg plunged in as far as it could reach, while the submerged climber would, literally, struggle in vain to collect himself. Of course those above, to whom the duty of paying out the rope was entrusted, would seize the occasion to jerk as violently at the cord as a cabman does at his horse’s mouth when he has misguided the animal round a corner. Now another step and a layer of snow not more than a foot deep would slide off with a gentle hiss, exposing bare, black ice beneath, or treacherous loose stones. Nor were our difficulties at an end when we reached the foot of the rocks, for the head of the glacier had fallen away from the main mass of the mountain, even as an ill-constructed bow window occasionally dissociates itself from the façade of a jerry-built villa, and some very complicated manœuvring was necessary in order to reach the snow slopes. It was not till late in the evening that we reached Chamouni; but it would have mattered nothing to us even had we been benighted, for we had seen all that we had wanted to see, and I would have staked my existence now on the possibility of ascending the peak. But the moment was not yet at hand, and our fortress held out against surrender to the very last by calling in its old allies, sou’westerly winds and rainy weather. The whirligig of time had not yet revolved so as to bring us in our revenge.

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A blank in the narrative

Perhaps the monotonous repetition of failures on the peak influences my recollection of what took place subsequently to the expedition last mentioned. Perhaps (as I sometimes think even now) an intense desire to accomplish our ambition ripened into a realisation of actual occurrences which really were only efforts of imagination. This much I know, that when on September 7 we sat once more round a blazing wood fire at the familiar bivouac gazing pensively at the crackling fuel, it seemed hard to persuade one’s-self that so much had taken place since our last attempt. Leaning back against the rock and closing the eyes for a moment it seemed but a dream, whose reality could be disproved by an effort of the will, that we had gone to Zermatt in a storm and hurried back again in a drizzle on hearing that some other climbers were intent on our peak; that we had left Chamouni in rain and tried, for the seventeenth time, in a tempest; that matters had seemed so utterly hopeless, seeing that the season was far advanced and the days but short, as to induce me to return to England, leaving minute directions that if the snow should chance to melt and the weather to mend I might be summoned back at once; that after eight-and-forty hours of sojourn in the fogs of my native land an intimation had come by telegraph of glad tidings; that I had posted off straightway by grande vitesse back to Chamouni; that I had arrived there at four in the morning, in consequence of a little misadventure, which may be here parenthetically narrated.

A carriage misadventure

The afternoon diligence from Geneva did not go beyond Sallanches. However, an ingenious young man of low commercial morality, who said that he had a remarkable horse and a super-excellent carriage, was persuaded to drive me on the remainder of the way to Chamouni. The young man, observing that he had been very busy of late and had not been to bed for two nights (nor had he, as might be judged, washed or tidied himself since last he sought repose), took a very hearty drink out of a tumbler and climbed on to an eminence like a long-legged footstool, which it appeared was the box seat. With much cracking of whips and various ill-tempered remarks to his horse we started with success, aided by the efforts of a well-meaning person (judging by the way in which he wore his braces loosely encircling his waist, devoted to the tending of horses), who, to oblige his friend the driver, ran suddenly at the slothful animal in the shafts and punched the beast very heartily in the ribs with his fist. Before we had gone a mile our troubles began. The coachman’s ill-humour subsided, it is true, but only in consequence of Nature’s soft nurse weighing his eyelids down. Accordingly I got out my axe and poked him in the back when he curled up under the influence of his fatigue. This made him swear a good deal, but for a time the device was successful enough. Gradually the monotonous jangling of the harness bells induced a somnolent disposition in me too, and I conceived then the brilliant idea, as we were ascending the long hill near St. Gervais at a walk, of planting the head of the axe against my own chest and arranging the weapon in such a way that the spike was in close contact with the small of the driver’s back, so that when he fell back it would run into him. Of a sudden I opened my eyes to find that the jangling had ceased and the carriage stopped. We were undoubtedly at Chamouni, and the journey was at an end. Such, however, was not quite the case. As a matter of fact, we were not 200 yards further up the hill, the horse was peacefully grazing by the roadside, and the young man had eluded my artful contrivance by falling forwards off the box, where he lay crumpled up into a shapeless heap, peacefully asleep, entangled between the shafts, the traces, the splinter bar, and the horse’s tail.

I rubbed my eyes and forced away by an effort the confused jumble and whirl of thoughts that were crowding through the brain. It was not the sound of the parting farewell as the diligence lumbered away from Chamouni, nor the slow heavy clank of the railway carriages as they entered the station, nor the voices of the railway porters that rang in my ears. Voices there were, but they were familiar. I started up and looked around. Surely that was the familiar outline of the Aiguille du Dru clear and bright above; surely that was Hartley (occupied for the moment in mollifying the effects of sunburn by anointing his face with the contents of a little squeeze-bottle), and there was Burgener; but what was this untidy, sleeping mass at our feet? Gradually it dawned upon me that I was but inverting a psychological process and trying to make a dream out of a reality. Hartley was there; Burgener was there; and the uncomely bundle was the outward form of the most incompetent guide in all the Alps. It was not till next day that we learnt that this creature had previously distinguished himself by utter imbecility in a difficult ascent up the north face of the Zermatt Breithorn, nor did we till the next day fully realise how bad a guide a man ranking as such might be. We kicked him in a suitable place and he awoke; then he made the one true remark that during our acquaintance with him he was heard to utter. He said he had been drunk the day before; with this he relapsed, and during the remainder of the time he was with us gave expression to nothing but whining complaints and inaccurate statements.

A strange guide

From four in the morning of the next day till seven in the evening, when we reached our bivouac again, we were climbing without intermission; not that our imbecile friend took any very active share in the day’s amusement. He was roped as last man in the caravan, and Hartley had to drag him up the glacier. He was as slow of foot as he was of understanding, and took no interest in the expedition. Twice we pointed out to him half-hidden crevasses and begged that he would be careful. Twice did he acknowledge our courtesy by disappearing abruptly into the snowy depths. Then he favoured us with a short biographical sketch of his wife, her attributes, and her affection for himself: he narrated the chief characteristics of his children, and dilated on the responsible position that as father of a family (probably all crétins, if there be any truth in the hereditary transmission of parental qualities) he considered that he occupied. Finally, as he appeared disposed to give us at length a memoir of his grandfather deceased, we decided to unrope him and let him have his own way in peace. For seven hours did he crouch under a little rock, not daring to move either up or down, or even to take the knapsack off his back.

For the first time on this occasion did we succeed in climbing on to the main peak well above the level of the ridge we had so often reached, by means of leaving the gully at a much earlier point than usual. We followed the exact line that we had marked out mentally on the last occasion. At first progress was easy, but we could only make our way very slowly, seeing that we had but one short rope and only one guide; for we had injudiciously left the longer spare rope with our feeble-minded guide below, and no shouts or implorations could induce him to make his way up to us, nor had we leisure to go down to him; so we had to make the best of matters as they were. We soon found a place where the ladder might be of service, and spent some time in placing it in a position in which it remains I believe till this day.

Now, personal considerations had to a great extent to be lost sight of in the desire to make the most of the day, and the result was that Hartley must have had a very bad time of it. Unfortunately perhaps for him he was by far the lightest member of the party; accordingly we argued that he was far less likely to break the rickety old ladder than we were. Again, as the lightest weight, he was most conveniently lowered down first over awkward places when they occurred.

Our “jeune premier”

In the times which are spoken of as old, and which have also, for some not very definable reason, the prefix good, if you wanted your chimneys swept you did not employ an individual now dignified by the title of a Ramoneur, but you adopted the simpler plan of calling in a master sweep. This person would come attended by a satellite, who wore the outward form of a boy and was gifted with certain special physical attributes. Especially was it necessary that the boy should be of such a size and shape as to fit nicely to the chimney, not so loosely on the one hand as to have any difficulty in ascending by means of his knees and elbows, nor so tightly on the other as to run any peril of being wedged in. The boy was then inserted into the chimney and did all the work, while the master remained below or sat expectant on the roof to encourage, to preside over, and subsequently to profit by, his apprentice’s exertions. We adopted much the same principle. Hartley, as the lightest, was cast for the rôle of the “jeune premier” or boy, while Burgener and I on physical grounds alone filled the part, however unworthily, of the master sweep. As a play not infrequently owes its success to one actor, so did our “jeune premier,” sometimes very literally, pull us through on the present occasion. Gallantly indeed did he fulfil his duty. Whether climbing up a ladder slightly out of the perpendicular, leaning against nothing in particular and with overhanging rocks above; whether let down by a rope tied round his waist, so that he dangled like the sign of the “Golden Fleece” outside a haberdasher’s shop, or hauled up smooth slabs of rock with his raiment in an untidy heap around his neck; in each and all of these exercises he was equally at home, and would be let down or would come up smiling. One place gave us great difficulty. An excessively steep wall of rock presented itself and seemed to bar the way to a higher level. A narrow crack ran some little way up the face, but above the rock was slightly overhanging, and the water trickling from some higher point had led to the formation of a huge bunch of gigantic icicles, which hung down from above. It was necessary to get past these, but impossible to cut them away, as they would have fallen on us below. Burgener climbed a little way up the face, planted his back against it, and held on to the ladder in front of him, while I did the same just below: by this means we kept the ladder almost perpendicular, but feared to press the highest rung heavily against the icicles above lest we should break them off. We now invited Hartley to mount up. For the first few steps it was easy enough; but the leverage was more and more against us as he climbed higher, seeing that he could not touch the rock, and the strain on our arms below was very severe. However, he got safely to the top and disappeared from view. The performance was a brilliant one, but, fortunately, had not to be repeated; as on a subsequent occasion, by a deviation of about fifteen or twenty feet, we climbed to the same spot in a few minutes with perfect ease and without using any ladder at all. On this occasion, however, we must have spent fully an hour while Hartley performed his feats, which were not unworthy of a Japanese acrobat. Every few feet of the mountain at this part gave us difficulty, and it was curious to notice how, on this the first occasion of travelling over the rock face, we often selected the wrong route in points of detail. We ascended from twenty to fifty feet, then surveyed right and left, up and down, before going any further. The minutes slipped by fast, but I have no doubt now that if we had had time we might have ascended to the final arête on this occasion. We had often to retrace our steps, and whenever we did so found some slightly different line by which time could have been saved. Though the way was always difficult nothing was impossible, and when the word at last was given, owing to the failing light, to descend, we had every reason to be satisfied with the result of the day’s exploration. There seemed to be little doubt that we had traversed the most difficult part of the mountain, and, indeed, we found on a later occasion, with one or two notable exceptions, that such was the case.