Above the Snow Line: Mountaineering Sketches Between 1870 and 1880

It may have been so; it gave me a sore throat. Descending rapidly, we reached the Monte Rosa Hotel at 7 P.M., in an exultant frame of mind, a ragged condition of attire, and a preposterous state of hunger. The whole time occupied in the climb was sixteen hours. Of this an hour was wasted while we were waiting for the telescope, and three-quarters of an hour was spent in arranging the rope, by the aid of which we descended. Probably in actual climbing and walking we employed rather under thirteen hours; but the snow was in excellent order, and we descended on the whole very rapidly. Our trials were not over for the day, when we reached the hotel. Two arch young things had prepared an ambuscade and surprised us successfully at the door of the hotel. Sweetly did they gush. “Oh! where had we been?” We said we had been up in the mountains, indicating the general line of locality with retrospective thumb. “Oh! wasn’t it fearfully dangerous? Weren’t we all tied tightly together?” (as if, on the principle of union being strength, we had been fastened up and bound like a bundle of quill pens). “Oh! hadn’t we done something very wonderful?” The situation was becoming irritating. “Oh! didn’t we have to drag ourselves up precipices by the chamois horns on the tops of our sticks?” “No indeed – ” “Oh! really, now, that guide there” (a driver with imperfectly buttoned garments who was sitting on the wall with a vacuous look) “told us you were such wonderful climbers.” It was becoming exasperating. “And oh! we wanted to ask you so much, for you know all about it. Do you think we could walk over the Théodule? Papa” (great heavens! he must be a nonagenarian) “thinks we should be so foolish to try. Could you persuade him?” “Well, really – ” “Wouldn’t the precipices make us dreadfully giddy?” “No, no more than you are now.” “Oh! thank you so much. And you really won’t tell us what awful ascent you have been making?” It was maddening. “After dinner perhaps?” “Oh! thank you. Oh! Sustie” (this to each other; they both spoke together: probably the names were Susie and Tottie), “won’t that be delightful?” By dexterous manœuvring we escaped these gushing Circes during the evening. Happening to pass later on by the open door of the little salon, the following remark was overheard: “My dear, the conceit of these climbing objects is quite dreadful. They do nothing but flourish their nasty sticks and ropes about: they want the whole place to themselves” (we had been sitting on wooden chairs in the middle of the high street, near an unsavoury heap of refuse), “and they talk, talk, talk, my dear, all day and all night about what they have been doing in the mountains and of their nonsensical climbs. And what frights they look. I think they are perfectly horrid.” Can the voice have been that of the gusher?

CHAPTER III.

EARLY ATTEMPTS ON THE AIGUILLE DU DRU

The Alps and the early mountaineers – The last peaks to surrender – The Aiguille du Dru – Messrs. Kennedy and Pendlebury’s attempt on the peak – One-day expeditions in the Alps and thoughts on huts and sleeping out – The Chamouni guide system – A word on guides, past and present – The somnolent landlord and his peculiarities – Some of the party see a chamois – Doubts as to the peak and the way – The duplicity of the Aiguille deceives us – Telescopic observations – An ill-arranged glacier – Franz and his mighty axe – A start on the rocks in the wrong direction – Progress reported – An adjournment – The rocks of the lower peak of the Aiguille du Dru – Our first failure – The expedition resumed – A new line of ascent – We reach the sticking point – Beaten back – The results gained by the two days’ climbing.

The last peaks to surrender

Accounts of failures on the mountains in books of Alpine adventure are as much out of place, according to some critics, as a new hat in a crowded church. Humanly speaking, the possession of this head-gear under such circumstances renders it impossible to divert the thoughts wholly from worldly affairs. This, however, by the way. Now the pioneers of the Alps, the Stephenses, the Willses, the Moores, the Morsheads, and many others, had used up all new material with alarming rapidity, I might say voracity, before the climbing epoch to which the present sketches relate. There is an old story of a man who arrived running in a breathless condition on a railway platform just in time to see the train disappearing. “You didn’t run fast enough, sir,” remarked the porter to him. “You idiot!” was the answer, “I ran plenty fast enough, but I didn’t begin running soon enough.” Even so was it with the climbers of our generation. They climbed with all possible diligence, but they began their climbing too late. Novelty, that is the desire for achieving new expeditions, was still considered of paramount importance, but unfortunately there was very little new material left. It is difficult to realise adequately now the real veneration entertained for an untrodden peak. A certain amount of familiarity seemed indispensable before a new ascent was even seriously contemplated. It had occurred to certain bold minds that the aiguilles around Chamouni might not be quite as bad as they looked. In 1873 the chief of the still unconquered peaks of the Mont Blanc district were the Aiguille des Charmoz, the Aiguille Blaitière, the Aiguille du Géant, the Aiguille Peuteret, the Aiguille du Dru, and a few other minor points. All of these have since been captured, some of them bound in chains. Opinions differed considerably as to their accessibility. Some hopeful spirits thought that by constantly “pegging away” they might be scaled; others thought that the only feasible plan would be indeed to peg away, but were of opinion that the pegs should be of iron and driven into the rock. Such views naturally lead to discussions, sometimes rather heated, as to whether mountaineering morality might fitly tolerate such aids to the climber. Of all the peaks mentioned above, the Aiguille du Dru and the Aiguille du Géant were considered as the most hopeful by the leading guides, though the older members of that body held out little prospect of success. It is a rather curious fact that the majority of the leading guides who gave their opinions to us in the matter thought that the Aiguille du Géant was the more promising peak to attack. Subsequent experience has proved that they were greatly in error in this judgment. The Aiguille du Géant has indeed been ascended, but much more aid than is comprised in the ordinary mountaineer’s equipment was found necessary. In fact, the stronghold was not carried by direct assault, but by sapping and mining. There is a certain rock needle in Norway which, I am told, was once, and once only, ascended by a party on surveying operations bent. No other means could be found, so a wooden structure was built up around the peak, such as may be seen investing a dilapidated church steeple; and the mountain, like the Royal Martyr of history, yielded up its crowning point at the scaffold. We did not like the prospect of employing any such architectural means to gain our end and the summit, and, from no very clearly defined reasons, turned our attention chiefly to the Aiguille du Dru. Perhaps the prominent appearance of this Aiguille, and the fact that its outline was so familiar from the Montanvert, gradually imbued us with a certain sense of familiarity, which ultimately developed into a notion that if not actually accessible it might at least be worth trying. It seemed too prominent to be impossible; from its height – 12,517 feet only – the mountain would doubtless not attract much attention, were it not so advantageously placed. Thousands of tourists had gazed on its symmetrical form: it had been photographed, stared at through binoculars, portrayed in little distorted pictures on useless work-boxes, trays and other toy-shop gimcracks, more often than any other mountain of the chain, Mont Blanc excepted. Like an undersized volunteer officer, it no doubt made the most of its height. But in truth the Aiguille du Dru is a magnificent mountain form, with its vast dark precipices on the north face, with its long lines of cliff, broken and jagged and sparsely wrinkled with gullies free from even a patch or trace of snow. Point after point, and pinnacle after pinnacle catch the gaze as we follow the edge of the north-west “Kamm,” until the eye rests at last on the singularly graceful isosceles triangle of rock which forms the peak. It is spoken of lightly as merely a tooth of rock jutting up from the ridge which culminates in the Aiguille Verte, but when viewed from the Glacier de la Charpoua it is obviously a separate mountain; at any rate it became such when the highest point of the ridge, the Aiguille Verte, had been climbed by somebody else. The cleft in the ridge on the right side of the main mass of the Aiguille du Dru is a very deep one as seen from the glacier, and the sharp needle of rock which is next in the chain is a long way from the Aiguille du Dru itself. North and south the precipices run sheer down to the glaciers beneath. The mountain has then four distinct sides, three of them running down to great depths. Thus, even in the prehistoric days of Alpine climbing, it had some claim to individuality and might fairly be considered as something more than, as it were, one unimportant pinnacle on the roof of some huge cathedral. Perhaps, however, repeated failures to ascend the mountain begot undue veneration and caused an aspiring climber to look with a prejudiced eye on its dimensions.

The Aiguille du Dru

So far as I know, the mountain had never been assailed till 1873, when Messrs. Pendlebury and Kennedy made an attempt. Mr. R. Pendlebury has kindly furnished me with notes of the climb, which I may be allowed to reproduce nearly in his own words: – Two parties started simultaneously for the expedition. One was composed of Messrs. Kennedy and Marshall, with the guides Johann Fischer and Ulric Almer of Grindelwald; the other party consisted of the Rev. C. Taylor, Messrs. W. M. and R. Pendlebury, with the guides Hans Baumann, Peter Baumann, and Edouard Cupelin. The first-mentioned party slept at the Montanvert, while the others enjoyed themselves in a bivouac high up on the side of the Glacier de la Charpoua between the Aiguille du Dru and the Aiguille Moine. This Glacier de la Charpoua, it may be mentioned, is sometimes called the Glacier du Chapeau.

The first attempt

The bivouac appears to have been so comfortable that Mr. Pendlebury and his friends did not take advantage of their start. The Montanvert detachment, who found no such inducement to stay one moment longer than was absolutely necessary2 in their costly quarters, caught them up the next morning, and the whole party started together. Mr. Kennedy’s guides kept to the left of the Glacier de la Charpoua, which looks more broken up than the right-hand side, but apparently proved better going. This, however, it should be observed, was in 1873, and these hanging glaciers alter marvellously in detail from year to year, though always preserving from a distance the same general features. On the same principle, at the proper distance, a mother may be mistaken for her daughter, especially by a judicious person. But on drawing near, however discreet the observer may be, he is yet conscious of little furrows, diminutive wrinkles, and perhaps of a general shrinkage not to be found in the more recent specimen. Speaking very generally, I should say that these glaciers are, on the whole, easier to traverse than they used to be: at any rate my own personal observation of this particular little glacier extends over a period of some years, and the intricacies – it is hardly proper to call them difficulties – were distinctly less towards the end of the time than they were at the beginning. Of course a different interpretation might be put upon such an opinion: with the evolution of mountaineering skill the complexity of these crumpled up snow-fields may seem to have disentangled, but I am assured that in this particular case it was not so.

First attempt on the peak

This digression must be pardoned. It arose naturally from the circumstance that the route Mr. Kennedy adopted would have proved, at any rate in later years, a digression from the best way. Mr. Pendlebury’s party went straight up, keeping, that is, to the right-hand side of the glacier. Towards the upper part the snow slopes became steeper, and soon some step-cutting was required. The object in view was to reach the lowest point in the ridge between the Aiguille du Dru and the Aiguille Verte. It was thought that, by turning to the left from the col, it might be possible to reach the summit by the eastern arête. The col itself from below seemed easily attainable by means of a narrow zigzagging gully, interrupted here and there, that runs down from the summit of the ridge. Ascending by the rocks on the left of the gully the party made for some little way good progress, but then a sudden change came over the scene. After a consultation, it was proposed that the guides Hans Baumann, Peter Baumann, and Fischer should go on a little by themselves and make for the ridge, which they estimated lay about half an hour above them. They were then to examine the rocks above and to bring back a report. The rest of the party remained where they were, and disported themselves as comfortably as circumstances would permit. Hour after hour, however, passed away, and the three guides seemed to make but little progress. They returned at last with the melancholy tidings that they had climbed nearly up to the ridge and had found the rocks very difficult and dangerous. (It should be noted that the line of attack chosen on this occasion – the first serious attempt on the peak – was devised by Hans Baumann, and it says much for his sagacity that this very route proved years afterwards to be the right one.) Questioned as to the advisability of proceeding upwards, the guides employed their favourite figure of speech and remarked that not for millions of francs would they consent to try again. Hans Baumann asserted that he had never climbed more difficult rocks. This opinion, as Mr. Pendlebury suggested at the time, was probably owing to the fact that the cliffs above were covered with snow and glazed with ice, and this condition of the mountain face made each step precarious. The amateurs of the party were of opinion that the ridge would prove attainable later in the season or in exceptionally fine weather. As to the possibility of climbing the rocks above – that is to say, the actual peak – none of the party were able to come to any very positive conclusion. At a rough guess it was estimated that the party halted between two and three hundred feet below the ridge. On the presentation of the guides report the whole caravan turned back and reached Chamouni safely, but not entirely without incident, for the monotony of the descent and Mr. Taylor’s head were broken by the fall of a big stone. This little accident, Mr. Pendlebury remarked with disinterested cheerfulness, was but a trifle. I have not been able to ascertain Mr. Taylor’s views on the subject.

When our party first essayed the ascent we knew none of the above particulars, save only that some mountaineers had endeavoured to reach the ridge but had failed to ascend to any great height. Of the actual cause of their ill success, and whether it were owing to the unpropitious elements or to the actual difficulties encountered, we were unaware.

Huts and sleeping out

At the time of which I am writing, a somewhat novel mode of ascending mountains was coming into vogue, which consisted in waiting for a suitable day at headquarters, starting at unheard-of hours, and completing the expedition in one day – that is, within twenty-four hours. It was argued in support of this plan, that it was economical and that bivouacking was but a laborious and expensive method of obtaining discomfort. There are, said the advocates of the method, but few mountains in the Alps which cannot be ascended with much greater comfort in one day than in two. The day’s climb is much more enjoyable when it is possible to start from sleeping quarters in which it is possible to sleep. The argument that repose in hotel beds, though undoubtedly more luxurious, was of comparatively little use if there were no time to enjoy it, was held to be little to the purpose. Some enthusiasts were wont to state that passing a night in a chalet, or those magnified sentry boxes called cabanes, constituted half the enjoyment on the expedition. This is a little strong – like the flavour of the cabanes – and if it were actually so the whole pleasure would be but small. The camper out arises in the morning from his delicious couch of soft new-mown hay in a spotty and sticky condition, attended with considerable local irritation, and feeling like a person who has recently had his hair cut, with a pinafore but loosely tied around his neck. Porters, like barbers, exhibit a propensity for indulging in garlic immediately before pursuing their avocation, which is not without discomfort to their employers. (And here I may note as a psychological fact that one action of this permeating vegetable is to induce confidential propensities in the consumer. The point may be deemed worthy of investigation, by personal experiment, by botanists and students of materia medica, men who in the interests of science are not prone to consider their personal comfort and finer sensibilities.) Again, in unsettled weather a fine day is often wasted by journeying up in the afternoon to some chalet, or hovel, merely to enjoy the pleasure of returning the following morning in the rain. There is some force too in the argument that but little actual time is gained by the first day’s performance, for it is very difficult to start at anything like the prearranged hour for departure from a camp. An immensity of time is always spent in lighting the morning fire, preparing breakfast, and getting under way. On the other side, some little time is undoubtedly saved by discarding the wholly superfluous ceremony of washing, a process at once suggesting itself to the mind of the Briton abroad if he beholds a basin and cold water.

The sum of the argument would seem to be that camping out in some one else’s hut is but an unpleasant fiction; that if the climber chooses to go to the expense, he can succeed in making himself a trifle less comfortable in his own tent or under a rock than he would be in an hotel; and that he is the wisest man who refrains from bivouacking when it is not really necessary and is able to make the best of matters when it is: and undoubtedly for many of the recognised expeditions it is essential to have every possible minute of spare time in hand.

The Chamouni guide system

We were naturally rather doubtful as to the successful issue of our expedition, at any rate at the first attempt, and we therefore impressed upon the guides the necessity of not divulging the plan. The secret, however, proved to be so big that it was too much for two, and they imparted consequently so much of the information as they had not adequate storage for in their own minds to any who chose to listen. Consequently our intentions were thoroughly well known before we started. There were in those days, perhaps, more good guides, at any rate there were fewer bad ones, in Chamouni than are to be found nowadays. We could not, however, obtain the services – even if we had desired them – of any of the local celebrities. As a matter of fact, we were both of opinion that a training in climbing, such as is acquired among the Oberland and Valais men by chamois hunting and constant rock work, would be most likely to have produced the qualities which would undoubtedly be needed on the aiguilles.

The question of the efficiency of the Chamouni guides and of the Chamouni guide system, a question coeval with mountaineering itself, was burning then as fiercely as it does now. The Alpine Club had striven in vain to improve matters; they had pointed out that ability to answer a kind of mountaineering catechism did not in itself constitute a very reliable test of a peasant’s power; they had pointed out too that the plan of electing a “guide chef” from the general body of guides was one most open to abuse, one sure to lead to favouritism and injustice, and one obviously ill calculated to bring to the front any specially efficient man. But unhappily the regulations of the body of guides were, and still are, entangled hopelessly in the French equivalent for red tape. Jealousy and mistrust of the German-speaking guides, whom serious mountaineers were beginning to import in rather formidable numbers, were beginning to awaken in the simple bosoms of the Savoyard peasants; and our proceedings were consequently looked upon with contemptuous disfavour by those who had any knowledge of our project.

A word on guides

On August 18, 1873, we started. Our guides were Alexander Burgener as leader, Franz Andermatten, the best of companions, our guide, our friend, and sometimes our philosopher, as second string, while a taciturn porter of large frame and small mind, who came from the Saas valley, completed the tale. Of Burgener’s exceptional talent in climbing difficult rocks we had had already good proof, and no doubt he was, and still is, a man of remarkable daring, endurance, and activity on rocks. I had reached then that stage in the mountaineering art at which a man is prone to consider the guide he knows best as, beyond all comparison, the best guide that could possibly exist. The lapse of years renders me perhaps better able now to form a dispassionate judgment of Burgener’s capacity and skill. Both were very great. I have seen at their work most of the leaders in this department. Burgener never had the marvellous neatness and finish so characteristic of Melchior Anderegg, who, when mountaineering has passed away into the limbo of extinct sports, such as bear-baiting, croquet, and pell-mell, will, if he gets his deserts, even by those who remember Maguignaz, Carrel, Croz, and Almer, still be spoken of as the best guide that ever lived. Nor was Burgener gifted with the same simple unaffected qualities which made Jakob Anderegg’s loss so keenly felt, nor the lightness and agility of Rey or Jaun; but he united well in himself qualities of strength, carefulness, perseverance and activity, and possessed in addition the numerous attributes of observation, experience, and desire for improvement in his art which together make up what is spoken of as the natural instinct of guides. These were the qualities that made him a first-rate, indeed an exceptional, guide. Nunc liberavi animam meam. There is an old saying, involving a sound doctrine, that

When you flatter lay it on thick;Some will come off, but a deal will stick.

The porter proved himself a skilful and strong climber, but he was as silent as an oyster and, like that bivalve mollusc when the freshness of its youth has passed off, was perpetually on the gape.

A landlord’s peculiarities

A hot walk – it always is hot along this part – took us up to the Montanvert. The moonlight threw quaint, fantastic shadows along the path and made the dewy gossamer filaments which swung from branch to branch across the track twinkle into grey and silver; and anything more aggravating than these spiders’ threads at night it is hard to imagine. What earthly purpose these animals think they serve by this reckless nocturnal expenditure of bodily glue it is hard to say: possibly the lines are swung across in order that they may practise equilibrium; possibly the threads may serve as lines of escape and retreat after the male spinners have been a-wooing. The atmosphere through the wood was as stuffy as a ship’s saloon in a storm, and we were right glad to reach the Montanvert at 3.30 A.M. Here, being athirst, we clamoured for refreshment. The landlord of the ramshackle hostelry at once appeared in full costume; indeed I observed that during the summer it was impossible to tell from his attire whether he had arisen immediately from bed or no. He seemed to act on the principle of the Norwegian peasant, who apparently undresses once a year when the winter commences, and resumes his garments when the light once more comes back and the summer season sets in. Our friend had cultivated to great perfection the art of half sleeping during his waking hours – that is, during such time as he might be called upon to provide entertainment for man and beast. Now at the Montanvert, during the tourists’ season, this period extended over the whole twenty-four hours. It was necessary, therefore, in order that he might enjoy a proper physiological period of rest, for him to remain in a dozing state – a sort of æstival hybernation – for the whole time, which in fact he did; or else he was by nature a very dull person, and had actually a very restricted stock of ideas.