The Project Gutenberg eBook, Ski-runs in the High Alps, by F. F. (François Frédéric) Roget, Illustrated by L. M. Crisp

SKI-RUNS IN THE HIGH ALPS

SKI-ING FOR BEGINNERS
AND MOUNTAINEERS

By W. RICKMER RICKMERS

With 72 Full-page Plates and many Diagrams in the Text

Crown 8vo, cloth, 4s. 6d. net. (Post free, 4s. 9d.)

Opinions of the Press

“A fascinating book on the most delightful of Continental winter sports. Not only is Mr. Rickmers a strenuous and accomplished ski-runner himself, but he has had years of experience as a teacher of the art, and his handy volume embodies everything that it is essential for the novice to know in order to become an efficient ski-runner in as short a time as possible”—T. P.’s Weekly.

“He is a teacher of vast experience, who has studied every defect in style that a beginner can possibly fall into, and has learned how to cure them all. If the novice with the aid of this book studies his every posture and action, practising the right and with pains correcting what he learns is wrong, he is on the high road to becoming a first-class runner.”—Scottish Ski Club Magazine.

“Mr Rickmers has written a lucid book which, as regards ski-ing, is cyclopædically exhaustive.”—Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News.

“This book will be a great boon to those wishing to learn the art of ski-ing. The illustrations are excellent and most carefully chosen—in fact, the whole book from beginning to end is full of useful knowledge, and is most interestingly written. It will be enjoyed not only by the initiate, but by the experienced ski-runner.”—Pall Mall Gazette.

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN

SUNSET, FROM MONT DURAND GLACIER.

Frontispiece.

SKI-RUNS IN THE
HIGH ALPS

BY
F. F. ROGET, S.A.C.

HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ALPINE SKI CLUB
HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATION OF
BRITISH MEMBERS OF THE SWISS ALPINE CLUB

WITH 25 ILLUSTRATIONS BY
L. M. CRISP
AND 6 MAPS

T. FISHER UNWIN
LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20
1913

(All rights reserved.)

TO
MY DAUGHTER
ISMAY
HOPING SHE MAY NOT GO FORTH
AND DO LIKEWISE

PREFACE

In 1905, when nearer fifty than forty, had I not been the happy father of a girl of seven I should have had no occasion to write this book. I bought, for her to play with, a pair of small ski in deal, which I remember cost nine francs. For myself I bought a rough pair, on which to fetch and bring her back to shore if the small ship foundered.

No sooner had I equipped myself, standing, as a Newfoundland dog, on the brink of the waves, ready to rescue a child from snow peril, than I was born again into a ski-runner.

Since, I have devoted some of my spare time to revisiting—in winter—the passes and peaks of Switzerland.

The bringing of the ski to Switzerland ushered in the “New Mountaineering,” of which a few specimens seek in these pages the favour of the general public.

The reader may notice that I never spell “ski” with an s in the plural, because it is quite unnecessary. One may stand on one ski, and one may stand on both ski. The s adds nothing to intelligibility.

Nor do I ever pronounce ski otherwise than I write it. There is in ski the k that appears in skipper and in skiff. Though cultured Germans say Schiff and Schiffer, the k sound of ski is quite good Norse. It has been preserved in the French esquif, of same origin.

The i should be pronounced long as in “tree.”

So let us always say s-k-ee and write ski for both numbers.

Saas-Fee.
August 14, 1912.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

Ski-Runs in the High Alps

CHAPTER I
SKI-RUNNING IN THE HIGH ALPS

The different ski-ing zones—Their characteristics and dangers—The glaciers as ski-ing grounds—The ski-running season—Inverted temperature—The conformation of winter snow—Precautionary measures—Glacier weather—Rock conditions—Weather reports—Guides and porters.

In a chapter like this, a writer on the High Alps may well abstain from poetical or literary developments. His subject is best handled as a technical sport, and personal experience should alone be drawn upon for its illustration.

Little more than ten years have elapsed since men with a knowledge of summer mountaineering began to explore the Alps in winter. Not only are the successes, which have almost invariably attended the winter exploration of the Swiss ice-fields, full of instruction for the novice, but also the accidents and misfortunes which, sad to say, ended in loss of life or limb, have conveyed useful lessons.

In this chapter the writer has nothing in view but to be practical and pointed. His remarks must be taken to apply exclusively to the Alps. He has no knowledge of any other ski-ing field, and is conversant with no other experience but that gained in the Alps by himself and members of the Swiss ski-ing clubs, which count in their membership thousands of devotees.

It is necessary to distinguish the zones of meadow land and cultivated fields, forest land, cattle grazings, and rocks.

In the forest zone the snow presents no danger except, perhaps, in sharply inclined clearings where its solidity is not sufficiently assured either by the nature of the underlying ground or by the presence of trees growing closely together at the foot of the incline.

Above the forest belt the zone of pastures is a favourite ski-ing ground. This zone is wind-swept, sunburnt during the day, and under severe frost at night. As a general rule, it may be laid down that snow accumulated in winter on the grazings frequented by cows in summer affords a safe and reliable ski-ing ground, at any rate in all parts where the cows are in the habit of standing. When in doubt, the ski-runner should ask himself: Are cows, as I know them, likely to feel comfortable when standing on this slope in summer? If an affirmative answer can be given in a bona-fide manner, the slope is not dangerous.

Alpine grazing lands being selected for the convenience of cows, they are almost throughout well adapted to ski-runners. It is, of course, understood that gorges, ravines, and steep declivities will be avoided by Swiss cows just as much as by those of any other nationality. The ski-runner should leave those parts of the grazing alone on which a herd would not be allowed to roam by its shepherds.

The deepest and heaviest Alpine snows lie on the grazings, and the avalanches that occur there in spring are of the heaviest type and cover the most extensive areas. These are spring avalanches. They are regular phenomena, and it is totally unnecessary to expect them in midwinter.

Above the grazings begin the rocks. They are either towering rocks and walls, or else they lie broken up on slopes in varying sizes. In the latter case the snow that may cover them is quite safe, provided the points of those rocks be properly buried. As a rule, wherever there is a belt or wall of solid rock above a grazing (which is practically the case in every instance when it is not a wood), the loose stones at the foot of the rocks give complete solidity to the snow surface resting on them. The danger arises from the rocks towering aloft. If these are plastered over with loose snow, the snow may come down at any moment on the lower ground. One should not venture under such rocks till the snow that may have gathered in the couloirs has come down or is melted away.

Avalanches are a matter belonging more particularly to snow conditions in the grazing areas, but they need not to any degree be looked upon as characteristic of this area. Their cause has to be sought in the weather, that is in the rise and fall of the temperature, and in the wind. There is quite a number of slopes at varying angles, where it is impossible that the snow surface should be well balanced under all weather conditions, and these are the slopes where mishaps do occur. The easiest method to avoid accidents is to keep on obviously safe ground, and it is also on such ground that the best and most steady running can be got.

The glaciers of Switzerland are a magnificent and absolutely unrivalled ski-ing ground.

The months appointed by natural circumstances for ski-running in the High Alps are the months of January and February. This period may quite well be taken to include the whole month of March and the last days in December.

There are reasons for excluding the first three weeks in December, and the last three in April.

In night temperature, but in night temperature only, the passing from summer to winter, upwards of 9,000 feet may indeed be said to have fully taken place long before the end of the year. This passage is marked by the regular freezing at night of all moisture, and by the regular freezing over of all surfaces on which moisture is deposited by day. Still, the first fall of a general layer of snow, which will last throughout the winter on the high levels, may be much delayed. Till that first layer has covered the high ground, the ski-runner’s winter has not begun.

THE WILDSTRUBEL HUT.

To face p. 21.

The first general snowfall, if it mark the beginning of the ski-runner’s winter, does not yet mark the setting in of the ski-running season. For a time, which may extend from November to near the end of December, moisture proceeding from the atmosphere, that is rain and vapours (warm, damp winds), is not without effect at the altitudes which we are considering. Such a damp condition of the air and any risk of rain are quite inconsistent with ski-running. But everybody should know that if such risks must be taken throughout the winter by a ski-runner residing, for instance, at the altitude of Grindelwald, they may practically be neglected by a sportsman whose field of exercise is that to which the Swiss Alpine Club huts afford access.

There, from Christmas to early Easter, the only atmospheric obstacle consists of snowstorms, in which the wind alone is an enemy, while the snow entails an improvement in the conditions of sport each time it falls. The November and December snowfalls prepare the ground for running, and running at those heights is neither safe nor perfect as long as the process goes on. In January and February any snowfall simply improves the floor or keeps up its good condition. It may be taken that during these months the atmosphere is absolutely dry from Tyrol to Mont Blanc above 8,000 feet, and that a so-called wet wind will convey only dry snow. Any moisture or water one may detect will be caused by the heat of the sun melting the ice or the snow. It is a drying, not a wetting, process; it leaves the rocks facing south, south-east, and south-west beautifully dry, and completely clears them, by rapid evaporation, of the early winter snows or of any casual midwinter fall accompanying a storm of wind.

Such are the atmospheric reasons which help to determine the proper ski-running months in the High Alps.

There are others which are still of a meteorological description, but which are connected mainly with the temperature. We shall begin by giving our thought a paradoxical expression as follows: it is a mistake to talk of winter at all in connection with the High Alps. According to the time of year, the weather in the Alps is subjected to general rain conditions or to general snow conditions. Under snow conditions the thermometer falls under zero Centigrade, and the temperature of the air may range from zero to a very low reading; but the sun is extremely powerful, its force is intensified by the reflection from the snow surface. The temperature of the air in the shade is therefore no clue to the temperature of material surfaces exposed to the rays of the sun. The human frame, under suitable conditions of clothing and exercise, feels, and actually is, quite warm in the sun, a violent wind being required to approximate the subjective sensations of the body to those usually associated with a cold, damp, and biting winter’s day.

This is a general characteristic of the Alpine winter, to which must be added an occasional, though perfectly regular, feature, namely, that the Alps may offer, and do offer every winter, instances of inverted temperature. This name is given to periods which may extend over several days at a stretch, and which are repeated several times during the winter months. These are periods during which the constant temperature of the air—that is, the average temperature by night and by day in the shade—is higher upon the heights than in the plains and valleys.

As a general principle, the winter sportsman may be sure that in the proportion in which he rises he also leaves behind him the winter conditions, as defined, in keeping with their own notions and experience by the dwellers on plains, on the seaside, or in valleys. When travelling upwards he reaches a dry air, a hot and bright light, and maybe a higher temperature than prevails in the lower regions of the earth which lie at his feet.

We said a little while ago that in January and February any snowfall improves the floor. In the preceding months the high regions pass gradually from the condition in which they are practicable on foot to those under which they are properly accessible to the ski-runner only. Time must be allowed for the process, and till it is completed ski-running is premature and consequently distinctly dangerous. The Alpine huts should not be used as ski-ing centres before they can be reached on ski, and one should not endeavour to reach them in that manner as long as stones are visible among the snow.

The distinctive feature of the ski-runner’s floor is that it is free from stones and from holes. The stones should be well buried under several feet of snow, and the holes filled up with compressed or frozen snow before the ski-runner makes bold to sally forth, but when they are he may practically go anywhere and dare anything so far as the ground is concerned, provided he is an expert runner and a connoisseur in the matter of avalanches. Of course, our “anywhere” applies to ski-ing grounds only, and our “anything” means mountaineering as restricted to the uses to which ski may fairly be put.

The floor of the ski-runner is a dimpled surface consisting of an endless variety of planes and curves. It is a geometrical surface upon which the ski move like instruments of mensuration that are from two to three yards long. Snowfalls and the winds determine the geometrical character of the field upon which the long rulers are to glide. This, the only true notion of the ski-ing field, means that the detail of the ground has disappeared. It presents a continuity of differently inclined, bent, edged, or curved surfaces, all uniformly geometric in the construction of each. Any attempt at ski-running upon this playground before its engineers and levellers (which are snow and wind) have achieved their work in point of depth, solidity, and extent, is unsporting and perilous.

The continuous figure or design presented by the upper snow-fields of the Alps in January, from end to end of the chain, is broken by prismatic masses, such as cones, pyramids, and peaks, on the sides of which the laws of gravity forbid the establishment by the concourse of natural forces of snow-surfaces accessible with ski. The runner who has been borne by his ski to the foot of those rock masses—such, for instance, as the top of Monte Rosa as it rises from the Sattel—will continue his ascent as a rock-climber. He will probably find the state of the rocks quite as propitious as in summer, and often considerably better.

To sum up, the characteristics of the ski-running season are: stability of weather, constant dryness of the air, a uniform and continuous running surface, windlessness, a constant body temperature from sunrise to sunset, at times a relatively high air temperature, solar light and solar heat, which must not be confused with air temperature and present an intensity, a duration most surprising to the dweller in plains and on the seaboard; last, but not least, accessibility of the rocky peaks with climbing slopes turned to the sun.

A real trouble is the crevasses. The ice-fields form such wide avenues between the peaks bordering them that a ski-runner must be quite a fool if an avalanche finds him within striking distance. But the crevasses are quite another matter. In summer the protection against falling into crevasses is the rope and careful steering between them. In winter mountaineering the ski, properly speaking, take the place of the rope. The longest traverses in the Alps have been performed by unroped ski-runners. At the same time, the usefulness of the rope, in case of an accident actually occurring, cannot be gainsaid, though it cannot be maintained that the rope, which has been known to cause certain accidents in summer, may be called absolutely free from any such liability in winter. Of the use of the rope we therefore say, “Adhuc sub judice lis est.”

There are two golden rules for avoiding a drop into a crevasse: firstly, keep off glaciers or of those parts of any glacier where crevasses are known to be numerous, deep, long, and wide; secondly, if called upon to run over a glacier that is crevassed, use the rope, but use it properly—that is, bring its full length into use, take off your ski, and proceed exactly as you would do in summer by sounding the snow and crossing bridged crevasses one after another. It is absurd to mix summer and winter craft; they are distinct. When the rope is used under winter conditions, let it be exactly according to the best winter practice.

If going uphill you find yourself landed on ice, take off your ski and gain a footing on the ice by means of the heavy nails on your boots. Never attempt glacier work with unnailed boots or short, light bamboo sticks. If any accident happens suddenly to your ski you are helpless and hopeless without nails; you probably will not have time to take your climbing irons off your rucksack and bind them on to your feet.

Accidents to ski generally happen when one is on the move on difficult and dangerous ground. It is absurd to expect that the difficulty or danger will abate while you take off your rucksack, sit down, and strap on your climbing irons. Remember that you are on the move and that your impetus will carry you on, if not immediately checked by nails gripping the ice. That, too, is the reason why a short, light bamboo will not do; it is a fine-weather weapon and quite the thing on easy snows. On rough ground you want something with a substantial iron point, a weapon of some weight and strength which can support your body and help in seeing you home should your ski be injured. A good runner would never put his stick to unfair uses, such as riding and leaning back.

If on going downhill you find yourself landed on ice, the essential thing is to be able to keep on your feet first, to your course next. A stout stick with a sharp point will then be sorely needed, and if you have been careful to fasten on to your ski-blades an appliance against skidding or side-slip, you will find it much easier to steer and keep to your course. On the whole, it is wiser on iced surfaces which are steep—and these are generally not extensive—to carry one’s ski.

There ought to be an ice-axe in the party, but this ice-axe should be carried by a professional and used by him. Nobody can cut steps or carry safely an ice-axe without some apprenticeship, and this it is impossible to go through in severe winter weather.

The principal glacier routes of Switzerland have been proved over and over again to be free from any particular risk or danger arising from winter conditions. The ratio of risk is the same as in summer. Consequently, select the best known routes, which are also the most beautiful and ski-able. Take with you, as porters and servants rather than guides, men who have frequently gone over those routes in winter with some Swiss runner of experience. This is important, because many guides, particularly the most approved summer guides, are creatures of routine, and will take you quite obdurately along the summer routes, step for step and inch after inch. Now, this is wrong and may lead to danger. The ski-runner must dominate the snow slopes. His place is on the brow, or rather on the coping, not at the foot of the slopes along which the summer parties generally crawl.

When going uphill for several hours consecutively, as it is necessary to do in order to reach the Alpine huts, an artificial aid against slipping back is indispensable. When going uphill the ski support the weight of the runner and keep his feet on, or above, the snow. But they do not distinguish between regressive and progressive locomotion. The whole of the work of progression falls upon the human machinery. Under those conditions the strain put on the muscles by continuous or repeated backsliding is objectionable. The use of a mechanical contrivance is made imperative by the steepness of the slopes and their great length.

Another point is that when running downhill, say, from the Monte-Rosa Sattel to the Bétemps hut, it is never advisable to pick out the shortest and quickest route, which means the steepest run possible. High Alp ski-running demands the choice of the longest course consistent with steady progress and with an unbroken career along a safe line of advance. The watchword of the good runner will always be—at those heights and distances where so much that is ahead must remain problematical—move onward on curves, so as to approach any obstacle by means of a bend, admitting of an inspection of the obstacle, if it is above the surface, before you are upon it, and which, if it is the running surface which presents a break, even a concealed one, will prevent your hurling yourself headlong into the trap.

OBERGABELHORN, FROM DENT BLANCHE.

To face p. 29.

The influence of wintry weather upon exposed and lofty rock pinnacles is practically the same as that of summer weather, but still more so, if such a paradoxical way of expressing oneself can be made clear. At the height of 10,000 feet above the sea-level and upwards the winter weather is glacier weather. This is not the weather that prevails in the depth of the Swiss valleys or on the Swiss tableland. The snowfall upon the glaciers is not so great as one might expect. The snow that does fall there is dry, light, powdery, and wind-driven. Those characteristics are such that only some slight proportion of the snow driven across the glacier actually remains there. Most of it is carried along and accumulates wherever it can settle down—that is, elsewhere than on wind-swept surfaces.

The winter sun is so powerful that it very soon clears the high ridges from a kind of snow that is in itself little suited to adhere to their steep, rocky sides. Therefore the position is as follows: the ski-runner can gain access to the peaks with great ease. The so-called Bergschrunde, in French rimaie, are closed up, and the rocks towering above are practically just as climbable as in summer, with the help of the same implements too—rope, ice-axe, and if one likes, climbing-irons.

The start is made much later in the morning, but, on the other hand, one need not be over-anxious as to getting to one’s night quarters by sunset. Running on ski at night over a course that has been travelled over in the morning, and therefore perfectly recognisable and familiar, is, in clear weather, as pleasant as it is easy. That is why the ascent of a rocky peak is, to my mind, an object which a ski-runner who does not take a one-sided view of sport will gladly keep in view.

The risk of frost-bite may be greater than in summer, in so far as the temperature of the air is much lower. But the air being, as a rule, extremely dry and the heat of the sun intense, the full benefit of this extraordinary dryness and of this heat really puts frost-bite out of the question in fine weather, provided rocks are attacked from the southern or south-west aspect, or even south-east. It is quite easy to wear thick gloves and to put one’s feet away in thick and warm woollen material. But no attempt whatever should be made at rock climbing under dull skies, let alone when the weather is actually bad. It must also be added that bad health, exhaustion, indigestion, nervousness, and such like are, of all things, the most conducive to frost-bite.

The thermometer may mark in January, above the tree-line, and still more among rocks, as much as 40 degrees Centigrade at midday in the sun. This is not the air temperature, as in the shade the same thermometer will soon drop to zero Centigrade or less. But anybody who has experienced the wonderful glow of those winter suns on the highest peaks of Switzerland will be careful that he does not bring them into disrepute by visiting them when he himself is not fit or when they are out of humour. In any case, people who go about on ski with feet and hands insufficiently clad may well be expected to take the consequences.

The foregoing lines bring us quite naturally to consideration of the weather. The first principle to be borne in mind is that weather in the High Alps is quite distinct from weather anywhere else. The only authentic information at any time about the impending weather in the Alpine area is that given day by day by the Swiss Central Meteorological Office in Zürich. This report, and accompanying forecast, is published in all the important daily papers, such as the Journal de Genève, the Gazette de Lausanne, the Bund, &c. The figures are of less importance than the notes on wind, air-pressure, and the description in ordinary language which comments upon the more scientific data. Those reports should be consulted, and should be posted up by every hotel keeper.

Weather is not uniform throughout Switzerland. The driest area runs along the backbone of the Alps from the lake of Geneva to the lake of Constance, along the Canton du Valais and the Canton des Grisons. Chances of steady, fine weather are consequently greater in those valleys than elsewhere. The driest spot in Switzerland is Sierre. The High Alps, which are of most interest to the ski-runner, are also the part of Switzerland which presents the largest proportion of fine sunny days in the winter months.

The tableland, extending from the lake of Geneva to Bâle and Constance along the Rhine, and bounded on the south-east by the lakes of Thoune and Brienz, Lucerne, and the Wallensee, may remain for weeks together under a sea of fog, resting at the height of about a thousand feet above the surface of the ground. As long as those fog areas, which are generally damp and cold, are curtained from the rays of the sun, the canopy of fog acts as a huge reflector for the sun rays which impinge upon it from above. Provided there is no wind (and the Alps may be windless for days and weeks at a time) the rays, reflected back into space from the fog surface, heat very considerably the layers of air above, while the air imprisoned below remains cold. The winter snows themselves, by a similar process of reflection, generate a great deal of heat of the kind which a human body perceives, and in which the mountaineer is fond of basking.

The long Jura range, extending from the lake of Geneva to Bâle along the French border, shares in the Alpine climate, though in a somewhat rougher form.

The conclusion is that in Switzerland the weather conditions, to mention these alone, are extremely favourable to the ski-runner. In the matter of space at his disposal there are in Switzerland, on the slopes of either the Alps or the Jura, generally above the forest belt, three thousand grazings for cattle, every one of which is a ski-ing area. Only a very small number have hitherto been frequented by the ski-runner. Yet last winter three thousand pairs of ski were sold by one firm alone, and it is reckoned that the number fitted and sold last winter (1911-12) in Switzerland exceeds forty thousand.

Swiss guides hitherto have been trained and engaged only for summer work. Consequently their efficiency on ski is in every instance a personal acquirement, and their knowledge of their duties under winter conditions is simply consequent upon their summer training or derived from their own native knowledge of winter conditions, without the addition of any instruction. If one wishes to engage guides for winter work the best guarantee is that the guide belong to a local ski club, and should have attended, if possible, one or several ski courses before he is considered fit to accompany amateur ski-ing parties.

Another point is that guides in winter must be prepared to act as porters. It is in the nature of running on ski that the runner will hardly ever find himself in a position to call for individual assistance, and the routes he will frequent are of necessity routes which, from the mountaineering point of view, are easy and not suited to give great prominence to the qualities of a guide in the strict and recognised meaning of the term. What the amateur ski-runner particularly wants is a hardy and willing companion who will carry the victuals for him and is wise enough to employ his influence in turning the ski-runner away from any dangerous ground, and to pick out the best and safest lines across country. Guides holding a diploma should not be paid more for winter work than they are allowed to claim in summer under the established rates of payment.

CHAPTER II
WITH SKI TO THE DIABLERETS

First Ascent.—The Bear inn at Gsteig—The young Martis—Superstitions—The rights of guides.

Second Ascent.—The composition of the caravan—Odd symptoms—Winter amusements on the glacier—A broken ankle—The salvage operations—On accidents—My juvenile experience—A broken limb on the Jaman.

Third Ascent.—The Marti family—The Synagogue once more—An old porter—We are off.

It has been three times my lot to lay the flat of my ski across the brow of the Diablerets. This in itself would be of but little interest had not a trifling incident occurred each time which may be related with more animation than the ascents can be described.

1. In the month of January, 19—, at a time when the ascent of the Diablerets had not yet been attempted on ski, I marched early in the day out of the slumbering Bahnhof hotel at Gstaad, with a full rucksack on my back and rattled through the village on my ski along the ice-bound main street.

The sun had not yet risen when I knocked at the door of the Bear hotel at Gsteig and presented to the frowsy servant who appeared on the doorstep a face and head so hung about with icicles and hoar-frost that she started back as though Father Christmas had come unbidden.

When she had sufficiently recovered herself, I inquired of her whether she knew of any man in the village who would accompany me to the top of the Diablerets. She looked so puzzled that I hastened to explain that by man I did not mean a guide, but any one who might be foolish enough to enter upon such an expedition with a complete stranger advanced in years. A mere boy would do, provided he could cook soup and could produce a pair of ski with which to follow his employer.

Two lads offered themselves; the brothers Victor and Ernest Marti, sons of an old guide. At first they understood no more of the business than that a gentleman had arrived with whom there was some chance of casual employment. When I had made my intention plain to them, they jumped at my purpose with the eagerness of their age. They had ski which they had made themselves, but was the ascent possible? Anyhow, if I wanted one of them only, he certainly would not go without the other, and when I tackled the other to see whether he would not come alone, they might have been Siamese twins for aught I could do to separate them alive. They went to their mamma, who raised her hands to heaven and would have put them into the fire to rescue her darlings from my dangerous clutches.

In the end the boys, dare-devils much against their wish, sallied forth loaded with ropes, ice-axes, and other cumbersome paraphernalia, among which it would be unfair to reckon their mother’s blessings and their father’s warnings. Indeed, in their sight I was an evil one, bent upon sundry devilries in an ice-bound world. But for the halo thrown for them about my undertaking by the prospect of the beautiful gold pieces to be gained, they would rather have committed me alone to the mercy of the ice fiends.

Lusty of limb, though with quaking hearts, they had no sooner slipped on their ski than their fears were dispelled. They flew to and fro on the snow like gambolling puppies. Who would have thought they bore on their backs a pack that would have curbed the ardour of any ordinary person? They were already prepared in their minds to become Swiss soldiers a few months later, when they would carry, in equipment and arms, more than weighed their present guides’ attire.

Guides, by the way, they were not, but hoped to be some day, when they were soldiers. I discovered that, meanwhile, besides working at the saw-mill, they played the part of local bandsmen. From Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day they had shared as fiddlers in the mummeries, revels, and dances of the season. They had conceived thereby much thirst, as was soon made clear by the flagging of their spirits, and by the loving way in which they bent down to the snow, pressed it between their hands like a dear, long, unbeheld face and kissed it. When they were refreshed their tongues were once more loosened.

We were drawing nearer to the Diablerets. The overhanging rocks seemed to arch themselves threateningly over our heads, and if the young men now spoke glibly, it was with a tremble in their voices and about their renewed fears. It is not without reason that Diablerets and devilry are cognate sounds in languages so distant from each other as the Romance patois of the Vaudois Alps and the gentle speech of the Thames Valley.

Like the remainder of Christian Europe, those valleys shared once upon a time in the Catholic faith, and this had wonderfully commingled the early and earthly beliefs of our kind with the teachings of Divinity. Free-thinkers in the Protestant sense of the word, those boys, creeping under the shadow of the cliffs up to the snowy vastness above, saw welling up from the depths of their minds, as in a mirror, the images of the strange beings with which the rude fancy of the peasantry peoples those upper reaches of the Alps which they call the Evil Country. But on that day nothing came of those forebodings.

On the next morning, after a night spent in complete freedom from haunting ghosts, my boys hesitated a moment before rounding the shoulder of the Oldenhorn. The Zan Fleuron glacier opened up just beyond. This was the known Synagogue, or meeting place of the spirits. They dreaded to see what they might see there if they turned the corner before the arrows of light-bearing Apollo had scattered the night mists of Hecate.

Suddenly the sun broke and poured forth in floods upon a world springing up innocently from the folds of sleep. My lads felt saved by glad day.

But, if they went through this first expedition without suffering injury from the spirits, they were less fortunate in their dealings with myself. They had allowed themselves to be drawn into a temptation for which they were yet to undergo punishment; namely, they had, for gold, disregarded the rules of the Bernese corporation of guides. It is a salutary regulation of that honourable guild that none who is not an officially certificated guide shall accompany alone a gentleman in the district. Now, a terrible thing had happened. Two young men, neither of whom was a certificated guide, had accompanied a gentleman in the district. Indeed, the mother of the boys must in the end be proved to be right in her mistrust. That gentleman had induced her boys to make light of the fundamental rule of local etiquette as to keeping off the Zan Fleuron beat entirely reserved for the spirits from All Souls’ Day to Easter Sunday, and, in addition, he was getting them into trouble with the police.

One or two months later I was busily and peacefully engaged in my study when a member of the Geneva detective force was ushered in. I started up. What could be the matter?

The gentleman then explained politely that I was wanted somewhere in the Canton de Berne. What for? It could be no light matter.

Now I knew—by repute, rather than by personal experience—that justice in Berne is extremely rough and even handed. I said I would rather appear before a Geneva judge. On repairing to the courts, I was informed that the brothers Marti were summoned at Saanen for palming themselves off as guides upon an unwary gentleman of uncertain age and feeble complexion. They had preyed upon his weak mind and enthusiasm to drag him in midwinter up to the top of the Diablerets, exposing his body to grave risks, and his soul to the resentment of the fairies, and thus indirectly infringing a privilege which certificated guides alone enjoyed, to the exclusion of the remainder of man and womankind.

Reassured on my own behalf, I at once became “cocky” and proceeded to prick that legal bubble and take the guiding corporation down a few pegs. I solemnly swore before the judge—in presence of the clerk who took my words down with forced gravity—that I had engaged Victor Marti as lantern-bearer to the elderly Diogenes I actually was, and his brother Ernest to act for me as crossing-sweeper over the Zan Fleuron glacier, because I expected there might be some snow, and it is bad for old men to have cold feet.

I have since heard that the two boys got off that time without a stain on their character.

I say that time, because this trouble is not the last I got them into. But this is another tale, and will appear hereafter.

2. My second ascent of the Diablerets was somewhat tragic—this, too, in January, and in pursuit of the magnificent ski-run which one gets down the Zan Fleuron glacier to the Sanetsch pass, and back to Gsteig.

The brothers Marti were again with me. The eldest was now a certificated guide, and had thus acquired the legal right to take his brother with him when escorting strangers in the mountains.

On that occasion there were some strangers, mostly English, in the party. One of them was a young and able runner on ski, another was an elderly member of “the” Alpine Club, in whose breast a love for ski was born late in life, probably in the same years when I myself fell a victim to that infatuation. The third stranger of British blood need not for the nonce be otherwise presented to the reader than in a spiritual garb as a vision. He—or rather she—will appear in the flesh when a ministering angel is called for in the disastrous scene yet to be enacted, when the kind apparition will flutter down as unexpectedly as the goblins pop up through the soft white carpet, under which they have their homes in the comfortable cracks designed for them by the glacier architect.

This caravan went up the usual way, in the usual manner, above the Pillon pass. Near the end of the day, and at sunset, one of us was suddenly seen to curl up and roll in the snow. The next moment he was back at his place again, with his rucksack on his shoulder, ice-axe in hand, and with his ski under his feet, as if nothing had happened. Yet we had all seen him curl up and roll down. And here he was again, spick and span, like one of those tourists carved in wood which are offered for sale at Interlaken or Lucerne. The Marti brothers looked at me queerly.

They were, indeed, thankful I had got them unscathed out of the police court. In spite of parental advice, they had come again with me on that account. But this was beyond a joke. However, they went on, exchanging among themselves their own remarks, wondering whose sticks, ski, and rucksack would next be seen flying in opposite directions.

But nothing happened during the night. The next morning the brothers Marti, heading our column, wended their way carefully, as before, to the corner of the Oldenhorn, and peered cautiously round. It was still dark. From this place it is usual before dawn to catch a glimpse of the gnomes. They are impervious to cold. Being of an origin infernal in some degree, they naturally delight in the coolness of winter nights, and their eyes being habitually scorched by the flames that blaze in the bowels of the glacier, they much enjoy the soothing caress of the moonbeams.

On that morning—since there is a morning even to an evil day—the gnomes were still engaged in their after midnight game of skittles. They plant their mark on the edge of the glacier, above the cliffs which drop down clear on to the Derborence grazings. Their bowls are like enormous curling-stones hewn out of the ice. When the gnomes miss their aim—which in their love of mischief they like to do—the ice blocks fly over the edge of the rock parapet, and crash down upon the grazings. In summer the shepherds endeavour to meet this calamity by prayer. In winter it is of no consequence.

But what was of consequence is that we had no business on the glacier while the night sprites were still holding Synagogue. This the brothers Marti knew, and that woe was in store for us on that account. But all went well with us, to all appearances.

We left our baggage at the foot of the Diablerets peak, and, on our ski, pushed merrily along to the summit. We lunched, and enjoyed the view, like any ordinary mortals, ignorant of having challenged Fate.

Then down we went, curving and circling over the glacier, crossing unawares the place of the Synagogue. A gnome, crouching somewhere on the edge of a crevasse, lay in wait for us, hiding behind a heap of carefully hoarded curling-stones. The deadly weapons began gliding about. The brothers Marti were proof against them, being involuntary offenders. The head of the party could not be struck, being of the sceptical kind. The young Englishman jumped about, being ever safe in the air when the gliding missile came his way. But the member of “the” Alpine Club suffered the fate all were courting. His fibula was snapped.

Then nothing was seen but a man lying down in pain upon a beautifully white snow-field. The evil spot was clad in the garb of innocence. The sky spread above in a blue vaulted canopy, such as Madonnas are pictured against. One of the poor offending mortals lay low, expiating the fault of all. Would the sacrifice be accepted?

Yes. Amid the scene of temple-like beauty, charity—it might have been the Madonna or a simple Ice Maid—appeared in human shape amid the effulgence of midday, in the opportune costume of a hospital nurse.

SPORT ON THE ZAN FLEURON GLACIER.

To face p. 42.

With such help, the moment to be absolutely practical came. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. We were still on the glacier as high as we could be. Whether we retraced our footsteps or glided on, the distance was the same to Gsteig, where the Pillon and Sanetsch passes join together. Luckily the weather was fine, the air quite warm and still. I despatched Victor Marti, the better runner of the two, down the Sanetsch to Gsteig. His orders were to summon by telegraph a medical man from Gstaad to Gsteig, with instructions there to await our arrival, and to come provided with splints for the crippled man.

This young winged Mercury received another message to convey. It was to send forthwith a team of four men to the top of the Sanetsch pass. He himself was to bring back to the pass eatables, drinkables, and blankets. It was, indeed, impossible to tell whether we should not be kept out in the wilderness the whole night. In such places at that time of the year, the wind, in rising, might be attended by the worst consequences to human life.

We had before us many, many miles to be travelled over, across hill and dale, in deep snow, conveying on foot a helpless man, whom immobility would expose to serious risks while out in the open during the night hours.

Our messenger carried out his instructions with the utmost rapidity and punctuality. His ski carried him swiftly over many miles of snow to the wooded confines of the Sanetsch pass. He hailed two wood-cutters, and sent them straight up to the top of the pass, as a forward relief party. They got there some time after sunset, while Victor Marti continued on his way down into the valley to complete his task.

As for those left behind, they had in prospect a six-mile trudge before they could reach the pass. No question of continuing on ski. Our sister of mercy wanted them all to accommodate the wounded man. On the glacier the snow was not so deep that the hard, icy, under-surface could not support our footsteps, but as we proceeded lower our plight got worse. A ski-runner who, on deep snow, has to give up the use of his ski, is very much like a sailor upon a small craft in mid-ocean. Suppose the boat capsizes, the sailor may swim. But for how long? Similarly, a ski-runner bereft of his ski amid boundless, pathless snow-fields, may walk. But for how long? Snow is a good servant, but a bad master.

Most people who have not found it out for themselves do not know that snow gets deeper and deeper as you descend from the glaciers into the valleys. After we had reached the pass we would still have to climb by night down the Sanetsch gorge. This manifold task was about to fall to the lot of a party in which everybody, except one, was new to winter work. They were, besides, totally unacquainted with night conditions. The ministering angel dropped from heaven, too, was one who, strange to say, had never yet been sent to Switzerland on an errand of mercy. Besides, her task grew so upon her that the discharge of it made her more and more human, and in the end she experienced in herself all the inconveniences of being the possessor of a material body.

With the help of puttees we tied the inert limb to one ski. The other ski of the same pair supported the intact leg. We cut our ski-sticks into lengths, split them down the middle, and making cross-bars of them we fixed the ski to one another. Thus was the stretcher or shutter made. We had nails, fortunately, and plenty of cord.

A stretcher, however, cannot be carried in deep snow up hill and down dale. We now required a sleigh. To build one we laid down on the snow, carefully and side by side, three pairs of ski, binding them together with straps, and thereupon we laid the shutter on which was tied the wounded man.

Would this improvised sleigh run on the snow? By means of his rope Ernest Marti yoked himself to the front of it. Head down, shoulders bent, he gave a pull. His feet broke through the crust of snow and he sank in up to the waist. To this there was no remedy. He would plunge at each step, and, recovering himself, breathless and quivering, he would start afresh.

Each time he got off the victim of our accident received a jerk that threw him back, for we had not the wherewithal to make a support for his shoulders. To obviate this very serious trouble, we fitted an empty rucksack to his back, and pulled tightly the straps over his shoulders and across his chest. The young Englishman and myself walked then on each side of him. Holding him by means of the shoulder straps, we checked the back thrusts to which he was exposed, and kept him upright from the waist.

Thus our caravan proceeded on its way, our pockets stuffed with the remaining bits of our ski, with which we might be glad to light a fire that night in some deserted shepherds’ hut.

The charity dame walked alongside of us, cheering with her smile the sad hero of this melancholy adventure. What a picture it would have made if only one of us had had the heart to photograph it!

Night was creeping on. The snows turned dark and gloomy, still we were drawing near to the pass and had no sooner reached it than two burly figures rose up before us. They smiled, and laid hold of the guiding-rope which Ernest Marti, exhausted, threw to them. They had appeared in the nick of time to save us from spending the night up there. From that moment, turning to the north, we were able to continue to the top of the Sanetsch gorge without a stop.

The stars had long been glittering overhead when we were able to look down into the gorge across to Gsteig. The village was all agog. Lanterns were creeping about like glow-worms. Some appeared at time amid the woods, flitting from place to place like fire-flies. The other two men, ordered up by Victor Marti, now showed their lights quite near us. And then began the last stage in our salvage operations.

The Sanetsch gorge was as a vast, curved sheet of ice. Its northern exposure and the night air had done their work. It would not be possible to convey a man reclining on a stretcher down the steep windings of the mule path. The rescuing party soon hit upon the only practicable scheme. The patient was removed from his splints, poles, straps, and bindings, and set across the back of a powerful highland man. Ernest Marti took my Lucifer lamp and placed himself in front to light up the way. Two men stood immediately behind the human pack-mule. The group thus formed launched itself down into the gorge, each man depending for security upon the rough crampons driven into his shoe leather. All’s well that ends well. The doctor was found waiting at Gsteig.

It is now his turn to take up the cue, but we do not vouch that he will satisfy the reader’s curiosity, should we by any chance have left him with any curiosity to satisfy. I hope we may, because our third ascent of the Diablerets still awaits him.

This was not the first mountaineering misadventure I found myself mixed up with. Moreover, it was an accident, the memory of which I do not particularly relish. I am afraid I smarted visibly under it, and showed my personal disappointment. This may have conveyed to some the impression of some unfairness on my part.

Has the reader ever noticed how different is the attitude of the public mind towards accidents on land and on sea? Why should mountaineering accidents be less sympathetically received than those befalling sailors? It is, however, not unnatural that the sea should be more congenial, and command forgiveness by its grandeur. It teaches charity by the immensity in which it drops the cruel dramas enacted upon its surface.

When casualties occur in mountaineering, even those concerned appear to make efforts to single out somebody on whom to fasten the blame. Some people’s vanity is bent upon discerning the wisdom, or unwisdom, of one or another of their companions. If a boat goes down a respectful silence is allowed to dwell alike around the survivors and those lost. But shall we ever, for instance, hear the end of the merits or demerits of each concerned in the accident that befell the Whymper party, in 1865, on the Matterhorn?

When a climbing party comes to grief, it is as an additional course for the menu of the table d’hôtes: a dainty morsel for busybodies, quidnuncs, and experts alike. The critical spirit grows ungenerous in that atmosphere. The victims of the Alp were tempting Fate; one knows exactly what mistake they made; so-and-so was altogether foolish in ——, and so forth. With such more or less competent remarks, the fullest mead of admiration is blended. This, too, be it added with the utmost appreciation of a kind disposition, does not go without some admixture of silliness.

I should prefer, even now, to leave all accidents in an atmosphere of romance. It is best to meet with them when one is young. The tender spots in one’s nature are then nearer the surface, and the vein of chivalry more easily struck. The flutter and excitement of a rescue are then delightful. One would almost wish for accidents elsewhere than in day-dreams for the sake of dramatic emotion.

The accidents, however, arranged in the flights of my imagination were weak in one respect. They were egotistic. The brilliant part of a quixotic rescuer fell regularly to me. Let me give the reader an instance from real life before I take him for the third time up the Diablerets.

The thing occurred in a Byronic spot. In this place in my book it will detach itself as a spring-flower against the snow and ice background which all these chapters have in common.

Was I in my “teens,” like “her,” or not quite so green, or much greener? The question arouses some vague twinges of wounded vanity. But I consult in vain the tablets of my memory. They are now as illegible in many places as old churchyard stones. If I then believed I had grounds for jealousy, I could not now trust myself to say with truth that they were genuine.

My resentment fastened upon a rival. I withdrew proudly to the recesses of the hills, as it is recorded by romantic lore that even males of the dumb creation are in the habit of doing when baffled in desire and injured in self-esteem.

But as, a few days later, I lay lazily stretched out at full length on the tender pasture grass of the Plan de Jaman, viewing at my feet the scene of my sentimental déconvenue, I do not wish the reader to paint for himself the picture of an angry bull pawing the ground and snorting for revenge, though the number of cows grazing about and the multitudinous tinkling of the bells might well suggest such a classical impersonation.

The view over the lake was pure, crystal-like through a moist, shiny air. Rain had fallen during the night over Glion and the bay of Montreux. The long grass on the steep pastures of Caux was tipped with fresh snow. It lay here and there in melting patches, and every blade of grass had its trickle of water.

Seated on my knapsack for dryness, I was comfortably munching some bread and chocolate when discordant and husky cries burst upon me from behind. The sound was more grotesque than pathetic.

On looking round there hove in sight a suit of fashionable clothes, which seemed to betray the presence of a man. They were mud-bespattered and stained green with grass. A scared and besmirched face stood forth from above them, marked with what looked like dried-up daubs of blood. From that dreadfully burlesque and woebegone countenance issued the affrighted Red Indian cries which had startled my ears. Dear me, how un-Byronic all this!

My feelings grew more sympathetic to that vision—and that, in a sense particularly exhilarating to myself—when in the soiled, distracted fashion-plate I recognised my successful rival. His language became immediately an intelligible speech for me, and when he blurted out a familiar name he won a friend, if not to himself at least to his plight, which was coming to me as a splendid opportunity. Too dazed to be aware of the true identity of his audience, he confessed to having lost his way with “her” that very morning on the Jaman grazings. Their house-shoes had literally melted away in the wet, slippery grass and been torn to shreds on the rocks. Famished, thirsty, exposed to the beating rays of the midday sun, his presence of mind had deserted him. They had fallen together over a wall of rock. “Where, oh where?” shouted I.

FROM THE DENT BLANCHE, LOOKING WEST.

To face p. 50.

The wretch could not tell. His mind was a blank. He had run thus far, but knew not whence, and looked round vacantly for a clue. Exhausted, he tumbled down upon the turf. To him it had fallen to do the mischief. I was to repair it....

But was the repairing still within human power? My eyes travelled anxiously up and down the hangs of the Dent de Jaman. By what end should I begin my search? Had the accident occurred in the wooded parts screened over by a growth through which I could not see?

I began a systematic search at one end of the battlefield, as would have done a party of stretcher-bearers, Red Cross men, clearing the ground of the wounded and dead. I called out at regular intervals the name of the object of my search. No reply. Her companion looked on disconsolately from afar. An hour passed, two hours. Then at last, at one end of the wooded slope, hidden away in a gorge of minute dimensions, I came upon an apparently lifeless figure partly reclining on a moss bank with a foot hanging out from a torn muslin dress over a running stream of snow water. The faint had lasted long. But for the tears in her dress she looked as though she had quietly fallen asleep. When I took her up in my arms, my touch seemed to re-animate her, evidently because it caused her some pain. Then she came back to life more fully, and gradually realised how the situation accounted for my presence. She was suffering from a broken leg. I carried her down to Les Avants.

The reader would expect to hear that this adventure bound together again the broken threads of love. Not so. The story did not end as in the case of a friend of mine who happened to be at the right moment in command of a column of artillery moving along the Freiburg high road.

A carriage and pair with several ladies in it was being driven up from behind. The horses took fright and bolted down a side lane. My friend galloped up, cut the traces of the horses with his sword, while the affrighted driver just managed to put on the brakes. On further approaches being made from both sides, it turned out that the carriage contained the material appointed by Fate to make a wife for him.

I believe that in my case so much emotional force got vent in bringing the work of rescue to a successful issue, that none was left over to nurse the flower of love to fruition. My personal feeling became as a part of my obligations to humanity. Dissolved into chivalry and quixotry, its subtle essence was lost in so broad a river and swept away to the sea.

3. It is not a far cry from the Dent de Jaman back to the Diablerets. At the end of March, 1910, I set out with Monsieur Kurz, of Neuchâtel, to be avenged on the ill-luck which had marred the January trip.

The name of Mr. Marcel Kurz will appear repeatedly under my pen in this volume. I made his acquaintance years ago on the occasion of a political speech. I was only too glad, after a night spent in public talk and conviviality, to throw off the fumes of oratory and post-prandial cordiality. In this a lot of keen young ski-runners agreed with me. Among them was Marcel Kurz, son of Louis Kurz, the eminent maker of the map of the Mont Blanc range. He has since accompanied me on several expeditions, the first of which was planned on that day, while practising side by side Christiania and Telemark swings in friendly emulation. Some of the photograph reproductions which adorn these pages were made from snapshots taken by him. Not having yet become acquainted with the Diablerets range in winter, he accompanied me there in 1910 with our old friends, the brothers Marti. These were dienstbereit, which, being put in English, would read: Ready for service, which guides and soldiers ever are.

But were they as free from their ancient fears as they were willing to undergo fresh trials? I might well have my doubts when, this time, their father expressed a desire to see me before his boys acquiesced. The accident which attended our last expedition had left its mark in the minds of the people. The man with the broken leg had unfortunately hobbled about so long, on crutches, all over the country side, that this sight had rudely shaken the confidence which they were beginning to repose in me, as bringing into the country fresh means of earning a little money during the winter months.

The old Marti lady, particularly, whose heart had no eye—if this is not an Irish bull—for economic advantages that ran counter to the conservative character of her domestic affections, watched me wickedly from her doorstep, while her husband interviewed me in the village street. Here we stood, with the villagers round us, looking a picture truly symbolic.

An old father, clothed in authority by his age and experience, the preserver of the traditions of the past in his house, as in the village community, and bearing within himself the true doctrine of the guiding corporation; his sons, with their minds in that half-open condition which is that of so many young peasants of the present day, when they may be compared, without thereby losing anybody’s esteem, to oysters opening to the sunlight the shells out of which they cannot grow; the mother, anxious for those nurtured at her breast, the coming founders, as she hoped, of a domestic hearth like unto the old; a man from the outside, dropped maybe from a higher sphere, but disturbing the even tenour of their lives, and presenting in a new light to their awakening consciousness their sense of inferiority and perhaps of misdirected adherence to the past; lastly, the onlookers and passers-by, a homely throng, bearing witness, after the style of the Greek chorus in the village comedy.

I proposed to the old man that his sons should come again with me unhindered. We were a small party, and made up of such elements that there was but little chance of the last accident being repeated. But it had got to his ears that I had privately consulted with his sons as to pushing on from the Diablerets to the east over the Sanetsch and Rawyl passes. I had to confess that such was the intention of myself and of Marcel Kurz. Whereupon the old man held up his hands and his wife hurried to his side.

In the end it was decided that Ernest Marti should accompany me and my friend with provisions for one day only, and that on the next day the other brother and a porter would meet us on the Sanetsch pass. Unwilling to inquire at once what this porter arrangement might portend, lest the whole affair might be stranded on that inquiry, as a ship might do on leaving the stocks, we agreed to the suggestion. The conference broke up, each party being satisfied that it had gained one of its points.

Our ash planks carried us up without a hitch to the confines of the glacier. At the Oldenhorn hut, however, another of those sights awaited us which had made the brothers Marti feel queer. They of the Synagogue spent the witching hours of the next night in a drunken snowballing orgy. They pushed an enormous bolt of snow against the door of the hut during our peaceful slumbers therein. Never mind. We opened the window, got out through it into the snow, bored our way to the outside, and slipped down on to the ice. There was some spectral light in the air when we came out. The Oldenhorn battlements crackled and crepitated a little. When the sun lit them up from behind, it looked for a moment as if they were manned with a fringe of tittering monkeys. As I have said, there was a strange play of light in the air. But the snowballing might have been the work of avalanches. There is as a rule a natural explanation to be given of phenomena of this kind.

While the Oldenhorn pyramid glowed in the morning light, a veil of mist hung over the Zan Fleuron glacier. The mist in no ways interfered with our run. We flew like birds over the scene of the January accident. On the pass we sat down and waited. Victor Marti was to come up. But who was to accompany him up the pass, in the guise of a porter, with a further supply of provisions? We required no such thing as a porter—nor even guides, for the matter of that; but if I acted upon that view, the game was up. Local men would be slow in taking up the cry, the new cry: Winter mountaineering! So we looked for the expected two.

The mist still hung on the pass between us and the sun. Now and then the sun shone vaguely, as through cotton wool. When the wind broke the mist up in rifts a patch of blue would look down upon us benignly. At last, low down in the north, a black speck showed itself to our straining eyes. Then the speck divided up. There were two men, and something moving along close to the ground. This turned out to be a dog, dragging along a pair of ski. The dog got on very well on the hard frozen snow. But when about to leave the wind-beaten tract, he floundered and got no further. On inspection with my binoculars, the porter turned out to be none other than Father Marti, come to fetch his bairns. But we never quite knew why the dog was made to bring up an extra pair of ski.

The position was peculiar; the would-be porter could not cover the distance which separated him from us. We might have snapped our fingers at him and parodied the biblical phrase: “Thus far shalt thou come and no farther.”

We preferred to push into shore on our skiffs and to parley. The old man declared he had come up to say the weather was bad. We looked round. Did appearances give him the lie? Kurz was sure they did. More cautious, because nearer the age of the old salt, I thought they might; but both boys promptly agreed with their father and the dog wagged its tail approvingly.

Kurz and myself began by making sure of the provisions. Then, by a few judiciously applied biscuits, we won the favour of the dog. Then we said that, rather than come down at such an early hour, we should spend the day in runs on the glacier, whereupon Victor Marti felt it would be his duty to do likewise. Ernest, in his turn, did not see why he should not spend, in our agreeable company, a day that was so young. The father winced, but consented.

Then I thought the juncture had come when I might propose to both young men to take full advantage of our new supplies of victuals and drink by spending another night on the heights. The family met again to “sit” upon the suggestion. Meanwhile I liberally paid old Marti for his trouble and took him apart to tell him that if the weather was really bad on the morrow, I should send his boys down. This arrow hit the mark. He was a perfectly honourable old man, true to the core. Turning to his sons, he told them that on no account were they to come back home without their “gentlemen.” I hope, for his comfort, that he realised that the “gentlemen” would not either consent to be seen again in the valley without his boys.

Anyhow, we spent a delightful day in ski-ing in the precincts of the Synagogue, repaired at night to our hut, slipped through the window, and spent a night free from molestation. I deemed that it would be wise to let the sun rise before we did. When it did, it shone with wonderful grace and power. The mists were scattered out of the sky and the cobwebs cleared away from our brains. We entered upon the trip which is described in the next chapter, and during which my excellent young friends pushed on steadily to Kandersteg, our goal, longing all the time for the sight of the telegraph poles on which hung the wires which would convey to their mother the message of their safety.

CHAPTER III
FROM THE COL DU PILLON TO THE GEMMI PASS (DIABLERETS, WILDHORN, WILDSTRUBEL, AND KANDERSTEG).

The range—Ski-runners’ logic—Itinerary—The Plan des Roses—Untoward experiences on the Rawyl pass—Death through exposure—The Daily Mail and Mr. Arnold Lunn’s feat—House-breaking—On the Gemmi—Perspective and levels—Relief models of the Alps—My smoking den—Old Egger.

No visitor to Switzerland requires telling that a section of the Bernese Alps runs up to the Gemmi pass from the south-west. In this secondary range, the leading groups are the Diablerets, the Wildhorn, and the Wildstrubel. So far as the Wildstrubel and Wildhorn are concerned, the range separates the Canton du Valais from the Canton de Berne, but the Diablerets throw out a shoulder into the Canton de Vaud. From their summit the lake of Geneva can be seen.

Each of these large mountain clusters is linked up to its neighbour by a pass, running perpendicularly to the range. The Sanetsch pass is a dip between the Wildhorn and the Wildstrubel. Just as—in January, 1909—I had the pleasure of traversing the higher Bernese Alps between the Gemmi and Grimsel passes, it was, in March, 1910, my good luck to carry out in one continuous expedition the traverse of the nether Bernese Alps, beginning at the Col du Pillon and ending at the Gemmi and Kandersteg.

The summits of the Diablerets, Wildhorn, and Wildstrubel group do not exceed 10,705 feet in height. Singly, they have frequently been ascended on ski. But, to my knowledge, the ascent of all three had not yet been achieved as a connected and consecutive piece of winter work. My traverse having brought me much opportunity to fully realise the extraordinary quality and beauty of this high ski-ing ground, I do not hesitate to give here my best information on the route.

The route now opened out presents this capital feature, that the mountains along the top of which it lies are uniform in height and in conformation. Their general lineal development is straight; they arise steeply from their south-west extremities; they carry ski-runners down, on well-defined inclines, to their north-east extremities, which rest on the flat surface of high-lying passes.

No wise runner will attempt to run from the Gemmi end. By so doing he would be making light of the best rules of ski-ing, as well as throwing away the indications which nature herself gives him. From all three summits the larger and lengthier glaciers stretch uniformly from south-west downwards to north-east, while on the opposite slope the mountains are precipitous and the glaciers short.

MOVING FROM THE TOP OF THE FINSTERAARHORN.

To face p. 60.

Not only will no wise runner attempt the trip from the Gemmi end, but he will also follow the rules of ski-runners’ logic. The reader will notice that while summer tourists cross the Bernese Alps from north to south, that is from Canton Berne to Canton Valais, or vice versâ, from Canton Valais to Canton Berne, tourists on ski follow the range in its length, and will have nothing to do with its passes, as leading from one valley to another.

Indeed, a ski-runner must look a very paradoxical creature. For him, passes are just convenient, saddle-like depressions connecting the summits he has left with the summit he next wishes to attain. He will have no dealings with the valleys. He does not follow the path, say from Kandersteg to Louèche. That is all very well for mules. But he crosses, say, the Sanetsch and Rawyl passes, in the same way as a foot-passenger goes across a street from one pavement to the other. By so doing he knows no more of the actual pass-track than its width, say a matter of one to a few yards, as the case may be. This totally new conception of how to get about on the Alps from point to point is of great importance with a view to the military occupation of the High Alp passes and their defence in winter. I call it the ski-runners’ paradox.

Gsteig is best reached from Montreux, on the lake of Geneva, or from Spiez, on the lake of Thoune, by availing oneself of the electric railway and getting out at the station of Gstaad; hence on foot or by horse-sleigh to Gsteig.

The hut, on the Tête aux Chamois, at the foot of the Oldenhorn, where the first night had better be spent, lies to the south-west from Gsteig, and is approached from the Pillon route. The approach viâ the Sanetsch pass necessitates the ascent of the Zan Fleuron glacier round the Oldenhorn. It is therefore much longer.

The map to be used, and to which all references in this book are made, is the Swiss Military Survey Map (Siegfried Atlas), sold to the public in sheets. A reprint covering the whole region may be bought at Gstaad, price 4 francs.

Cross the Reuschbach by a bridge, a little beyond point 1,340 (sheet 472). The chalets of Reusch will then be reached at Reuschalp, at the altitude marked 1,326 on the map (sheet 472 or 471). At Bödeli one should carefully avoid taking the path leading south, up to the Oldenhornalp. The situation of the Cabane des Diablerets is given on the Siegfried Atlas at point 2,487 (sheet 478). The line of access is plain from Bödeli. But strangers should not attempt to reach the hut in winter snow without being accompanied on the Martisberg slopes by some person possessing full local knowledge. The traversing of steep slopes, such as those which here run down from the Oldenhorn, is always dangerous.

Runners start from Gsteig and will do well to take with them one or both of the brothers Ernest and Victor Marti, young men and fair runners. Readers of the preceding chapter know that I have trained them in what little they understand about winter mountaineering. This little is quite sufficient to enable them to guide safely any party of able-bodied and fair ski-runners along the new route.

From Gsteig to the hut an average walker on ski may count five hours. The hut is comfortable enough for practical purposes, and can accommodate a large party.

On the next morning, do not leave the hut till daylight, and then, in three hours, one may reach the top of the Diablerets on ski, though these may have to be removed to traverse a part of the steep snow-fields resting on ice which run down the precipitous cliffs to the south. Runners with whom it is a point to run, rather than conquer hill-tops, may leave the summit alone. Wending their way round the Oldenhorn, they will at once face north-east and run down the Zan Fleuron glacier to the top of the Sanetsch pass. Use a compass, and run strictly east. Full north, full south, or south-east are equally pernicious. The snow may be crusted and wind-swept. But if it is dry, powdery, and smooth, the runner’s joy will be inexpressible.

Our day—and so might yours—gave us a prospect of a very long run. We knew that we should not be able to make use of the Alpine Club hut on the Wildhorn, for a notice had appeared in the Alpina (organ of the Swiss Alpine Club) that this hut was badly overwhelmed with snow. Under ordinary conditions, provided one did not mind sweeping low down out of one’s way to the north, there would be no reason why this hut should not be taken advantage of to spread over two days the work which on that occasion we did in one day, to get from the Diablerets hut along to the Wildstrubel huts. Without any waste of time, we pushed across the Sanetsch pass, from the point marked 2,234 (sheet 481), on to the arête which runs due east across the point marked 2,354.

If it is your intention to go as far as the Wildstrubel hut in one day, you ought to cross the Sanetsch by eleven o’clock—an easy thing if you left the Diablerets hut by eight o’clock. The line to be followed leads down to, but keeps above, the small lakes which are marked with the name Les Grandes Gouilles, altitude 2,456. These lakes must be left on one’s right hand, and then make straight for the Glacier du Brozet, above the words Luis de Marche. Under ordinary winter circumstances, particularly late in the season, this glacier, which is broken up to any extent in summer, will be found to present a steep and hard surface most convenient to ascend. When once the point 3,166 has been reached, it will be unnecessary to complete the ascent of the Wildhorn, though nothing could be easier. Leaving the summit to your left at the point 3,172, the descent on the Glacier de Tenehet comes next to be considered. At that altitude you should ski onward sharply to the north-east for a while, then great care should be taken to proceed downward gradually by taking a curved route, below point 3,124 (sheet 472), full north-east, then east, along the circular tiers of the ice.

DIABLERETS—WILDHORN—WILDSTRUBEL—GEMMI PASS.

(Reproduction made with authorisation of the Swiss Topographic Service, 26.8.12)

To face p. 64.

Let me here remind the reader that the Wildhorn hut is away far down on the northern slope of the Wildhorn, at the top of the Iffigenthal. Runners who wish to break their journey and spend a night there will beware of running down the glacier of Tenehet. They will cross the watershed to the north at the point 2,795, or thereabouts, and descend to the point 2,204, in the vicinity of which they will find the hut.

The course on to the Rawyl pass presents no difficulty to a competent runner. When under point 2,767, turn to the south, where the slope dips, and then again, when well under point 2,797, and the lake, turn to the north-east, so as to reach and keep on dotted curve 2,400. South or south-east would be irrecoverably wrong. In fair weather it will be unbroken pleasure, on condition that the runner is well led or is thoroughly conversant with map or level readings in a very difficult country. I reached the Rawyl pass by six o’clock.

The fairly level stretch along which undulates the Rawyl mule track is called the Plan des Roses, which sounds very poetical to cultivated minds, such as my readers always are. The Alps, and many other ranges in Europe, are studded with those appellations, whose delightful ring calls forth the fragrance and beauty of the rose at an altitude at which gardens are not usually met. Never did a summer rose grow or blossom naturally in most of the places bearing that pretty name—not even the Alpen Rose or the Alpine Anemone.

The imagination of some has seen in the name an allusion to the pink colour of the sky at dawn and at sunset. Alas, this too is a fallacy borne in upon us by the literary faculty. Monte-Rosa does not mean pink mountain.

Rosa (as in Rosa Blanche, above the Val Cleuson), roses, roxes, rousse, rossa, rasses, rosen (as in Rosenlaui), ross, rosso (as in Cima di Rosso), rossère, all mean rocks or rock. The Tête Rousse (above St. Gervais) would not be in English the Ruddy Brow, but the much more commonplace Rocky Tor, Ben, or Fell. All forms of the word go back to a common Celtic origin, whether they appear in Swiss nomenclature, in a French, German, Italian, or Romance form. This phenomenon is a good illustration of the manner in which the association of ideas by sound enriches and varies in time the very rudimentary stock of primitive impressions gathered in by the ancient Alp dwellers.

If the reader will think of Rhine, Rhône, Reuse, Reuss, Reusch, in the light of the foregoing explanations, he will hear through all those words the rush of water that is characteristic of Alpine streams.

I have lively recollections of the Rawyl pass dating back to the days of my boyhood. This pass is dear to me also as having served as an introduction to my young friend, Arnold Lunn. When he battled with the pass, on ski, he was probably little older than myself when I first fought my way through it on foot.

I was following the range in its length in the early, old-fashioned style, purposing to make my way from Sion, on the Rhône, to Grindelwald, by dipping in and out of the valleys; namely, first to Lenk across the Rawyl, then to Adelboden, thence to Kandersteg, then to Trachsellauenen, in the Lauterbrunnen valley, hence to Grindelwald, over the little Scheidegg—a regular switchback railway.

My walk over the Rawyl was marked by an episode. It was late in the season—late in the sense of the word in those days, when there was no winter season to upset people’s ideas. I reached at night the Châlet d’Armillon, by hook or by crook, along the precipitous Kaendle, and crossing mountain torrents as casually as a squirrel would swing from tree to tree, for those were the days of my Sturm und Drang Periode as a mountaineer.

Nevertheless, when the Armillon shepherds pointed out to me the heights of the pass shining pink in the sunset with a fresh snow edging, my resolution wavered for an instant. On I went, little dreaming that thirty years later I should despise being seen here at all, except in winter and on ski.

The job proved a serious one. Heavy snow lay over the marshes and rivulets of the Plan des Roses. The mule track was buried under wind-blown wreaths. The moon rose and illuminated a desolate landscape. A little rain, then snow, began to fall, obliterating the moonbeams and my own footprints behind me. Floundering about, I broke through the thin ice that lay over the patches of water imprisoned under the snow. Still I ploughed my way forward.

Then, probably in the nick of time for my own safety (else I might have spent the night up there, being still young enough to show myself, in the circumstances, obstinate unto folly), a guardian angel, whose assistance I certainly did not deserve, slily detached my brandy flask from around my shoulders and dropped it well out of my reach. When I discovered the trick, I took the hint and retraced my footsteps to the shepherds’ huts at Armillon.

I believe they were more pleased than surprised. They sat down round the hearth, an open fireplace, with embers lying about on the ground. They handed to me a bowl of milk, a lump of cheese, a piece of rye bread as hard as a brick, and gave me a bit of goat’s liver that was stewing in the pan in its own broth. They said their prayers aloud, standing reverently in the firelight; then the goats’ skins were laid out flat on the ground. We lay on them all in a heap together, with our feet turned towards the fire. The last man threw the last chips upon it, pulled warm sheeps’ skins over us, and laid himself down beside us.

The moon, high up in the sky by this time, shone placidly upon the pastoral scene. The air got sharper and more chilly. When we rose at dawn every blade of grass sparkled with frost.

I set out again up the pass in brilliant sunshine. My footprints were still here and there faintly visible. When they came to an end I made for the cross, marking the site of a rough stone refuge, then under snow. From here some faint footprints again became visible, turning down the gorge to the north. I made up my mind to follow them, for those who had made them were certainly moving in the right direction. After a while I saw a stick standing out of the snow. The footprints did not seem to continue beyond. On approaching, I found myself in the presence of the dead body of a mountaineer. Rumour will have it—for the scene of this mishap was visited shortly after, to lift the body—that I leaped aside at the sight, leaving marks on the snow which, graphologically interpreted, were seen to signify my dismay.

It was the first time that I had before my eyes an instance of death through exposure in the mountains.

On reaching the Iffigen Alp I reported the matter to the local authorities. From later information it came to my knowledge that there were two victims, the body of the second being covered up by the snow.

My other connection with the Rawyl pass is less gloomy, since I owe to the eccentricities of that pass one of my best young friends in England.

I was, a few years ago, standing on the platform of the railway station at Gstaad, when an English vicar, whom I took pleasure in instructing in ski, brought me a copy of the Daily Mail, in which a whole column was literally flaming with the exploits of two English runners who had crossed the Rawyl a few days before. That sort of description we generally call “Journalese,” and let it pass without correction. It would be an ungracious act on the part of climbers, who seek out deliberately so many hardships, to wince at the touch of the voluntary kindness that almost kills.

The true account of what then took place appeared in the columns of the Isis, the Oxford undergraduates’ organ, on January 23, 1909. There Arnold Lunn expresses himself as follows:—

“I spent five winters in climbing from various centres, before—in the winter of 1907-8—I first tried cross-country work. With three ladies and my brother, I visited the Great St. Bernard and spent New Year’s Eve in the Hospice. Next day I was thoroughly walked out by two plucky Irish ladies, and had just enough energy left to reach Montana on the following afternoon. I had previously arranged with a friend to cross the mountains to Villars, a four-day trip, but on arriving found that he was unable to go.

“I was introduced to Mr. W., who had only been on ski three afternoons, but volunteered to come. We left next morning at 4 a.m., climbed for eight hours up to the glacier of the Plaine Morte, and then separated. Mr. W. went on to the hut and I climbed the Wildstrubel alone, from the summit of which I saw a beautiful sunset. The solitary trudge back over the glacier at night thoroughly exhausted me, and I narrowly escaped frost-bite in one of my feet. At Lenk that night, 6,000 feet lower down, they had 40 degrees of frost, and the cold in the hut was almost unbearable. We did manage to get a fire alight, which proved a doubtful blessing, as it thawed the snow in the top bunk, forming a lake which trickled down on our faces during the night in intermittent showers. The next morning our blankets were frozen as stiff as boards. Even the iron stove was sticky with frost.

DESCENT INTO THE TELLITHAL, LOETSCHENTHAL.

To face p. 70.

“Our natural course led over the Wildhorn, a delightful ski-run, but though Mr. W. throughout displayed wonderful pluck and perseverance, his limited experience prevented our tackling the long but safe Wildhorn. So we took a short and dangerous cut down to Lenk, following a track which crossed several avalanche runs. We raced the darkness through a long hour of unpleasant suspense, and won our race by a head, getting off the cliff as the last rays of light disappeared. A night on the Rawyl would probably have ended disastrously.

“The remaining two days of the expedition were comparatively uneventful, but we were dogged by an avenging Providence. A telegram miscarried, and a search party was organised to hunt for our remains. The guests at Montana spent a very pleasant day with ordnance maps in attempting to locate the position of our corpses, and were not a little disappointed when they learnt that the search party had found nothing but our tracks. The net result of the expedition was a bill for £20 for search parties, plus hospital expenses, as one of the guides had been frost-bitten.”

Arnold Lunn’s performance in bringing down safely to Lenk a companion encumbered with ski in places fit for the use of climbing-irons only, at that time of year, was conclusive as a proof of his sportsmanlike qualities, as it was a bold and unexpected line to take. For that reason I found it necessary to reflect upon his daring in the Gazette de Lausanne, which had quoted the English press, lest it should unwittingly lead my young countrymen into dangerous undertakings. Arnold Lunn and myself made friends over the correspondence which ensued between us. A better companion and a fairer knight to joust with in Alpine tourney it would be, I believe, difficult to meet.

Now, it might be well to return to the Plan des Roses, whence, still north-east, and then upwards on the Rohrbachstein glacier to the Rohrbachhaus, whose roof was plainly visible at sunset, we strolled peacefully and unconcernedly along.

In connection with the Rohrbachhaus, the brothers Marti, for the second time, had an encounter with the Bernese police courts on my account. It was my evil influence that brought them to that comfortable but closed house. I need not say that I carefully kept out of the mischief that was brewing by lingering behind to admire the view by moonlight.

With an ice-axe they dealt a well-directed blow upon the lock. Before this “Open Sesame” the door gave way. We gained admittance to a kitchen, well stocked with fire-wood; a dining-room, with preserves, tinned victuals, and bottles of wine in the cupboards; a vast bedroom, furnished with couches, mattresses, sheets, blankets, eiderdown quilts! Quite an Eldorado, but, for my young friends, another step on the downward path to the prisoners’ dock!

The police of Berne had a watchful eye on the Rohrbachhaus. Though I did promptly send the culprits to make their report in the proper quarter, to ask for the bill and pay for the damage done (which precluded any civil action being brought against me), the Court at Blankenburg tried them for house-breaking on the Procurator’s charge. But this business was happily purely formal, as the bona-fides of the house-breakers was not questioned. The offenders were spoken free, on condition that they paid the costs of the official prosecution. This part of the bargain was passed on to me to keep, which I did cheerfully. Indeed, the whole transaction appealed to my sense of right in the administration of law. There was no doubt in my mind that we had broken into a private establishment without leave, and even without actual necessity. The establishment was, of course, there for the use of such as ourselves, even without consent, on an emergency. But the weather was good, the night still and clear, our health excellent, and there was an open refuge within short ski-ing distance. It is true that on foot we might have been totally unable to reach it.

Those who do not wish to run the risk attending the forcible bursting of locks in order to get shelter at the first hut had better move on, in the quiet of night and with an easy conscience, to the open hut, which stands a little further on, and reach it by lantern light. They may, however, make previously an appointment with the caretaker at Lenk. He will then come up, weather permitting, and open the Rohrbachhaus.

I need not dwell on the pleasant night we spent in the beds of the Rohrbachhaus. Stolen joys are sweet, and even may, as in our case, be well deserved, or at least well earned—a way of putting it which leaves morals uninjured. Our first day had been heavy, but had afforded two magnificent runs on glaciers and on slopes abutting to passes, each covering about four miles exclusive of curves, which, of course, being purely voluntary as to their number and scope, cannot be calculated.

Ski-running parties spending a night in one or the other of the two Wildstrubel huts will find themselves on the next day surrounded by as fine and as varied a country as they may wish for. Whatever line they choose, there is but one that should absolutely be avoided. This, they know already, is the Rawyl pass, whether winter tourists wish to go north to Lenk or south to Sion. The outlet of the pass to the north is best described as a most precipitous and ice-bound region. The southward descent is dangerous quite as much, owing to its great complication amid rock, ravine, forest, and watercourse. Runners should divert their ambitions well away from those gorges. The best way to Montana and Vermala lies over the Glacier de la Plaine Morte, and thence to the south.

Runners proceeding from the huts and wishing to follow in our footsteps, in order to reach the Lämmern glacier and the Wildstrubel, will run down the slopes leading to the Glacier de la Plaine Morte (map, sheet 473). They will glance at the Raezli glacier tumbling down to the north-west, between the Gletschhorn and the Wildstrubel (west-end summit). Hence they will steer a straight course to the east, along the centre line of the Glacier de la Plaine Morte, and then turn to the north-east towards the Lämmernjoch, a pass to the east of the Weststrubel, on a ridge, which is steepish to reach, though usually well covered with snow. From that point to the top of the Weststrubel there is an additional rise of about 120 metres, say 400 feet. The view from this Strubel is worth the additional labour, and it also gives one the satisfaction of having reached the last of the highest points on the Diablerets-Wildhorn-Wildstrubel route. The height of the Diablerets is 3,222, of the Wildhorn 3,264, and of the Wildstrubel west 3,251 metres. But this satisfaction, like that which may have been got from ascending the Diablerets and the Wildhorn, may, in point of time, be too dearly bought.

It is quite sufficient to direct one’s course straight from the Lämmernjoch on to the higher reaches of the Lämmerngletscher, which open up beyond the Lämmernjoch to the north.

Runners should not plunge full east straight down the glacier. Such a course would be attended with much danger, as a line of crevasses runs across the glacier roughly from south to north. A careful runner will map out for himself a “circumferential” route, which will bring him round that dangerous part, by descending the slopes of the glacier which are beyond that spot to the north. Then, by turning to the east, one enters the lower reaches of the ice, when one faces the extensive building of the Wildstrubel Hotel on the Gemmi pass, about 3 miles ahead. The best way off the glacier on to the Lämmernalp is on the north side of the gorge, in which the glacier tails off, though I found it quite convenient to reach the Lämmernboden (see map) by means of the slopes which run down to it on the southern side of the stream.

Our route leaves completely out of account the Gross-strubel (3,253 metres), which rises above Adelboden and the Engstligenalp. This summit does not belong to the traverse I am now describing. There are quite distinct expeditions to be made to either or both Strubels from Adelboden or Kandersteg. If from Kandersteg, one should go and spend the night at the Schwarenbach Hotel, on the Gemmi road, go up the way we have just described for the descent, and return viâ Ueschinenthal. The Kandersteg guides know all about this run, which is much to be recommended to the expert.

There are three long, flat strips on the run from the Wildstrubel huts to the Schwarenbach Hotel viâ Gemmi. The first is the Glacier de la Plaine Morte (about 3 miles), the second the Lämmernboden (about a mile), the third the Daubensee (about a mile).

The run from the Daubensee to Kandersteg requires no particular notice. It begins at the spot where the Lämmernboden turns to the north, within 800 yards or so of the Wildstrubel Hotel on the Gemmi pass. The run on the Daubensee, then to the Schwarenbach Hotel (one should not pass to the right, east of the summer road) affords excellent ski-ing. Then, on the rush down to the Spitalmatten, with the Balmhorn and the Altels towering to one’s right, will be met some of the best ground of the whole trip, the slopes being throughout beautifully exposed to the north. The gorges to the east should on no account be entered. The course runs straight north on the west side of the valley, till the upper bends of the summer road are met on the shoulder which drops down to Inner Kandersteg, at the entrance of the Gasternthal. The slopes to the west of the woods on the shoulder are periodically swept by avalanches. Look carefully whether the fragments lie on the ground, and whether the rocks above, whence they start, are bare of snow. If so, you may proceed among the fragments. If otherwise, take to the road and walk.

The whole distance travelled over during this expedition, starting from Gsteig, is, measured on the map, about 40 miles to Kandersteg. We had with us ropes and axes, but never used them. In point of fact, I should consider that expeditions upon which a use is foreseen for the axe and the rope are not, strictly speaking, ski-ing expeditions. Ski-ing, by definition, excludes the use of rope and axe, though one should be provided with them when having reason to fear unforeseen contingencies.

The levels are as follow:—

At Gsteig: 1,192 metres (3,937 feet).

On the Zan Fleuron glacier: 2,866 metres, being a rise of 1,674 metres.

On the Sanetsch pass: 2,221 metres, being a fall of 645 metres.