alt="Auguste Gentinetta on a Mountain Top, 1903."/> Auguste Gentinetta on a Mountain Top, 1903.
The next day a strong party started for the scene of the accident to recover the body of the dead guide, Fürrer. It was a difficult and a dangerous task, and those who examined the wall down which the fall took place expressed their amazement that two wounded men, without axes, should have performed what seemed the incredible feat of getting up it.
Both Mr. Sloggett and Gentinetta made an excellent recovery, though they were laid up for many weeks after their memorable descent of the Matterhorn.
The qualities found in a first-class guide include not only skill in climbing, but the ability to form a sound conclusion when overtaken by storm and mist. The following experience which took place in 1874, and which I am permitted by Mrs. Maund to quote from her late husband’s article in The Alpine Journal, proves, by its happy termination, that Maurer’s judgment in a critical position was thoroughly to be relied on. Mr. Maund had just arrived at La Bérarde, in Dauphiné, and he writes:—
“The morning of the 29th broke wet and stormy, and Rodier strongly advised me not to start; this, however, was out of the question, as I was due at La Grave on that day to keep my appointment with Mr. Middlemore. After waiting an hour, to give the weather a chance, we started in drizzling rain at 5 A.M. Desolate as the Val des Étançons must always look, it appeared doubly gloomy that morning, with its never-ending monotony of rock and moraine unrelieved by a single patch of green. As we neared the glacier, the weather fortunately cleared, and the clouds, which till then had enveloped everything, began to mount with that marvellous rapidity only noticeable in mountain districts, leaving half revealed the mighty cliffs of the Meije towering 5000 feet almost sheer above us. As the wind caught and carried into the air the frozen sheets of snow on his summit, the old mountain looked like some giant bill distributer throwing his advertisements about. Entirely protected from the wind, we whiled away an hour and a half, searching with our telescope for any feasible line of attack. Having satisfied ourselves that on this side the mountain presented enormous, if not insurmountable, difficulties, we shouldered our packs and made tracks for the Brèche, which we reached at 11.45.
“Meanwhile the weather had become worse again, and during the last part of the ascent it was snowing heavily; the wind too, from which we had been protected on the south side of the col, was so strong that we were absolutely obliged to crawl over to the north side. Our position was by no means a pleasant one; neither Martin nor I knew anything of the pass, and Rodier, who had told us overnight that he had crossed it more than once, seemed to know no more, and although sure of the exact bearing of La Grave, we could not, owing to the fast falling snow, see further than 300 or 400 yards in advance; added to this, it was intensely cold. Having paid Rodier 20 francs (a perfect waste of money, as it is impossible to mistake the way to the Brèche from the Val des Étançons, and, as I have said, he could not give us the least clue to the descent on the La Grave side), we dismissed him, hoping devoutly that he might break his—well, his ice axe, we’ll say—on the way down. By keeping away to the right of the Brèche and down a steep slope, we crossed the crevasses which lay at its base without difficulty. We then bore to the left across a plateau, on which the snow lay very deep; floundering through this sometimes waist deep, we reached the upper ice-fall of the glacier, and after crossing several crevasses became involved in a perfect net-work of them. After a consultation, we determined to try to the right, but met with no better success, as again we were checked by an absolute labyrinth. At last, about five o’clock, we took to some rocks which divide the glacier into two branches. Meanwhile the snow was falling thicker and thicker, and, driven by the strong N.W. wind which caught up and eddied about what had already fallen, it appeared to come from every quarter at once. It was impossible to see more than a few yards in advance, and the rocks which under ordinary circumstances would have been easy, were, with their coating of at least 4 inches of snow, much the reverse, as it was quite impossible to see where to put hand or foot. Our only trust was in our compass, which assured us that while keeping to the backbone of this ridge we were descending in an almost direct line towards La Grave.
“We had at most two hours of daylight before us, but there was still a hope that by following our present line we should get off the glacier before dark. How I regretted now the time lost in the morning. A little before seven we were brought to a standstill; our further direct descent was cut off by a precipice, while the rocks on either side fell almost sheer to the glaciers beneath. It was too late to think of looking for another road, so nothing now remained but to find the best shelter we could and bivouac for the night. We re-ascended to a small platform we had passed a short time before, and selecting the biggest and most sheltered bit of rock on it, we piled up the few movable stones there were about, to form the outside wall to our shelter, and having cleared away as much of the snow as we could from the inside, laid our ice axes across the top as rafters, with a sodden mackintosh—ironically called a waterproof by Mr. Carter—over all for a roof. Despite this garment, I was wet to the skin. Luckily, we had each of us a spare flannel shirt and stockings in our knapsacks, but as the meagre dimensions of our shelter would not admit of the struggles attendant on a change, we were obliged to go through the operation outside. I tried to be cheerful, and Martin tried to be facetious as we wrung out our wet shirts while the snow beat on our bare backs, but both attempts were lamentable failures. If up to the present time my readers have not stripped in a snow-storm, let me strongly advise them never to attempt it. Having got through the performance as quickly as possible, we crawled into our shelter, but here again my ill luck followed me, for in entering I managed to tread on the tin wine-flask which Martin had thrown aside, and, my weight forcing out the cork, every drop of wine escaped. After packing myself away as well as I could in the shape of a pot-hook, Martin followed, and pot-hooked himself alongside me. We were obliged to assume this elementary shape, as the size of our shelter would not admit of our lying straight. All the provisions that remained were then produced. They consisted of a bit of bread about the size of a breakfast-roll, one-third of a small pot of preserved meat, about two ounces of raw bacon with the hide on, and half a small flask of a filthy compound called Genèpie, a sort of liqueur; besides this, we mustered between us barely a pipe-full of tobacco, and eight matches in a metal-box. The provisions I divided into three equal parts—one-third for that night’s supper, and the remaining two-thirds for the next day. I need not enlarge on the miseries of that night. The wind blew through the chinks between the stones, bringing the snow with it, until the place seemed all chinks; then the mackintosh with its weight of snow would come in upon us, and we had with infinite difficulty to prop it up again, only to go through the same operation an hour later; at last, in sheer despair, we let it lie where it fell, and found to our relief it kept us warmer in that position. The snow never ceased one moment although the wind had fallen, and when morning broke there must have been nearly a foot of it around and over us. A more desolate picture than that dawn I have never seen. Snow everywhere. The rocks buried in it, and not a point peeping out to relieve the unbroken monotony. The sky full of it, without a break to relieve its leaden sameness, and the heavy flakes falling with that persistent
