"Mode of Travelling in the High Alps" (4)

From C T Dent's Mountaineering in the Badminton Library Series.

Alpine advice from a founder of modern mountaineering

For surmounting steep ice slopes the axe is the proper instrument, but there is some difference of opinion as to the most available form and dimensions to be given to it. In considerable expeditions, it is well to be provided with two axes, both to save time, by enabling two to work together, and to provide for the accident of one being lost or broken.

 In cases where there is not much work to be done in cutting steps, a moderately heavy geological hammer, of which one side is made in the form of a short pick, is sometimes a serviceable weapon. 

In the lower part of a glacier, a traveller is sometimes arrested by a short, steep bank of ice, when unprovided with any convenient means of cutting steps. In such a case, and especially when armed with steel points in the heels of his boots, he will sometimes find it easier and safer to mount backwards, propping himself with his alpenstock,and biting into the ice with his heels.
 
To experienced travellers, no caution as to alpenstocks is needed, but to others it may be well to say, that those commonly sold in Switzerland are never to be relied upon. There is scarcely one of them that is not liable to break, if suddenly exposed to a severe strain. A stout ash pole, well seasoned, and shod with a point of tough, hardened steel, three inches long, instead of the soft iron commonly used, will not only serve all the ordinary purposes, but help to cut steps in a steep descent where it is difficult to use the axe with effect.

The general experience of Alpine travellers is not favourable to crampons, but many have found advantage in screws armed with a projecting double-pointed head which are sold at the Pavillon on the Montanvert. Screws of the same kind, but made of better steel, and arranged in a convenient way for driving them into the soles and heels of boots, are sold in London by Lund in Fleet Street.

Reference

 

From J Ball, “Suggestions for Alpine travellers”, Chapter XVIII, Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers: A series of excursions by members of the Alpine Club, London, 1859.

 

Disclaimer

"Mode of Travelling in the High Alps" (3)

"Serve him right" (original title)
From Mountaineering in the Badminton Library Series

Alpine advice from a founder of modern mountaineering

It is sometimes thought that for complete security, in case of the yielding of a snow bridge, the party tied together should be not less than three in number; in order that two may be available to draw out of a crevasse the one who may have fallen. 
 
But if the simple precaution of keeping eight or ten paces apart be observed by two travellers who are tied together, there is not the slightest risk incurred. The whole mass of snow covering a crevasse does not give way together, and a moderate amount of assistance from the rope will always enable the traveller to extricate himself. 
 
A good cragsman may go alone up and down the steepest pinnacles of rock; but, however strong may be the inducements to solitary wandering amidst the grand scenery of the high Alps, the man who travels without a companion in the snow region can scarcely be thought more reasonable than the supposed cab-driver alluded to in the last paragraph. 
 
Against the risk of slipping upon steep slopes, the rope is usually a protection as effectual as it is in the first case. There may be positions in which the footing of each traveller is so precarious, that if tied together a slip on the part of any one of them would probably cause the destruction of all. 
 
Such positions are, however, very rare, If indeed they anywhere occur. There are few descents steeper than that of the ice-wall of the Strahleck yet Desor recounts a case in which three travellers all slipping at the same time, were upheld, and saved from falling into the bergschrund by a rope sustained on the arm of a single guide who came last in the descent.

 Reference

 

From J Ball, “Suggestions for Alpine travellers”, Chapter XVIII, Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers: A series of excursions by members of the Alpine Club, London, 1859.

 

"Mode of Travelling in the High Alps" (2)

Alpine advice from a founder of modern mountaineering

The real dangers of the high Alps may, under ordinary circumstances, be reduced to three. First, the yielding of the snow bridges that cover glacier crevasses; second, the risk of slipping upon steep slopes of hard ice; third, the fall of ice or rocks from above. 

From the first, which is also the most frequent source of danger, absolute security is obtained by a simple precaution, now generally known, yet unfortunately often neglected. The reader of this volume can scarcely fail to remark that, in the course of the expeditions here recounted, repeated accidents occurred, and that many of the best and most experienced Alpine travellers have narrowly escaped with their lives, under circumstances in which no danger whatever would have been encountered if the party had been properly tied together with rope. Sometimes that indispensable article is forgotten; more often the use of it is neglected in positions where no immediate necessity for it is apparent. 
 
A strange notion seems to prevail with some travellers, and occasionally among the guides, that the constant use of the rope is a sign of timidity and over-caution. But in the upper region, where the ice is covered with snow or neve, it is absolutely the only security against a risk which the most experienced cannot detect beforehand; and so far from causing delay, it enables a party to advance more rapidly and with less trouble when they are dispensed from the inconvenience of sounding with the alpenstock in doubtful positions. It is true that this latter precaution should not be omitted in places that are manifestly unsafe, but, at the best, it merely detects a particular danger without giving that confidence which the rope alone can afford. 
 
It may be hoped that before long the rope will be considered as essential a part of an Alpine traveller’s equipment as reins are in a horse's harness. A man who should undertake to drive a cab without reins from Charing Cross to London Bridge, would scarcely be looked upon as an example for spirit, even if he sat alone; but if he were to induce a party of friends to travel in the same vehicle, he would justly be accused of wantonly risking the lives of others.

Reference
 
From J Ball, “Suggestions for Alpine travellers”, Chapter XVIII, Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers: A series of excursions by members of the Alpine Club, London, 1859. 
 

"Mode of Travelling in the High Alps" (1)

Alpine advice from a founder of modern mountaineering

This subject requires a few words of allusion to the difficulties and dangers incident to travelling in a region where excepting steep faces of rock, the surface is covered with snow or ice. These may at once be divided into two classes - the real and the imaginary. 

Where a ridge or slope of rock or ice is such that it could be traversed without difficulty if it lay but a few feet above the level of a garden, the substitution on either side of a precipice some thousands of feet in depth, or of a glacier crevasse, makes no real difference in the work to be executed, but may act intensely on the imagination of a traveller. 

The only means for removing this source of danger is habit; those who cannot accustom themselves to look unmoved down vertical precipices, and, in cases of real difficulty, to fix their attention exclusively upon the ledge or jutting crag to which they must cling with foot or hand, should forego the attempt to take part in expeditions where they will not only expose themselves to danger, but may be the cause of equal danger to others.

Reference

 

From J Ball, “Suggestions for Alpine travellers”, Chapter XVIII, Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers: A series of excursions by members of the Alpine Club, London, 1859.