"Mode of Travelling in the High Alps" (7)

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

Alpine advice from a founder of modern mountaineering

In the matter of clothing and diet the tastes of Alpine travellers naturally vary; but perhaps twenty years' experience of the advantages of a Scotch plaid by one who has made it an invariable companion, may entitle him to recommend it. 

Whether for protection in case of an unexpected bivouac, for sleeping in suspicious quarters, or on hay of doubtful dryness, for shelter against the keen wind, while perched on a peak or the ridge of a high pass, or against rain and snow, this most portable of garments is equally serviceable. 

For excursions where some days must be spent in chalets, and no supplies but milk and cheese can be counted on, rice is the most portable and convenient provision. One pound is more than enough for a man's daily diet when well cooked with milk, and with this he is independent of all other supplies. 

To some persons, tea will supply the only luxury that need be desired in addition. A few raisins are a very grateful bonne bouche during a long and steep ascent; but the best preservative against thirst is to keep in the mouth a quartz pebble, an article which the bounty of nature supplies abundantly in most parts of the Alps. 

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" (6)

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

Alpine advice from a founder of modern mountaineering

Besides the ordinary risks of Alpine adventure, which, by reasonable caution, may be brought within as narrow limits as those of other active pursuits, there are the special risks that are sometimes encountered during the continuance, or immediately on the cessation, of bad weather. These are sometimes serious, and should not be made light of by those who care either for their own safety, or that of their companions. 

Bearings carefully taken with the compass, and attention to land-marks, will generally enable a party to retrace their steps, even when these have been effaced by falling snow, and in case of decided bad weather, there is no other rational alternative. 

Newly fallen snow, lying upon the steep frozen slopes of the neve, presents a serious danger to those who attempt to traverse it. The well-known accident, by which three lives were lost, during Dr. Hamel's attempted ascent of Mont Blanc, is one instance of the effects of the avalanches which are easily produced in this condition of the snow; and the attempt to ascend the Great Schreckhorn, recounted in this volume, was near resulting in similar fatal consequences. 

A precaution strongly to be recommended before undertaking expeditions over unknown glaciers, is to make a preliminary survey from some point commanding a view of the route to be traversed, and to preserve a rough plan of the disposition of the crevasses, the direction of any projecting ridges of rock, and even of the situation of snow or ice-bridges in the crevassed parts of the glacier. A reconnaissance of this kind carefully executed, may save hours that would otherwise be lost in searching for a passage in difficult situations.

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" (5)

From Edward Whymper's Scrambles amongst the Alps

Alpine advice from a founder of modern mountaineering

The danger of ice and fragments of rock falling on travellers in high mountains, may, to a great extent, be avoided by a judicious choice of route. Experience and observation enable a traveller to recognise at once the positions in which ice is detached from a higher level, and falls abruptly over a precipice, or steep slope of rock. 

In certain situations this is a matter of hourly occurrence, especially in warm weather, and as the falling ice never keeps together in a single mass, but breaks into blocks of various sizes, up to three or four hundred weight, positive risk is incurred by passing in the track of their descent. 

The guides are usually alive to this source of danger, and very careful to avoid it, unless in case of absolute necessity; it is considerably diminished when the exposed place is passed early in the morning, before the sun has reached the upper plateau from which the ice is detached, or late in the evening, after his rays have been withdrawn. 

The least avoidable, but also the most unusual, source of danger in Alpine excursions, arises from the fall of rocks, which may strike the traveller in their descent, or else detach themselves while he is in the act of climbing over them. The first accident is more frequent during, or immediately after, bad weather, and need scarcely count among the ordinary perils of Alpine travel; the second is almost peculiar to limestone rocks, which, especially in the dolomite region of the eastern Alps, often have their outer surface broken into loose and treacherous blocks, that yield to the pressure of hand or foot. Close attention, aided by some experience, will direct the traveller to test the stability of each projecting crag, so as to avoid unnecessary risk. 

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" (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.