CHAPTER XI

AN ADVENTURE ON THE TRIFT PASS

Few passes leading out of the Valley of Zermatt are oftener crossed than the Trift. It is not considered a difficult pass, but the rocks on the Zinal side are loose and broken and the risk of falling stones is great at certain hours in the day. The Zinal side of the Trift is in shadow in the early morning, and therefore most climbers will either make so early a start from the Zermatt side that they can be sure of descending the dangerous part before the sun has thawed the icy fetters which hold the stones together during the night, or else they will set out from the Zinal side, and sleep at a little inn on a patch of rocks which jut out from the glacier at the foot of the pass, from which the top of the Trift can be reached long before there is any risk from a cannonade.

One of the earliest explorers of this pass, however, Mr Thomas W. Hinchliff, neglected the precaution of a sufficiently early start, and his party very nearly came to grief in consequence.

He has given us an excellent description in _Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers_ of what befell after they had got over the great difficulties, as they seemed in those days, of descending the steep wall of rock on the Zinal side. I will now begin to quote from his article:

"Being thoroughly tired of the rocks, we resolved as soon as possible to get upon the ice where it swept the base of the precipices. The surface, however, was furrowed by parallel channels of various magnitudes; some several feet in depth, formed originally by the descent of stones and avalanches from the heights; and we found one of these troughlike furrows skirting the base of the rocks we stood upon. One by one we entered, flattering ourselves that the covering of snow would afford us pretty good footing, but this soon failed; the hard blue ice showed on the surface, and we found ourselves rather in a difficulty, for the sides of our furrow were higher here than at the point where we entered it, and so overhanging that it was impossible to get out.

"Delay was dangerous, for the _débris_ far below warned us that at any moment a shower of stones might come flying down our channel; a glissade was equally dangerous; for, though we might have shot down safely at an immense speed for some hundreds of feet, we should finally have been dashed into a sea of crevasses. Cachat in front solved the puzzle, and showed us how, by straddling with the feet as far apart as possible, the heel of each foot could find pretty firm hold in a mixture of half snow and half ice, his broad back, like a solid rock, being ready to check any slip of those behind him.

"We were soon safe upon a fine open plateau of the _névé_, where we threaded our way among a few snow crevasses requiring caution, and then prepared for a comfortable halt in an apparently safe place.

"The provision knapsacks were emptied and used as seats; bottles of red wine were stuck upright in the snow; a goodly leg of cold mutton on its sheet of paper formed the centre, garnished with hard eggs and bread and cheese, round which we ranged ourselves in a circle. High festival was held under the deep blue heavens, and now and then, as we looked up at the wonderful wall of rocks which we had descended, we congratulated ourselves on the victory. M. Seiler's oranges supplied the rare luxury of a dessert, and we were just in the full enjoyment of the delicacy when a booming sound, like the discharge of a gun far over our heads, made us all at once glance upwards to the top of the Trifthorn. Close to its craggy summit hung a cloud of dust, like dirty smoke, and in few seconds another and a larger one burst forth several hundred feet lower. A glance through the telescope showed that a fall of rocks had commenced, and the fragments were leaping down from ledge to ledge in a series of cascades. The uproar became tremendous; thousands of fragments making every variety of noise according to their size, and producing the effect of a fire of musketry and artillery combined, thundered downwards from so great a height that we waited anxiously for some considerable time to see them reach the snow-field below. As nearly as we could estimate the distance, we were 500 yards from the base of the rocks, so we thought that, come what might, we were in a tolerably secure position. At last we saw many of the blocks plunge into the snow after taking their last fearful leap; presently much larger fragments followed; the noise grew fiercer and fiercer, and huge blocks began to fall so near to us that we jumped to our feet, preparing to dodge them to the best of our ability. 'Look out!' cried someone, and we opened out right and left at the approach of a monster, evidently weighing many hundredweights, which was coming right at us like a huge shell fired from a mortar. It fell with a heavy thud not more than 20 feet from us, scattering lumps of snow into the circle."

Years afterwards a very sad accident occurred at this spot, a lady being struck and killed by a falling stone. In this case the fatality was unquestionably due to the start having been made at too late an hour. An inn in the Trift Valley makes it easy to reach the pass soon after dawn.

THE PERILS OF THE MOMING PASS.

In 1864 many peaks remained unsealed, and passes untraversed in the Zermatt district, though now almost every inch of every mountain has felt the foot of man. Yet even now few passes have been made there so difficult and dangerous (if Mr Whymper's route be exactly followed) as that of the Moming, from Zinal to Zermatt. Mr Whymper gives a most graphic and exciting description of what befell his party, which included Mr Moore and the two famous guides Almer and Croz. Having slept at some filthy châlets, the climbers, first passing over easy mountain slopes, gained a level glacier. Beyond this a way towards the unexplored gap in the ridge, which they called the Moming Pass, had to be decided on. The choice lay between difficult and perhaps impassable rocks, and an ice-slope so steep and broken that it appeared likely to turn out impracticable. In fact it was the sort of position that whichever route was chosen the climbers were sure, when once on it, to wish it had been the other. Finally, the ice-slope, over which a line of ice-cliffs hung threateningly, lurching right above the track to be taken, was decided on, and the whole party advanced for the attack. Mr Whymper writes:

"Across this ice-slope Croz now proceeded to cut. It was executing a flank movement in the face of an enemy by whom we might be attacked at any moment. The peril was obvious. It was a monstrous folly. It was foolhardiness. A retreat should have been sounded.[4]

"'I am not ashamed to confess,' wrote Moore in his Journal, 'that during the whole time we were crossing this slope my heart was in my mouth, and I never felt relieved from such a load of care as when, after, I suppose, a passage of about twenty minutes, we got on to the rocks and were in safety.... I have never heard a positive oath come from Almer's mouth, but the language in which he kept up a running commentary, more to himself than to me, as we went along, was stronger than I should have given him credit for using. His prominent feeling seemed to be one of _indignation_ that we should be in such a position, and self-reproach at being a party to the proceeding; while the emphatic way in which, at intervals, he exclaimed, 'Quick; be quick,' sufficiently betokened his alarm.

"It was not necessary to admonish Croz to be quick. He was fully as alive to the risk as any of the others. He told me afterwards that this place was the most dangerous he had ever crossed, and that no consideration whatever would tempt him to cross it again. Manfully did he exert himself to escape from the impending destruction. His head, bent down to his work, never turned to the right or to the left. One, two, three, went his axe, and then he stepped on to the spot he had been cutting. How painfully insecure should we have considered those steps at any other time! But now, we thought only of the rocks in front, and of the hideous _séracs_, lurching over above us, apparently in the act of falling.

"We got to the rocks in safety, and if they had been doubly as difficult as they were, we should still have been well content. We sat down and refreshed the inner man, keeping our eyes on the towering pinnacles of ice under which we had passed, but which, now, were almost beneath us. Without a preliminary warning sound, one of the largest--as high as the Monument at London Bridge--fell upon the slope below. The stately mass heeled over as if upon a hinge (holding together until it bent thirty degrees forwards), then it crushed out its base, and, rent into a thousand fragments, plunged vertically down upon the slope that we had crossed! Every atom of our track that was in its course was obliterated; all the new snow was swept away, and a broad sheet of smooth, glassy ice, showed the resistless force with which it had fallen.

"It was inexcusable to follow such a perilous path, but it is easy to understand why it was taken. To have retreated from the place where Croz suggested a change of plan, to have descended below the reach of danger, and to have mounted again by the route which Almer suggested, would have been equivalent to abandoning the excursion; for no one would have passed another night in the châlet on the Arpitetta Alp. 'Many' says Thucydides, 'though seeing well the perils ahead, are forced along by fear of dishonour--as the world calls it--so that, vanquished by a mere word, they fall into irremediable calamities.' Such was nearly the case here. No one could say a word in justification of the course which was adopted; all were alive to the danger that was being encountered; yet a grave risk was deliberately--although unwillingly--incurred, in preference to admitting, by withdrawal from an untenable position, that an error of judgment had been committed.

"After a laborious trudge over many species of snow, and through many varieties of vapour--from the quality of a Scotch mist to that of a London fog--we at length stood on the depression between the Rothhorn and the Schallhorn.[5] A steep wall of snow was upon the Zinal side of the summit; but what the descent was like on the other side we could not tell, for a billow of snow tossed over its crest by the western winds, suspended o'er Zermatt with motion arrested, resembling an ocean-wave frozen in the act of breaking, cut off the view.[6]

"Croz--held hard in by the others, who kept down the Zinal side--opened his shoulders, flogged down the foam, and cut away the cornice to its junction with the summit; then boldly leaped down and called on us to follow him.

"It was well for us now that we had such a man as leader. An inferior or less daring guide would have hesitated to enter upon the descent in a dense mist; and Croz himself would have done right to pause had he been less magnificent in _physique_. He acted, rather than said, 'Where snow lies fast, there man can go; where ice exists, a way may be cut; it is a question of power; I have the power--all you have to do is to follow me.' Truly, he did not spare himself, and could he have performed the feats upon the boards of a theatre that he did upon this occasion, he would have brought down the house with thunders of applause. Here is what Moore wrote in _his_ Journal "('The descent bore a strong resemblance to the Col de Pilatte, but was very much steeper and altogether more difficult, which is saying a good deal. Croz was in his element, and selected his way with marvellous sagacity, while Almer had an equally honourable and, perhaps, more responsible post in the rear, which he kept with his usual steadiness.... One particular passage has impressed itself on my mind as one of the most nervous I have ever made. We had to pass along a crest of ice, a mere knife-edge,--on our left a broad crevasse, whose bottom was lost in blue haze, and on our right, at an angle of 70°, or more, a slope falling to a similar gulf below. Croz, as he went along the edge, chipped small notches in the ice, in which we placed our feet, with the toes well turned out, doing all we knew to preserve our balance. While stepping from one of these precarious footholds to another, I staggered for a moment. I had not really lost my footing; but the agonised tone in which Almer, who was behind me, on seeing me waver, exclaimed, "Slip not, sir!" gave us an even livelier impression than we already had of the insecurity of the position.... One huge chasm, whose upper edge was far above the lower one, could neither be leaped nor turned, and threatened to prove an insuperable barrier. But Croz showed himself equal to the emergency. Held up by the rest of the party, he cut a series of holes for the hands and feet down and along the almost perpendicular wall of ice forming the upper side of the _schrund_. Down this slippery staircase we crept, with our faces to the wall, until a point was reached where the width of the chasm was not too great for us to drop across. Before we had done, we got quite accustomed to taking flying leaps over the _schrunds_.... To make a long story short; after a most desperate and exciting struggle, and as bad a piece of ice-work as it is possible to imagine, we emerged on to the upper plateau of the Hohlicht Glacier.')"

From here, in spite of many further difficulties necessitating a long _detour_, the party safely descended to Zermatt by the familiar Trift path.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] The responsibility did not rest with Croz. His part was to advise, but not to direct.

[5] The summit of the pass has been marked on Dufour's map, 3793 mètres, or 12,444 feet.

[6] These snow-cornices are common on the crests of high mountain ridges, and it is always prudent (just before arriving upon the summit of a mountain or ridge), to _sound_ with the alpenstock, that is to say, drive it in, to discover whether there is one or not. Men have often narrowly escaped losing their lives from neglecting this precaution.

These cornices are frequently rolled round in a volute, and sometimes take extravagant forms.