CHAPTER XIII

AN ADVENTURE ON THE ALETSCH GLACIER

Mr William Longman, a former Vice-President of the Alpine Club, has given us an interesting account in _The Alpine Journal_ of an exciting adventure which happened to his son in August 1862.

The party, consisting of Mr Longman, his son, aged fifteen, two friends, two guides, and a porter, set out one lovely morning from the Eggischhorn Hotel for an excursion on the Great Aletsch Glacier. The names of the guides were Fedier and Andreas Weissenflüh.

Mr Longman writes:--"We started in high spirits; the glacier was in perfect order; no fresh snow covered the ice; the crevasses were all unhidden; and no one thought it necessary to use the rope. I felt it to be a wise precaution, however, to place my son, a boy of fifteen years of age, under the care of the Eggischhorn porter. It was his second visit to Switzerland, and he could, I am sure, have taken good care of himself, but I felt it was my duty to place him under the care of a guide. I have no wish to throw undeserved blame on the guide; but his carelessness was unquestionably the cause of the accident. He began wrong, and I ought to have interfered. He tied his handkerchief in a knot, and, holding it himself, gave it to my son to hold also in his hand. This was worse than useless, and, in fact, was the cause of danger, for it partly deprived him of that free and active use of his limbs which is essential to safety. It threw him off his guard. Except at a crevasse, it was unnecessary for the boy to have anything to hold by; and, at a crevasse, the handkerchief would have been insufficient. The impression that there was no real danger, and that all that was required was caution in crossing the crevasses, prevented my interfering. So the guide went on, his hand holding the handkerchief behind him, and my son following, his hand also holding the handkerchief. Many a time I complained to the guide that he took my boy over wide parts of the crevasses because he would not trouble himself to diverge from his path, and many a time did I compel him to turn aside to a narrower chasm. At last, I was walking a few yards to his left, and had stepped over a narrow crevasse, when I was startled by an exclamation. I turned round suddenly, and my son was out of sight! I will not harrow up my own feelings, or those of my readers, by attempting to describe the frightful anguish that struck me to the heart; but will only relate, plainly and calmly, all that took place. When my son fell, the crevasse, which I had crossed so easily, became wider, and its two sides were joined by a narrow ridge of ice. It was obviously impossible to ascertain exactly what had taken place; but I am convinced that the guide went on in his usual thoughtless way, with his hand behind him, drawing my son after him, and that, as soon as he placed his foot on the narrow ridge, he slipped and fell. I rushed to the edge of the crevasse and called out to my poor boy. To my inexpressible delight he at once answered me calmly and plainly. As I afterwards ascertained, he was 50 feet from me, and neither could he see us nor we see him. But he was evidently unhurt; he was not frightened, and he was not beyond reach. In an instant Weissenflüh was ready to descend into the crevasse. He buckled on one of my belts,[8] fixed it to the rope, and told us to lower him down. My two friends and I, and the other two guides, held on to the rope, and slowly and gradually, according to Weissenflüh's directions, we paid it out. It was a slow business, but we kept on encouraging my son, and receiving cheery answers from him in return. At last Weissenflüh told us, to our intense joy, that he had reached my son, that he had hold of him, and that we might haul up. Strongly and steadily we held on, drawing both the boy and the guide, as we believed, nearer and nearer, till at length, to our inexpressible horror, we drew up Weissenflüh alone. He had held my son by the collar of his coat. The cloth was wet, his hand was cold, and the coat slipped from his grasp. I was told that when my boy thus again fell he uttered a cry, but either I heard it not or forgot it. The anguish of the moment prevented my noticing it, and, fortunately, we none of us lost our presence of mind, but steadily held on to the rope. Poor Weissenflüh reached the surface exhausted, dispirited, overwhelmed with grief. He threw himself on the glacier in terrible agony. In an instant Fedier was ready to descend, and we began to lower him; but the crevasse was narrow, and Fedier could not squeeze himself through the ice. We had to pull him up again before he had descended many feet. By this time the brave young Weissenflüh had recovered, and was ready again to go down. But we thought it desirable to take the additional precaution of lowering the other rope, with one of the belts securely fixed to it. My son quickly got hold of it, and placed the belt round his body, but he told us his hands were too cold to buckle it. Weissenflüh now again descended, and soon he told us he had fixed the belt. With joyful heart some hauled away at one rope and some at the other, till at length, after my son had been buried in the ice for nearly half an hour, both he and the guide were brought to the surface.... Let a veil rest over the happiness of meeting. My boy's own account of what befell him is, that he first fell sideways on to a ledge in the crevasse, and then vertically, but providentially with his feet downwards, till his progress was arrested by the narrowness of the crevasse. He says he is sure he was stopped by being wedged in, because his feet were hanging loose. His arms were free. He believes the distance he fell, when Weissenflüh dropped him, was about three or four yards, and that he fell to nearly, but not quite, the same place as that to which he fell at first, and that, in his first position, he could not have put the belt on. His fall was evidently a slide for the greater part of the distance; had it been a sheer fall it would have been impossible to escape severe injury."

A LOYAL COMPANION

The following is taken from _The Times_ of 23rd July 1886.

"On Tuesday, 13th July, Herr F. Burckhardt, member of the Basel section of the Swiss Alpine Club, accompanied by the guides Fritz Teutschmann and Johann Jossi, both from Grindelwald, made an attempt to ascend the Jungfrau from the side of the Little Scheideck. After leaving the Guggi cabin the party mounted the glacier of the same name. The usual precautions were of course taken--that is to say, the three men were roped together, Herr Burckhardt in the middle, one of the guides before, the other behind him. When the climbers reached the _séracs_, at a point marked on the Siegfried Karte as being at an elevation of 2700 mètres, an enormous piece of ice broke off from the upper part of the glacier, and came thundering down. Although by good fortune the mass of the avalanche did not sweep across the path of the three men, they were struck by several large blocks of ice, and sent flying. Jossi, who was leading, went head first into a crevasse of unfathomable depth, dragging after him Herr Burckhardt, who, however, contrived to hold on to the edge of the crevasse, but in such a position that he could not budge, and was unable to help either himself or Jossi. Their lives at that moment depended absolutely on the staunchness of Teutschmann, who alone had succeeded in keeping his feet. It was beyond his power to do more; impossible by his own unaided strength to haul up the two men who hung by the rope. If he had given way a single step all three would have been precipitated to the bottom of the crevasse. So there he stood, with feet and ice-axe firmly planted, holding on for dear life, conscious that the end was a mere question of time, and a very short time; his strength was rapidly waning, and then? It would have been easy for the two to escape by sacrificing the third. One slash of Burckhardt's knife would have freed both Teutschmann and himself. But no such dastardly idea occurred to either of them. They were resolved to live or die together. Half an hour passed; they had almost abandoned hope, and Teutschmann's forces were well-nigh spent, when help came just in time to save them. The same morning another party, consisting of two German tourists, and the two guides Peter Schlegel and Rudolph Kaufmann, had started from the Little Scheideck for the Jungfrau, and coming on traces of Burckhardt's party had followed them up, and arrived before it was too late on the scene of the accident. Without wasting a moment Schlegel went down into the crevasse and fastened Jossi to another rope, so that those above were enabled to draw him up and release Burckhardt and Teutschmann. Jossi, although bruised and exhausted, was able to walk to the Scheideck, and all reached Grindelwald in safety."

When it is remembered how few people make this expedition, the escape of Mr Burckhardt's party is the more wonderful, and would not have been possible unless other climbers had taken the same route that day. This way up the Jungfrau is always somewhat exposed to falling ice, though sometimes it is less dangerous than at other times. As the editor of _The Alpine Journal_ has written, "no amount of experience can avail against falling missiles, and the best skill of the mountaineer is shown in keeping out of their way."

A BRAVE GUIDE

The brave actions of guides are so many in number that it would be impossible to tell of them all, and many noble deeds have never found their way into print. The following, however, is related of a guide with whom I have made many ascents, and is furthermore referred to in _The Alpine Journal_ as "an act of bravery for which it would be hard to find a parallel in the annals of mountaineering."

On 1st September 1898, a party of two German gentlemen with a couple of guides went up Piz Palü, a glacier-clad peak frequently ascended from Pontresina. One of the guides was a Tyrolese, Klimmer by name, the other a native of the Engadine, Schnitzler.

They had completed the ascent of the actual peak, and were on their way down, some distance below the Bellavista Saddle. Here there are several large crevasses, and the slope is very steep at this point. I remember passing down it with Schnitzler the previous January, and finding much care needed to cross a big chasm. Schnitzler was leading, then came the two travellers, finally the Tyrolese, who came down last man. Suddenly Schnitzler, who must have stepped on a snow-bridge, and Herr Nasse dropped without a sound into the chasm. Dr Borchardt was dragged some steps after them, but managed to check himself on the very brink of the abyss. Behind was Klimmer, but on so steep a surface that he could give no help beyond standing firm. At last, after some anxious moments, came a call from below, "Pull!" They did their best but in vain. "My God!" cried Schnitzler from below, "I can't get out!" A period of terrible apprehension followed. Herr Nasse was entreated to try and help a little, or to cut himself free from the rope, as he appeared to be suffering greatly. But he was helpless, hanging with the rope pressing his chest till he could hardly breathe, and cried out that he could stand it no longer. Dr Borchardt made a plucky attempt to render assistance, and the desperate endeavour nearly caused him to fall also into the crevasse.

The position was terrible, and Herr Nasse was at the end of his forces. He called out in a dying voice that he could bear no more--it was the last time he spoke.

Of Schnitzler nothing was heard, and the others could not tell if he were still alive.

But while this terrible scene was passing, Schnitzler had performed an act of the highest bravery. First he had tried, by using his axe, to climb out of the icy prison where he hung. This he could not do, so steadying himself against the glassy wall, he deliberately cut himself loose from the rope. He dropped to the floor of the crevasse, which, luckily, was not of extraordinary depth, and being uninjured, he set himself to find a way out. He followed the crevasse along its entire length, and discovered a little ledge of ice, with the aid of which, panting and exhausted, he reached the surface.

But even with Schnitzler's help it was impossible to raise Herr Nasse out of the chasm. The rope had cut deeply into the snow. He hung underneath an eave of the soft surface and could not be moved. Another willing helper, an Englishman, now came up, and after a time the body--for Herr Nasse had not survived--was lowered to the floor of the crevasse. Every effort was made to restore animation, but with no result, and there was nothing left to do but leave that icy grave and descend to the valley. Herr Nasse had suffered from a weak heart and an attack of pleurisy, and these gave him but a poor chance of withstanding the terrible pressure of the rope. Dr Scriven, from whose spirited translation from the German I have taken my facts, remarks that, "The death of Professor Nasse seems to emphasize a warning, already painfully impressed on us by the loss of Mr Norman Neruda, that there are special dangers awaiting those whose vital organs are not perfectly sound, and who undertake the exertion and fatigue of long and difficult climbs."

FOOTNOTE:

[8] In the early days of mountaineering it was the custom to pass the rope through a ring or spring-hook attached to a strong leather belt, instead of, as now, attaching it in a loop round the body of each climber.