CHAPTER XV

A FINE PERFORMANCE WITHOUT GUIDES

The precipitous peak of the Meije, in Dauphiné, had long, like the Matterhorn, been believed inaccessible, and it was only after repeated attempts that at last the summit was reached. The direct route from La Bérarde will always be an extremely difficult climb to anyone who desires to do his fair share of the work; the descent of the great wall of rock is one of the few places I have been down, which took longer on the descent than on the ascent.

When the members of the Alpine Club heard that a party of Englishmen had succeeded, _without guides_, in making the expedition, they were much impressed by the feat, and on 17th December 1879, one of the climbers, Mr Charles Pilkington, read a paper before the Club describing his ascent. From it I quote the following. The party included the brothers Pilkington and Mr Gardiner.

"On the 19th July 1878, we reached La Bérarde, where we found Mr Coolidge with the two Almers. Coolidge knew that we had come to try the Meije, and he had very kindly given us all the information he could, not only about it, but about several other peaks and passes in the district. Almer also, after finding out our plans, was good enough not to laugh at us, and gave us one or two useful hints. He told us as well that the difficulty did not so much consist in finding the way as in getting up it.

"At two o'clock in the afternoon of 20th July, we left for our bivouac in the Vallon des Etançons, taking another man with us besides our two porters, and at four reached the large square rock called the Hôtel Châteleret, after the ancient name of the valley. We determined to sleep here instead of at Coolidge's refuge a little higher up. The Meije was in full view, and we had our first good look at it since we had read the account of its ascent.

"We went hopefully to bed, telling our porters to call us at eleven the same evening, so as to start at midnight; but long before that it was raining hard, and it required all the engineering skill of the party and the india-rubber bag to keep the water out. It cleared up at daybreak. Of course it was far too late to start then; besides that, we had agreed not to make the attempt unless we had every sign of fine weather.

"As we had nothing else to do, we started at 8 A.M. on an exploring expedition, taking our spare ropes and some extra provisions, to leave, if possible, at M. Duhamel's cairn, some distance up the mountain, whilst our porters were to improve the refuge and lay in a stock of firewood. The snow was very soft, and we were rather lazy, so it was not until eleven that we reached the upper part of the Brêche Glacier, and were opposite our work. The way lies up the great southern buttress, which forms the eastern boundary of the Brêche Glacier, merging into the general face of the mountain about one-third of the total height from the Glacier des Etançons, and 700 feet below, and a little to the west of the Glacier Carré, from whence the final peak is climbed. The chief difficulty is the ascent from M. Duhamel's cairn, on the top of the buttress to the Glacier Carré.

"After a few steps up the snow, we gained the crest of the buttress by a short scramble. The crest is narrow, but very easy, and we went rapidly along, until we came to where a great break in the arête divides the buttress into an upper and a lower part; being no longer able to keep along the crest, we were forced to cross the rocks to our left to the couloir. Not quite liking the look of the snow, Gardiner asked us to hold tight whilst he tried it. Finding it all right he kicked steps up, and at five minutes past one we reached the cairn, having taken one hour and thirty-five minutes from the glacier. The great wall rose straight above us, but the way up, which we had had no difficulty in making out with the telescope from below, was no longer to be seen. Our spirits which had been rising during our ascent from the glacier, sunk once more, and our former uncertainty came back upon us; for it is difficult to imagine anything more hopeless-looking than this face of the Meije. It has been said that, after finding all the most promising ways impossible, this seeming impossibility was tried as a last chance. We looked at it a long time, but at last gave up trying to make out the way as a bad job, determined to climb where we could, if we had luck enough to get so far another day; so, leaving our spare ropes, a bottle of wine, a loaf of bread, and a tin of curried fowl carefully covered with stones, we made the best of our way back, reaching the glacier in one hour and twenty minutes, and our bivouac in an hour and a half more. There we spent the next night and following day, but at last we had to give in to the bad weather, and go sorrowfully down to La Bérarde. It was very disappointing. We had been looking forward to the attempt for more than six months. I had to leave in a few days for England. It was not a mountain for two men to be on alone; what if we had spent all our time and trouble for nothing, and only carried our bed and provisions to the cairn for someone else to use?

"On the evening of the 24th we were again at our bivouac; this time there was a cold north wind blowing, and the weather looked more settled than it had yet done since we came into the district. We watched the last glow of the setting sun fade on the crags of the Meije, and then crawled into our now well-known holes. At midnight exactly we were off, and, as we had much to carry, we took our porters with us as far as the bottom of the buttress, where we waited for daylight. At last the Tête du Replat opposite to us caught the reflection of the light, so, leaving a bottle of champagne for our return, as a reward of victory or consolation for defeat, we started at 3.15, unfortunately with an omen, for in bidding good-bye to our porters, we said 'adieu,' instead of 'au revoir, and though we altered the word at once, they left us with grave faces, old Lagier mournfully shaking his head. Gardiner took the lead again, and at 4.45 we once more stood beside the stone-man, finding our _câche_ of provisions all safe. Here we rearranged our luggage. Both the others took heavy loads; Gardiner the knapsack, Lawrence the 200 feet of spare rope and our wine tin, holding three quarts; the sleeping bag only was given to me, as I was told off to lead.

"We got under weigh at 5.15, and soon clambered up the remaining part of the buttress, and reached the bottom of the great wall, the Glacier Carré being about 700 feet above us, and some distance to our right. We knew that from here a level traverse had to be made until nearly under the glacier before it was possible to turn upwards. We had seen a ledge running in the right direction; crossing some steep rocks and climbing over a projecting knob (which served us a nasty trick on our descent), we let ourselves gently down on to the ledge, leaving a small piece of red rag to guide us in coming back. The ledge, although 4 or 5 feet broad, was not all that could be wished, for it was more than half-covered with snow, which, as the ledge sloped outwards, was not to be trusted; the melting and refreezing of this had formed ice below, nearly covering the available space, forcing us to walk on the edge. We cut a step here and there. It improved as we went on, and when half-way across the face we were able to turn slightly upwards, and at 6.30 were near the spot where later in the day the icicles from the extreme western end of the Glacier Carré fall. It is not necessary to go right into the line of fire, and in coming back we kept even farther away than on the ascent.

"So far the way had been fairly easy to find, but now came the great question of the climb; how to get up the 600 feet of rock wall above us. To our right it rose in one sheer face, the icicles from the Glacier Carré, fringing the top; to our left the rocks, though not so steep, were very smooth, and at the top, especially to the right, near the glacier, they became precipitous. A little above us a bridge ledge led away to the left, slanting upwards towards the lowest and most practicable part of the wall, obviously the way up. Climbing to this ledge, we followed it nearly half-way back across the face, then the holding-places got fewer and more filled with ice, the outward slope more and more until at last its insecure and slippery look warned us off it, and we turned up the steeper but rougher rocks on our right. In doing so I believe we forsook the route followed by all our predecessors, but we were obliged to do so by the glazed state of the rocks.

"As the direction in which we were now going was taking us towards the glacier and the steep upper rocks, we soon turned again to our left to avoid them, the only way being up some smooth slabs, with very little hold, the sort of rocks where one's waistcoat gives a great deal of holding power; worming oneself up these we reached a small shelf where we were again in doubt. It was impossible to go straight up; to the left the rocks, though easier, only led to the higher part of the ledge we had forsaken; we spent some minutes examining this way, but again did not like the look of the glazed rocks; so we took the only alternative and went to the right. Keeping slightly upwards, we gained about 50 feet in actual height by difficult climbing. We were now getting on to the steep upper rocks near the glacier, which we had wanted to avoid.

"This last piece of the wall will always remain in our minds as the most desperate piece of work we have ever done; the rocks so far had been firm, but now, although far too steep for loose stones to lodge on, were so shattered that we dared not trust them; at the same time we had to be very careful, lest in removing any we should bring others down upon us.

"One place I shall never forget. Gardiner was below, on a small ledge, with no hand-hold to speak of, trying to look as if he could stand any pull; my brother on a knob a little higher up, to help me if necessary. I was able to pull myself about 8 feet higher, but the next rock was insecure, and the whole nearly perpendicular. A good many loose stones had been already pulled out; this one would not come. It is hard work tugging at a loose stone with one hand, the other in a crack, and only one foot finding anything to rest on. I looked down, told them how it was, and came down to rest.

"For about a minute nothing was said; all our faces turned towards the Glacier Carré, now only about 60 feet above us. We all felt it would have been hard indeed to turn back, yet it was not a pleasant place, and we could not see what was again above. We were on what may be fairly called a precipice. In removing the loose stones, the slightest backhanded jerk, just enough to miss the heads of the men behind, sent them clear into the air; they never touched anything for a long time after leaving the hand, and disappeared with a disagreeable hum on to the Glacier des Etançons, 1800 feet below. We looked and tried on both sides, but it was useless, so we went at it again. After the fourth or fifth attempt I managed to get up about 10 feet, to where there was some sort of hold; then my brother followed, giving me rope enough to get to a firm rock, where I remained till joined by the others. It was almost as bad above, but we crawled carefully up; one place actually overhung--fortunately there was plenty of hold, and we slung ourselves up it! From this point the rocks became rather easier, and at 9.30 we reached a small sloping shelf of rock, about 20 yards to the west of the Glacier Carré and on the top of the great rock wall. Stopping here for a short time to get cool, and to let one of the party down to get the axes, which had been tied to a rope and had caught in a crevice in the rock, we changed leaders, and crossing some shelving rocks, climbed up a gully, or cleft, filled with icicles, and reached the platform of rock at the south-west end of the Glacier Carré at 10.15 A.M.

"The platform we had reached can only be called one by comparison; it is rather smooth, and slopes too much to form a safe sleeping-place, but we left our extra luggage there.

"At 11.10 we started up the glacier, Gardiner going ahead, kicking steps into the soft, steep snow.

"We were much more cheerful now than we had been two hours before. My companions had got rid of their heavy loads, the day was still very fine, and Almer had told us that, could we but reach the glacier, we should have a good chance of success.

"Shortly before 1 P.M. we were underneath the well-known overhanging top, the rocks of which, cutting across the face, form a triangular corner. It is the spot where Gaspard lost so much time looking for the way on the first ascent. We knew that the arête had here to be crossed, and the northern face on the other side taken to.

"Almost before I got my head over the crest came the anxious question from below, 'Will it go on the other side?' I could not see, however; so when the others came up, Gardiner fixed himself and let us down to the full extent of the rope. The whole northern face, as far as we could see, looked terribly icy; but as there was no other way of regaining the arête higher up without going on to it, we told him to come down after us.

"Turning to the right as soon as possible, we had to traverse the steep, smooth face for a short distance. It took a long time, for the rocks were even worse than they had appeared; we often had to clear them of ice for a yard before we could find any hold at all and sometimes only the left hand could be spared for cutting. After about 50 yards of this work we were able to turn upwards, and with great difficulty wriggled up the slippery rocks leading to the arête; rather disgusted to find the north face so difficult--owing, perhaps, to the lateness of the season.

"It was our last difficulty, for the arête, though narrow, gives good hand and foot-hold, and we pressed eagerly onwards. In a few minutes it became more level, and there, sure enough, were the three stone-men, only separated from us by some easy rocks and snow, which we went at with a rush, and at 2.25 we stood on the highest point of the Meije.

"Knowing that it would be useless for us to try and descend further than the Glacier Carré that day, and as it was pleasanter on the top than there, we went in for a long halt. Untying the rope--for the top is broad enough to be safe--we examined the central cairn, where the tokens are kept. We found a tin box, containing the names of our predecessors; a bottle, hanging by a string, the property of Mr Coolidge; a tri-coloured flag; and a scented pocket-handkerchief belonging to M. Guillemin, still retaining its former fragrance, which it had not 'wasted on the desert air.' We tore a corner off each, leaving a red-and-yellow rag in exchange; put our names in the tin, and an English penny with a hole bored through it.

"Then, after repairing the rather dilapidated southern cairn, we sat down to smoke and enjoy the view, which the fact of the mountain standing on the outside of the group, the tremendous depth to which the eye plunges on each side, the expansive panorama of the Dauphiné and neighbouring Alps, and the beautiful distant view of the Pennine chain from Mont Blanc to Monte Rosa, combine to make one of the finest in the Alps.

"At four o'clock, after an hour and a half on the top, we started downwards, soon arriving at the spot where it was necessary to leave the arête; however, before doing so, we went along it to where it was cut off, to see if we could let ourselves straight down into the gap, and so avoid the detour by the northern face, but it was impracticable; so, putting the middle of the spare rope round a projecting rock on the arête, we let ourselves down to where we had gone along on the level, pulling the rope down after us; then regaining the gap by the morning's route, we crossed it, and leisurely descended the south-western face to the Glacier Carré, filling our now empty wine tin with water on the way down. We reached the glacier at 6.30. In skirting the base of the Pic du Glacier we found a nice hollow in the snow, which looked a good place to sleep in. Gardiner wanted one of us to stop and build a stone-wall, whilst the others fetched the bag and provisions from the bottom of the glacier. Lawrence was neutral; I was rather against it, having slept on snow before. At last we all went down to the rocky platform where our luggage had been left. We cleared a place for the bag, but it all sloped so much, and the edge of the precipice was so near, that we dared not lie down. We looked for a good rock to tie ourselves to; even that could not be found. Then some one thought we might scrape a hole in the steep snow above us, and get into it. That, of course, was quite out of the question. Nothing therefore remained for us but Gardiner's hollow above--the only level place we had seen above M. Duhamel's cairn large enough for us to lay our bag on. There was no time to be lost; it was getting dark; a sharp frost had already set in: so we at once shouldered our traps and trudged wearily up the glacier once more, wishing now that we had left somebody to build a wall.

"On reaching the hollow we put the ropes, axes, hats, and knapsack on the snow as a sort of carpet, placed the bag on the top, then, pulling off our boots for pillows, and putting on the comfortable woollen helmets given to us by Mrs Hartley, got into the bag to have our supper. Fortunately there was not much wind; but it was rather difficult to open the meat tin. We did as well as we could, however, and after supper tried to smoke; but the cold air got into the bag and made that a failure; so we looked at the scene instead.

"The moon was half full, and shone upon us as we lay, making everything look very beautiful. We could see the snow just in front of us, and then, far away through the frosty air all the mountains on the other side of the Vallon des Etançons, with the silver-grey peak of the Ecrins behind, its icy ridges standing out sharply against the clear sky; and deep down in the dark valley below was the signal fire of our porters. As this could only be seen by sitting bolt upright, we got tired of looking at it, and the last link connecting us with the lower world being broken, we felt our utter loneliness.

"The moon soon going behind a rocky spur of the Pic du Glacier, we lay down and tried to get warm by pulling the string round the neck of the bag as tight as possible and breathing inside; but somehow the outside air got in also. So closing it as well as we could, with only our heads out, we went to sleep, but not for long. The side on which we lay soon got chilled. Now, as the bag was narrow, we all had to face one way on account of our knees; so the one who happened to be the soonest chilled through would give the word, and we all turned together. I suppose we must have changed sides every half-hour through the long night. We got some sleep, however, and felt all right when the first glimmering of dawn came over the mountains on our left. As soon as we could see we had breakfast; but the curried fowl was frozen, and the bread could only be cut with difficulty, as a shivering seized one every minute. We had the greatest trouble in getting our boots on. They were pressed out of shape, and, in spite of having been under our heads, were hard frozen. At last, by burning paper inside, and using them as lantern for our candle, we thawed them enough to get them on, and then spent a quarter of an hour stamping about to thaw ourselves. We rolled the bag up and tied it fast to a projecting rock, hanging the meat tin near as a guide to anyone looking for it.

"At 4.30 we set off, very thankful that we had a fine day before us. We soon went down the glacier, and down and across to the shelf of rock where the real descent of the wall was to begin. A few feet below was a jagged tooth of rock which we could not move; so to it we tied one end of the 100 feet of rope, taking care to protect the rope where it pressed on the sharp edges, with pieces of an old handkerchief; the other end we threw over the edge, and by leaning over we could just see the tail of it on some rocks below the bad part,[9] so we knew it was long enough.

"After a short discussion we arranged to go down one at a time, as there were places where we expected to throw all our weight on the rope. Gardiner was to go first as he was the heaviest; my brother next, carrying all the traps and the three axes, as he had the strongest pair of hands and arms in the party; whilst I as the lightest, was to bring down the rear. So tying the climbing rope round his waist as an extra help, Gardiner started, whilst we paid it out. He soon disappeared, but we knew how he was getting on, and when he was in the worst places, by the 'Lower,' 'A little lower,' 'Hold,' 'Hold hard,' which came up from below, getting fainter as he got lower. Fifty feet of the rope passed through our hands before he stopped going. 'Can you hold there?' we asked. 'No. Hold me while I rest a little, and then give me 10 feet more if you can.' So after a while we got notice to lower, and down he went again until nearly all our rope was gone; then it slackened. He told us he was fast, and that we could pull up the rope.

"Then Lawrence shouldered his burdens, the three axes being tied below him with a short piece of rope. The same thing happened again, only it was more exciting, for every now and then the axes caught and loosened with a jerk, which I felt on the rope I was paying out, although it was tied to him. At first I thought it was a slip, but soon got used to it. Lawrence did not go so far as Gardiner, but stopped to help me at the bottom of the worst piece.

"It was now my turn. Tying the other end of the loose rope round me, I crawled cautiously down to where the tight rope was fixed. The others told me afterwards they did not like it. I certainly did not. The upper part was all right; but lower down the rocks were so steep that if I put much weight on the rope it pulled me off them, and gave a tendency to swing over towards the Glacier Carré, which, as only one hand was left for climbing with, was rather difficult to resist. I remember very well sitting on a projecting rock, with nothing below it but air for at least 100 feet. Leaving this, Lawrence half pulled me towards him with the loose rope. A few steps more and I was beside him, and we descended together to Gardiner, cutting off the fixed rope high up, so as to leave as little as possible, and in a few minutes more we all three reached the small shelf of rocks above the smooth slabs by which we had descended the day before. It was the place where we had spent some time trying to avoid the steep bit we had just descended, and which had taken us nearly two hours.

"This ledge is about 3 feet broad. We had got down the only place on the mountain that had given us any anxiety. It was warm and pleasant; all the day was before us; so we took more than an hour to lunch and rest.

"On starting again we ought to have stuck to our old route and descended by the slabs, as we could easily have done; but after a brief discussion we arranged to take a short cut, by fixing a second rope and letting ourselves straight down the drop on to the lower slanting ledge, at a point a few feet higher than where we had left it on the ascent.

"We descended one at a time, as before, and, what with tying and untying, took much longer than we should have done had we gone the other way. On gaining the ledge we turned to our left and soon came across one of our marks; then striking down sooner than our old route would have taken us, we gave a wider berth to the falling ice, and got into the traverse leading to the top of the buttress. Along it we went; but it looked different, had less snow, and when we came near the end a steep rock, with a nasty drop below, blocked the way. It appeared so bad that I said we were wrong. As the others were not sure, we retraced our steps, and by a very difficult descent gained a lower ledge. There was no snow on this, but the melting of the snow above made the rocks we had to take hold of so wet that we often got a stream of water down our arms and necks.

"At last, after nearly crossing, it became quite impossible, and we turned back, having gained nothing but a wetting.

"Below it was far too steep. Immediately above was the place we had tried just before. We could not make it out; we had been so positive about the place above.

"We were just thinking of trying it again more carefully, when Lawrence pointed up at something, and there, sure enough, was the bit of red rag left the day before to show the commencement of the traverse.

"We marked where it was, and then crawled back along the ledge on which we were. Scrambling up the steep drop, we made quickly upwards, and, turning towards our flag, found that the only way to it was along the very ledge where we had first tried, and which proved to be the traverse after all.

"We were very glad to get into it once more, as for the last three hours we had been on the look-out for falling ice. Some had already shot over our heads, sending showers of splinters on to us, and one piece as big as one's fist had come rather closer than was pleasant. On our left, the Glacier Carré kept up a regular fire of it, the ice following with tremendous noise on to the rocks below. Every time it gave us a start, as we could not always see at once where the fall had taken place; and although the danger was more imaginary than real, it is not pleasant to be constantly on the look-out, and flattening one's self against the rocks to avoid being hit.

"We soon crossed the snowy part of the traverse, and were again in front of the rock which had turned us back before. It looked no better; but on going close up we found a small crack near the top, just large enough to get our fingers into, giving excellent hold. By this we swung ourselves up and across the worst part.

"We thought we had only two hours more easy descent, and our work would be done. But we made a mistake.

"At first we went rapidly down, and were soon cheered by the sight of M. Duhamel's cairn, looking about five minutes off. I was in front at the time, and was just getting on to a short snow-slope by which we had ascended the day before, when, doubting its safety, I asked the others to hold fast whilst I tried it. The moment I put my foot on the snow, all the top went away, slowly at first, then, taking to the left, went down the couloir with a rush. We tried again where the upper layer had gone away, but it was all unsafe; so we had to spend half an hour getting down the rocks, where we had ascended in ten minutes, and it was not until 2.30 that we reached the cairn.

"It was 3.30 before we continued the descent. The couloir was not in good order and required care. Gardiner, who was in front, did not get on as well as usual. At last, thinking we might get impatient, he showed us his fingers, which were bleeding in several places, and awfully raw and sore. He had pluckily kept it all to himself until the real difficulties were over; but the snow of the couloir had softened his hands, and these last rocks were weathered granite, and very sharp and cutting; so he had to go very gingerly.

"At the bottom of the buttress a surprise awaited us, for as we descended the last 20 feet, the weather-beaten face of old Lagier, our porter, appeared above the rocks. The faithful old fellow said he had traced our descent by the occasional flashing of the wine tin in the sun, and had come alone to meet us, bringing us provisions as he thought we might have run short. He had waited six hours for us, and had iced the bottle of champagne which had been left on the ascent. We opened it and then hurried down to the glacier, taking off the rope at the moraine, and ran all the rest of the way on the snow to our bivouac, like a lot of colts turned loose in a field, feeling it a great relief to get on to something on which we could tumble about as we liked without falling over a precipice."

That the Meije is a really difficult mountain may be assumed from the fact that for some years after its first ascent, no party succeeded in getting up and down it on the same day. When every step of the way became well known, of course much quicker times were possible, and when, on 16th September 1892, I went up it with the famous Dauphiné guide, Maximin Gaspard, and Roman Imboden (the latter aged twenty-three, and perhaps the finest rock climber in Switzerland), we had all in our favour. There was neither ice nor snow on the rocks, and no icicles hung from the Glacier Carré, while the weather was still and cloudless. We slept at the bottom of the buttress--just at the spot where Mr Pilkington met his porter--and from here were exactly four hours (including a halt of one hour) reaching the top of the Meije.

It is now the fashion to cross the Meije from La Bérarde to La Grave, the descent on the other side being also extremely hard. For a couple of hours after leaving the summit a narrow ridge is traversed with several formidable gaps in it.

FOOTNOTE:

[9] The remains of this rope hung for years where Mr Pilkington had placed it, and when I ascended the Meije I saw the bleached end of it hanging over as sickening looking a place as I have ever desired to avoid. The ordinary route passes more to the west.