Scrambles Amongst the Alps in the years 1860-69 Part 11

Reynaud and I walked together to St. Christophe, where we parted. Since then we have talked over the doings of this momentous day, and I know that he would not, for a good deal, have missed the pa.s.sage of the Col de Pilatte, although we failed to make it an easier or a shorter route than the Col du Sele. I rejoined Moore and Walker the same evening at Venos, and on the next day went with them over the Lautaret road to the hospice on its summit, where we slept.

So our little campaign in Dauphine came to an end. It was remarkable for the absence of failures, and for the ease and precision with which all our plans were carried out. This was due very much to the spirit of my companions, but it was also owing to the fine weather which we were fortunate enough to enjoy, and to our making a very early start every morning. By beginning our work at or before the break of day on the longest days in the year, we were not only able to avoid hurrying when deliberation was desirable, but could afford to spend several hours in delightful ease whenever the fancy seized us.

I cannot too strongly recommend tourists in search of amus.e.m.e.nt to avoid the inns of Dauphine. Sleep in the chalets. Get what food you can from the inns, but by no means attempt to pa.s.s a night in them. _Sleep_ in them you cannot. M. Joanne says that the inventor of the insecticide powder was a native of Dauphine. I can well believe it. He must have often felt the necessity of such an invention in his infancy and childhood.

CHAPTER XI. Pa.s.sAGE OF THE COL DE TRIOLET, AND ASCENTS OF MONT DOLENT, AIGUILLE DE TReLATeTE AND AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIeRE.

Ten years ago very few people knew from personal knowledge how extremely inaccurately the chain of Mont Blanc was delineated. During the previous half century thousands had made the tour of the chain, and in that time at least a thousand individuals had stood upon its highest summit; but out of all this number there was not one capable, willing or able to map the mountain which, until recently, was regarded as the highest in Europe.

Many persons knew that great blunders had been perpetrated, and it was notorious that even Mont Blanc itself was represented in a ludicrously incorrect manner on all sides excepting the north; but there was not, perhaps, a single individual who knew, at the time to which I refer, that errors of no less than one thousand feet had been committed in the determination of heights at each end of the chain, that some glaciers were represented of double their real dimensions, and that ridges and mountains were laid down which actually had no existence.

One portion alone of the entire chain had been surveyed, at the time of which I speak, with anything like accuracy. It was not done (as one would have expected) by a government, but by a private individual-by the British De Saussure, the late J. D. Forbes. In the year 1842 he "made a special survey of the Mer de Glace of Chamounix and its tributaries, which in some of the following years he extended by further observations, so as to include the Glacier des Bossons." The map produced fror this survey was worthy of its author, and subsequent explorers of the region he investigated have been able to detect only trivial inaccuracies in his work.

The district surveyed by Forbes remained a solitary bright spot in a region where all besides was darkness until the year 1861. Praiseworthy attempts were made by different hands to throw light upon the gloom, but these efforts were ineffectual, and showed how labor may be thrown away by a number of observers working independently without the direction of a single head.

In 1861, Sheet xxii. of Dufour's Map of Switzerland appeared. It included the section of the chain of Mont Blanc that belonged to Switzerland, and this portion of the sheet was executed with the admirable fidelity and thoroughness which characterizes the whole of Dufour's unique map. The remainder of the chain (amounting to about four-fifths of the whole) was laid down after the work of previous topographers, and its wretchedness was made more apparent by contrast with the finished work of the Swiss surveyors.

Strong hands were needed to complete the survey, and it was not long before the right men appeared.

In 1863, Mr. Adams-Reilly, who had been traveling in the Alps during several years, resolved to attempt a survey of the unsurveyed portions of the chain of Mont Blanc. He provided himself with a good theodolite, and, starting from a base-line measured by Forbes in the valley of Chamounix, determined the positions of no less than two hundred points. The accuracy of his work may be judged from the fact that, after having turned many corners and carried his observations over a distance of fifty miles, his Col Ferret "fell within two hundred yards of the position a.s.signed to it by General Dufour!"

In the winter of 1863 and the spring of 1864, Mr. Reilly constructed an entirely original map from his newly-acquired data. The s.p.a.ces between his trigonometrically-determined points he filled in after photographs and a series of panoramic sketches which he made from his different stations.

The map so produced was an immense advance upon those already in existence, and it was the first which exhibited the great peaks in their proper positions.

This extraordinary piece of work revealed Mr. Reilly to me as a man of wonderful determination and perseverance. With very small hope that my proposal would be accepted, I invited him to take part in renewed attacks on the Matterhorn. He entered heartily into my plans, and met me with a counter-proposition-namely, that I should accompany him on some expeditions which he had projected in the chain of Mont Blanc. The unwritten contract took this form: I will help you to carry out your desires, and you shall a.s.sist me to carry out mine. I eagerly closed with an arrangement in which all the advantages were upon my side.

Before I pa.s.s on to these expeditions it will be convenient to devote a few paragraphs to the topography of the chain of Mont Blanc.

At the present time the chain is divided betwixt France, Switzerland and Italy. France has the lion's share, Switzerland the most fertile portion, and Italy the steepest side. It has acquired a reputation which is not extraordinary, but which is not wholly merited. It has neither the beauty of the Oberland nor the sublimity of Dauphine. But it attracts the vulgar by the possession of the highest summit in the Alps. If that is removed, the elevation of the chain is in nowise remarkable. In fact, excluding Mont Blanc itself, the mountains of which the chain is made up are _less_ important than those of the Oberland and the central Pennine groups.

The ascent of Mont Blanc has been made from several directions, and perhaps there is no single point of the compa.s.s from which the mountain cannot be ascended. But there is not the least probability that any one will discover easier ways to the summit than those already known.

I believe it is correct to say that the Aiguille du Midi and the Aiguille de Miage were the only two summits in the chain of Mont Blanc which had been ascended at the beginning of 1864.(24) The latter of these two is a perfectly insignificant point, and the former is only a portion of one of the ridges just now mentioned, and can hardly be regarded as a mountain separate and distinct from Mont Blanc. The really great peaks of the chain were considered inaccessible, and, I think, with the exception of the Aiguille Verte, had never been a.s.sailed.

The finest as well as the highest peak in the chain (after Mont Blanc itself) is the Grandes Jora.s.ses. The next, without a doubt, is the Aiguille Verte. The Aiguille de Bionna.s.say, which in actual height follows the Verte, should be considered as a part of Mont Blanc; and in the same way the summit called Les Droites is only a part of the ridge which culminates in the Verte. The Aiguille de Trelatete is the next on the list that is ent.i.tled to be considered a separate mountain, and is by far the most important peak (as well as the highest) at the south-west end of the chain. Then comes the Aiguille d'Argentiere, which occupies the same rank at the north-east end as the last-mentioned mountain does in the south-west. The rest of the aiguilles are comparatively insignificant; and although some of them (such as the Mont Dolent) look well from low elevations, and seem to possess a certain importance, they sink into their proper places directly one arrives at a considerable alt.i.tude.

The summit of the Aiguille Verte would have been one of the best stations out of all these mountains for the purposes of my friend. Its great height and its isolated and commanding position make it a most admirable point for viewing the intricacies of the chain, but he exercised a wise discretion in pa.s.sing it by, and in selecting as our first excursion the pa.s.sage of the Col de Triolet.

We slept under some big rocks on the Couvercle on the night of July 7, with the thermometer at 26.5 Fahr., and at 4.30 on the 8th made a straight track to the north of the Jardin, and thence went in zigzags, to break the ascent, over the upper slopes of the Glacier de Talefre toward the foot of the Aiguille de Triolet. Croz was still my guide; Reilly was accompanied by one of the Michel Payots of Chamounix; and Henri Charlet, of the same place, was our porter.

The way was over an undulating plain of glacier of moderate inclination until the corner leading to the col, from whence a steep secondary glacier led down into the basin of the Talefre. We experienced no difficulty in making the ascent of this secondary glacier with such ice-men as Croz and Payot, and at 7.50 A.M. arrived on the top of the so-called pa.s.s, at a height, according to Mieulet, of 12,162 feet, and 4530 above our camp on the Couvercle.

The descent was commenced by very steep, firm rocks, and then by a branch of the Glacier de Triolet. Schrunds(25) were abundant: there were no less than five extending completely across the glacier, all of which had to be jumped. Not one was equal in dimensions to the extraordinary chasm on the Col de Pilatte, but in the aggregate they far surpa.s.sed it. "Our lives,"

so Reilly expressed it, "were made a burden to us with schrunds."

Several spurs run out toward the south-east from the ridge at the head of the Glacier de Triolet, and divide it into a number of bays. We descended the most northern of these, and when we emerged from it on to the open glacier, just at the junction of our bay with the next one, we came across a most beautiful ice-arch festooned with icicles, the decaying remnant of an old serac, which stood isolated full thirty feet above the surface of the glacier! It was an accident, and I have not seen its like elsewhere.

When I pa.s.sed the spot in 1865 no vestige of it remained.

We flattered ourselves that we should arrive at the chalets of Pre du Bar very early in the day, but, owing to much time being lost on the slopes of Mont Rouge, it was nearly 4 P.M. before we got to them. There were no bridges across the torrent nearer than Gruetta, and rather than descend so far we preferred to round the base of Mont Rouge and to cross the snout of the Glacier du Mont Dolent.

We occupied the 9th with the ascent of the Mont Dolent. This was a miniature ascent. It contained a little of everything. First we went up to the Col Ferret (No.1), and had a little grind over shaly banks; then there was a little walk over gra.s.s; then a little tramp over a moraine (which, strange to say, gave a pleasant path); then a little zigzagging over the snow-covered glacier of Mont Dolent. Then there was a little bergschrund; then a little wall of snow, which we mounted by the side of a little b.u.t.tress; and when we struck the ridge descending south-east from the summit, we found a little arete of snow leading to the highest point. The summit itself was little-very small indeed: it was the loveliest little cone of snow that was ever piled up on mountain-top; so soft, so pure, it seemed a crime to defile it. It was a miniature Jungfrau, a toy summit: you could cover it with the hand.

But there was nothing little about the _view_ from the Mont Dolent.

[Situated at the junction of three mountain-ridges, it rises in a positive steeple far above anything in its immediate neighborhood, and certain gaps in the surrounding ridges, which seem contrived for that especial purpose, extend the view in almost every direction. The precipices which descend to the Glacier d'Argentiere I can only compare to those of the Jungfrau, and the ridges on both sides of that glacier, especially the steep rocks of Les Droites and Les Courtes, surmounted by the sharp snow-peak of the Aiguille Verte, have almost the effect of the Grandes Jora.s.ses. Then, framed as it were between the ma.s.sive tower of the Aiguille de Triolet and the more distant Jora.s.ses, lies, without exception, the most delicately beautiful picture I have ever seen-the whole ma.s.sif of Mont Blanc, raising its great head of snow far above the tangled series of flying b.u.t.tresses which uphold the Monts Maudits, supported on the left by Mont Peuteret and by the ma.s.s of ragged aiguilles which overhangs the Brenva. This aspect of Mont Blanc is not new, but from this point its _pose_ is unrivaled, and it has all the superiority of a picture grouped by the hand of a master...The view is as extensive as, and far more lovely than, that from Mont Blanc itself.](26)

We went down to Cormayeur, and on the afternoon of July 10 started from that place to camp on Mont Sue, for the ascent of the Aiguille de Trelatete, hopeful that the mists which were hanging about would clear away. They did not, so we deposited ourselves and a vast load of straw on the moraine of the Miage Glacier, just above the Lac de Combal, in a charming little hole which some solitary shepherd had excavated beneath a great slab of rock. We spent the night there and the whole of the next day, unwilling to run away, and equally so to get into difficulties by venturing into the mist. It was a dull time, and I grew restless. Reilly read to me a lecture on the excellence of patience, and composed himself in an easy att.i.tude to pore over the pages of a yellow-covered book.

"Patience," I said to him viciously, "comes very easy to fellows who have shilling novels, but I have not got one. I have picked all the mud out of the nails of my boots, and have skinned my face: what shall I do?" "Go and study the moraine of the Miage," said he. I went, and came back after an hour. "What news?" cried Reilly, raising himself on his elbow. "Very little: it's a big moraine, bigger than I thought, with ridge outside ridge, like a fortified camp; and there are walls upon it which have been built and loopholed, as if for defence." "Try again," he said as he threw himself on his back. But I went to Croz, who was asleep, and tickled his nose with a straw until he awoke; and then, as that amus.e.m.e.nt was played out, watched Reilly, who was getting numbed, and shifted uneasily from side to side, and threw himself on his stomach, and rested his head on his elbows, and lighted his pipe and puffed at it savagely. When I looked again, how was Reilly? An indistinguishable heap-arms, legs, head, stones and straw, all mixed together, his hat flung on one side, his novel tossed far away! Then I went to him and read him a lecture on the excellence of patience.

[Reilly with shilling novel]

[Reilly on his side]

[Reilly smoking pipe]

[Reilly on his stomach]

[Reilly in a heap]

Bah! it was a dull time. Our mountain, like a beautiful coquette, some times unveiled herself for a moment and looked charming above, although very mysterious below. It was not until eventide she allowed us to approach her: then, as darkness came on, the curtains were withdrawn, the light drapery was lifted, and we stole up on tiptoe through the grand portal framed by Mont Suc. But night advanced rapidly, and we found ourselves left out in the cold, without a hole to creep into or shelter from overhanging rock. We might have fared badly except for our good plaids. But when they were sewn together down their long edges, and one end tossed over our rope (which was pa.s.sed round some rocks), and the other secured by stones, there was sufficient protection; and we slept on this exposed ridge, ninety-seven hundred feet above the level of the sea, more soundly perhaps than if we had been lying on feather beds.

[OUR CAMP ON MONT SUC.]

OUR CAMP ON MONT SUC.

We left our bivouac at 4.45 A.M.and at 9.40 arrived upon the highest of the three summits of the Trelatete by pa.s.sing over the lowest one. It was well above everything at this end of the chain, and the view from it was extraordinarily magnificent. The whole of the western face of Mont Blanc was spread out before us: we were the first by whom it had been ever seen. I cede the description of this view to my comrade, to whom it rightfully belongs.

[For four years I had felt great interest in the geography of the chain: the year before I had mapped, more or less successfully, all but this spot, and this spot had always eluded my grasp. The praises, undeserved as they were, which my map had received, were as gall and wormwood to me when I thought of that great slope which I had been obliged to leave a blank, speckled over with unmeaning dots of rock, gathered from previous maps, for I had consulted them all without meeting an intelligible representation of it. From the surface of the Miage glacier I had gained nothing, for I could only see the feet of magnificent ice-streams, but no more; but now, from the top of the dead wall of rock which had so long closed my view, I saw those fine glaciers from top to bottom, pouring down their streams, nearly as large as the Bossons, from Mont Blanc, from the Bosse and from the Dome.

The head of Mont Blanc is supported on this side by two b.u.t.tresses, between which vast glaciers descend. Of these the most southern takes its rise at the foot of the precipices which fall steeply down from the Calotte,(27) and its stream, as it joins that of the Miage, is cut in two by an enormous rognon of rock. Next, to the left, comes the largest of the b.u.t.tresses of which I have spoken, almost forming an aiguille in itself.

The next glacier (Glacier du Dome) descends from a large basin which receives the snows of the summit-ridge between the Bosse and the Dome, and it is divided from the third and last glacier by another b.u.t.tress, which joins the summit-ridge at a point between the Dome and the Aiguille de Bionna.s.say.]

The great b.u.t.tresses betwixt these magnificent ice-streams have supplied a large portion of the enormous ma.s.ses of debris which are disposed in ridges round about, and are strewn over, the termination of the Glacier de Miage in the Val Veni. These moraines(28) used to be cla.s.sed amongst the wonders of the world. They are very large for a glacier of the size of the Miage.

The dimensions of moraines are not ruled by those of glaciers. Many small glaciers have large moraines, and many large ones have small moraines. The size of the moraines of any glacier depends mainly upon the area of rock-surface that is exposed to atmospheric influences within the basin drained by the glacier, upon the nature of such rock, whether it is friable or resistant, and upon the dip of strata. Moraines most likely will be small if little rock-surface is exposed; but when large ones are seen, then, in all probability, large areas of rock, uncovered by snow or ice, will be found in immediate contiguity to the glacier. The Miage glacier has large ones, because it receives detritus from many great cliffs and ridges. But if this glacier, instead of lying, as it does, at the bottom of a trough, were to fill that trough, if it were to completely envelop the Aiguille de Trelatete and the other mountains which border it, and were to descend from Mont Blanc unbroken by rock or ridge, it would be as dest.i.tute of morainic matter as the great Mer de Glace of Greenland.

For if a country or district is _completely_ covered up by glacier, the moraines may be of the very smallest dimensions.

The contributions that are supplied to moraines by glaciers themselves, from the abrasion of the rocks over which their ice pa.s.ses, are minute compared with the acc.u.mulations which are furnished from other sources.

These great rubbish-heaps are formed-one may say almost entirely-from debris which falls or is washed down the flanks of mountains, or from cliffs bordering glaciers; and are composed, to a very limited extent only, of matter that is ground, rasped or filed off by the friction of the ice.

If the contrary view were to be adopted, if it could be maintained that "glaciers, _by their motion, break off ma.s.ses of rock from the sides and bottoms of their valley-courses,_ and crowd along everything that is movable, so as to form large acc.u.mulations of debris in front and along their sides,"(29) the conclusion could not be resisted, the greater the glacier the greater should be the moraine.

This doctrine does not find much favor with those who have personal knowledge of what glaciers do at the present time. From De Saussure(30) downward it has been pointed out, time after time, that moraines are chiefly formed from debris coming from rocks or soil _above_ the ice, not from the bed over which it pa.s.ses. But amongst the writings of modern speculators upon glaciers and glacier-action in bygone times it is not uncommon to find the notions entertained that moraines represent the amount of _excavation_ (such is the term employed) performed by glaciers, or at least are comprised of matter which has been excavated by glaciers; that vast moraines have necessarily been produced by vast glaciers; and that a great extension of glaciers-a glacial period-necessarily causes the production of vast moraines. It is needless to cite more than one or two examples to show that such generalizations cannot be sustained.

Innumerable ill.u.s.trations might be quoted.

In the chain of Mont Blanc one may compare the moraines of the Miage with those of the Glacier d'Argentiere. The latter glacier drains a basin equal to or exceeding that of the former, but its moraines are small compared with those of the former. More notable still is the disparity of the moraines of the Corner glacier (that which receives so many branches from the neighborhood of Monte Rosa) and of the Z'Muttgletscher. The area drained by the Corner greatly exceeds the basin of the Z'Mutt, yet the moraines of the Z'Mutt are incomparably larger than those of the Corner.

No one is likely to say that the Z'Mutt and Miage glaciers have existed for a far greater length of time than the other pair: an explanation must be sought amongst the causes to which reference has been made.