# My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908)/Chapter 10

CHAPTER X.
THE AIGUILLE VERTE—BY THE MOINE RIDGE.
THE ascent of the Verte just described is open to the objection that almost at every step the texture of one's skull is likely to be tested by the impact of a falling stone. Though this lends much interest and excitement to the climb, it is of a sort that altogether loses its power of pleasing so soon as the mountaineer has passed the first flush of youth. A similar objection, though in a very modified form, may be taken to the ordinary route; indeed, various parties have been so battered and harassed by falling missiles, that the ascent has, of late years, been very rarely effected. Oddly enough the Dru, which so appalled the early explorers and which they unhesitatingly described as absolutely inaccessible, has become an everyday ascent, and is regarded as comparatively easy. A third route, leading from the Argentière glacier discovered by Messrs. Maund, Middlemore and Cordier, is yet more exposed to avalanches and stones, and, so far, no one has ventured to repeat it.
Under these circumstances it obviously behoved ​climbers to discover a safe and convenient way on to the summit. It might, of course, be argued that where so many and various parties had each and all been forced into stone-swept couloirs, no safe method of reaching the top could exist. But Collie, with resistless logic, demonstrated the falsity of such a conclusion. "Is it not," he said, "universally admitted, is it not written in the Badminton and All England series—and if it isn't it ought to be—that every peak can be ascended by a properly constituted party in absolute safety? Now, since the known routes are all dangerous, it necessarily follows that a fourth, the strait and narrow path, must exist." Converted by this teaching, we determined to elucidate the problem at the earliest opportunity.
During the summer of 1893 we had, more than once, examined the mountain, and the result of these observations, backed up by the study of many photographs, purchased with reckless extravagance during the autumn of that year, had led us to the belief that the true path would be found to lie along the Moine ridge. It appeared that this ridge could be safely and conveniently reached from the Talêfre by means of a secondary ridge dividing two couloirs in the near neighbourhood of the great rocky buttress which projects far into that glacier. This rib would bring us to the arête at a point immediately to the right, or on the Verte side, of the ​tower known at the Montenvers as the "Sugar Loaf." So confident were we that this was the true line of ascent, that we wondered why none of the guides and travellers who haunt the Mer de Glace had taken this most obvious route, but we ascribed it to that lack of initiative which is fast becoming the main characteristic of the Alpine guide and his ever roped Monsieur. Little did we dream that buried in an early number of the Apline Journal is a full description of an ascent made by this very ridge twenty-nine years ago. Curiously enough, Messrs. Hudson, Kennedy and Hodgkinson did not realise the many advantages of their climb, and advised future travellers to give the preference to the uninteresting and stone-swept slopes by which Mr. Whymper had effected the first ascent. The mountaineering fraternity accepted this erroneous teaching, and for thirty years have wearied their muscles and imperilled their skulls on the longer, less interesting, and far more dangerous southern face. Since the memory of Mr. Hudson's ascent has so completely died out, and since the scenery and the ridge are all that the keenest enthusiasts could wish, I may perhaps be pardoned for relating our experiences, even though they may constitute but a twice-told tale.
Immediately on our arrival at the Montenvers last year we engaged a porter, and early the next morning we stretched our cramped and railway stiffened legs in a slow and decorous march to the ​Couvercle. Though the early climbers used to start from Chamonix or other equally low-lying valleys, and walk steadily, and so far as one can learn without any symptom of fatigue, to the top of their peaks, we moderns are cast in a less robust mould—at least some of us are—and I freely confess that as I floundered and slipped on the last slope of loose stones leading to the Couvercle, exhaustion had laid hold of me as its victim, and even Hastings . . . But the love of veracity must not be pushed too far. Truth, at all events outside its symbolical representations, requires decorous garments and draperies; even one's belief in an overruling Providence is strengthened and upheld by the wise ordinance that not merely is Truth ever appropriately habited and veiled, but usually compelled to lie hidden at the bottom of deepest wells. Moreover, it is always unwise to excite retort. Hastings, raging at the shameless goddess, might even hint that a few days later, as we were slowly plodding up the calotte of Mont Blanc, weary with a long struggle amid the mazes of the Brevna slopes, the rope tightened between us till its function seemed rather that of a tow-line than a mere protection against concealed crevasses. But these are incidents which, even in this age of brutal realism, are too painful for written words, and I will, therefore, merely chronicle the bare fact that we, all of us, did actually reach the Couvercle. Sinking ​on various angular stones, we pointed out to each other's admiration the splendid overhanging roof, the perfect shelter of the gîte, and the admirable underground apartment wherein it appeared one could rest in warmth, dryness, and security, even though old Æolus broke his sceptre and sent all the tempests howling through the hills. At this juncture a white squall swept down upon us. Our hats and other loose properties were torn rudely from our grasp, and we ourselves were literally blown out of the lower or cellar apartment. We immediately agreed that this lower apartment was a fraud, and made our way back to the customary gîte. We soon, however, discovered that the huge overhanging roof constituted an excellent fan and drove the whole force of the icy blast, sharpened and edged with hail and sleet, into and through every corner and crevice that could be found.
The rain and melting snow which fell on the top of the rock ran down inside it, and the more important trickles were promptly captured and imprisoned in sundry bottles and tin boilers, thus enabling our cooking operations to proceed without any painful and protracted search for springs or tiny rivulets. When, however, an unexpected stream ran down one's neck, or the stone on which one was sitting became suddenly submerged, our altruistic feelings carried us away, and led us to express earnest and heart-felt prayers, that these ​varied blessings might be promptly removed and placed within convenient reach of Dives and other suffering humanity.
As the night wore on the rain ceased, and fog wrapped us in a dense, black obscurity. About 4 a.m. this obscurity began to get luminous, and by five o'clock the opaque wall by which we were surrounded emitted sufficient light to enable tea brewing and other culinary operations to proceed. Cheered by the varied pleasures which a breakfast under Hastings's auspices invariably grants, we decided that the weather might not be as bad as it looked—it was quite evident that by no manner of means could it be worse. In consequence, we determined to go up the glacier on the chance that sun and wind might sweep away the all-pervading fog.
The search for axes and knapsacks was carried on under great difficulties, it being absolutely impossible to see two yards in front of one's nose. Indeed, outside our great and glorious Metropolis, the just source of pride to every Briton, it has never been my fate to grope in a thicker and more utterly opaque atmosphere. After scrambling over many stones we found the glacier, and, feeling our way through a few crevasses, reached a fairly continuous snow slope, which, for all we knew to the contrary, led in the right direction. At this point, however, Collie wisely suggested a pipe, and as ​we squatted on the snow, we quickly came to the conclusion that, under some circumstances, even mountaineering is vanity and vexation of spirit. Firmly founded on this dictum of antiquity, Collie and I expressed an unalterable determination that when next we moved, it should be downwards. But Hastings, a scoffer at tobacco and otherwise wholly unregenerate, was insensible to the arguments with which a steep, wet snow slope appeals to weary limbs, and was equally resolved to continue the ascent.
"Have we not," he said, "toiled through the crevasses, filling our pockets with snow and shaking our digestive organs by long jumps and unexpected tumbles into concealed holes, and now, that we have reached an obvious and easy line, is it not the height of absurdity to turn back?"
His eloquence, however, was as nothing compared with the mute oratory of the slope. We could realise in every limb the pain of lifting a leg till the knee almost touches the chin, then the agony of tightening the various muscles till one's weight is fairly raised upon it, followed by the heartbreaking squash as the snow gives way, and a hole eighteen inches deep remains almost the only result of the effort. We were, in consequence, not to be persuaded, and as we fully recognised the grand truth that "language is given us that we may conceal our thoughts," we advanced ​fictitious arguments based on the text-books, and backed them up with various sentences from the advice of wise and august personages—Presidents of the Alpine Club and the like—to the effect that climbers should always turn back in bad weather. Hastings, gazing on the two yards of slope visible in front, with the same sort of joy that inspired Cromwell's Ironsides when a troop of Cavaliers came in sight, was difficult to convince, and appealed to the actual examples of the heroes and demi-gods we had quoted. Expedition was piled on expedition, demonstrating that the authors of this excellent advice, those in whose brains it was best understood and appreciated, had invariably and consistently disregarded its teaching; showing, as he alleged, that in this, as in other departments of human life, "the rule is better honoured in the breach than the observance."
The argument here touched on the larger question, whether it is better to follow the advice or the example of great men, and recognising with pleasure that much time would necessarily be consumed in grappling with it, I lit a fresh cigarette. Collie, accentuating his points with a hand extended and made more emphatic by his pipe, was just briefly reviewing the outlines of the problem when a smart shower of hail, snow, and rain terminated the discussion in our favour. With our coat collars turned up, and our hats secured with ​lashings of various and picturesque appearance, we hurried back to the shelter of the stones, and soon regained the Couvercle.
We packed up our sleeping-bags and other belongings, and, the rain having partly ceased, we crossed to the Pierre à Béranger. By this time the sun was making a few partially successful efforts to break through the clouds, so, spreading out our coats to dry, we made various perilous ascents of the great rock against which the hut is built.
During the afternoon we strolled back to the Montenvers pursued by sundry showers and ever darkening weather. Arrived at the hotel, we shook off the mud from our boots and the rain from our clothing, at the desolate ice and rock, and vowed that our next walk should be amongst the pine trees and meadows of the L'Ognan, and thence away to the rich fields and luxuriant vegetation of the Val d'Aoste.
A week later we returned to the Montenvers, but unfortunately a spirit of laziness seized hold upon us, and in company with some friends we wasted the precious hours scrambling on rocks and séracs well within reach of the dinner-bell, and not wholly beyond shouts and other signals indicative of afternoon tea and similar mundane pleasures. Indeed, our occupations were graphically described by a foreign friend as consisting of "an ​eternity of breakfast and an everlasting afternoon tea."
Hastings at length rescued us from this ignoble sloth, and drove us forth along "Les Ponts" to the Pierre à Béranger. Though the hut has reached the pig-sty stage of existence characteristic of the Chamonix district, we preferred it to the Couvercle, remembering that a roof, like charity, covers a multitude of sins.
At 2 a.m. the sleepers were awakened, the fire was lit, and a somewhat extensive breakfast consumed. Then the knapsack was overhauled and all surplus baggage ruthlessly ejected. These various proceedings consumed much time, and it was not till 3.15 a.m. that we left the hut and began the monotonous ascent of the moraine. Crossing the glacier just as the first signs of dawn became apparent, we once more reached the long bank of loose stones and struggled slowly upwards.
The advent of daylight was a good deal interfered with by the dense masses of vapour that filled the glacier basin and gave much effective aid to the powers of darkness and night. However, before we got much higher, the huge towers of unsubstantial mist were touched by glints of sunshine, and the last lingering gloom was put to flight. We hailed the lifting of the clouds as a good augury, and set ourselves more resolutely to breast the slope. Reaching the high glacier shelf close under the ​wall-like ridge extending from the Moine to the Verte, we halted for a quarter of an hour hoping that the swaying of the mists would enable us to see something of our mountain. But the great dark curtain clung steadfastly round it, and nothing was visible on that side. In the other direction, however, we had a marvellous vision of the Grandes Jorasses, half veiled in films of floating cloud. Far on high we could even see the lighter and loftier streamers sailing before a gentle northerly wind. Cheered by this hopeful sign we tramped along the glacier shelf till we were pulled up by a short but steep step in the ice. After a little work with the axe we gained its upper level, and were rewarded, the mists having meanwhile somewhat lifted, by a clear view of the rocks by which we hoped to gain the ridge.
At the point where the true peak of the Verte begins to tower up above the long turreted ridge of the Moine, a great buttress projects far into the Talêfre glacier. Between this buttress and the Moine ridge is a semicircular hollow, divided from top to bottom by a long rib of rock. On either side of this are snow-filled couloirs, and we trusted that by one or other of them, or the dividing rib, we might make our way to the ridge. So far as we could see, no very serious difficulty was likely to be encountered, though as all the upper rocks and all the ridge were still obstinately shrouded in a fog ​we could not be absolutely certain. We crossed the Bergschrund, and, after a sharp struggle with some frozen rubble, effected a lodgment on the cliff at 6.45 a.m.
We then unanimously decided that the weather was not very bad, and that we were as good as on the summit of our peak—"wherefore," we said, "let us eat, smoke, and be merry." Half an hour later, after these duties had been thoroughly performed, we began to scramble up the slabs, each taking that particular line which seemed best. Meanwhile the mists closed round us once more. The cliffs above looming through the rushing vapour, looked ever bigger and more precipitous, so, to avoid the possibility of being cut off by some insuperable step, we worked to our right into the couloir. We were at first able, from time to time, to use the rocks on our right as a ladder, and thus save the labour of step-cutting, but as we got higher the slabs became too large and smooth, and we were forced to proceed relying on the axe alone. We soon got tired of this, and crossed back to our rib and found that its appearance was delusive, and that in fact it was a perfect staircase. Reaching the near neighbourhood of the ridge, we swung across easy slopes to our right, traversing the head of the couloir, and making for the top of the great buttress.
I took this line fearing that otherwise we might ​waste valuable energy in climbing to the top of the "Sugar Loaf"; it being, in the dense fog, quite impossible to tell just where this pinnacle was. Collie, it is true, was quite sure that we were on the Verte side of it, but the blight of a sceptical age was upon me and we kept to the right. Just as we scrambled on to the crest of the buttress, an eddy of wind swept the arête bare of cloud, and we halted a few minutes to inspect our mountain. Swinging back to our left, a short diagonal ascent landed us on the main ridge at 8.20 a.m., and we were able to look down on to the Charpoua glacier and across to the great south-western face of our peak. With a weakness which is not, perhaps, altogether unusual amongst mountaineers, I pointed out to my companions the various crags and gullies, ice slopes and slabs, by which Burgener and I had made our way to the summit thirteen years before.
A rush of cloud, bearing with it more than a suspicion of snow, hurried us from our seats, and we scrambled merrily along the ridge. As we advanced, however, a few jagged towers began to give us some trouble. Whilst turning one of these on the Talêfre side, we were surprised to see a broken bottle. Soon after we discovered the remains of a broken stick wedged into a cleft of the rocks, and made immovable by a mass of ice frozen round it. Its ancient appearance led us to suppose that ​it marked the limit of some early exploring party, and dated from the time when the Verte was still an unclimbed peak.
Almost immediately after this the work became more serious. I tried a turning movement on the left, and was soon brought to the opinion that if another way was available it would be desirable to use it. Whilst extricating myself from these difficulties, Collie led round to the right, and after a short struggle stormed the obstruction. A few yards further we were pulled up by a precipitous step, which could not be turned, and which defied all unaided efforts. Hastings, however, lifted me bodily upwards till I could get a grip on the top of the block, and after a few spasmodic struggles, I was able to reach firm footing. This sort of thing then continued for some time.
One delightful little traverse is, however, worth recording. A great gendarme barring direct assault, we turned over on to the Charpoua face. Above our heads a mass of overhanging rock prevented the adoption of any decorous or upright attitude, and we were forced to wriggle, wormlike, along an outward-shelving ledge. At the end of this it was possible to regain a normal posture, but this advantage was more than compensated by the necessity of abandoning all hand-hold and making a long stride across an ugly gap on to a narrow, ice-glazed, sloping rock. It was not difficult to do, but I find ​in such places that the mind is apt to dwell unpleasantly on the probable consequences of any trifling error or lack of balance. Safely over, I found myself at the bottom of a precipitous tower, plastered and piled up with snow and ice. Direct ascent was out of the question, but by craning one's neck round the tower a ledge, partly rock and partly ice, could be seen running round the head of a great gully that falls away towards the Charpoua glacier. To reach this shelf it was necessary to traverse the snow-plastered face of the tower. Happily, Hastings found a hitch for the rope, and relying to some extent on the doubtful security so afforded, I leant round, and, with the axe in the left hand, made some slight notches in the wall. A gap was then hacked out of the snow and ice above, into which the rope was carefully tucked, so that it might be above me should anything unforeseen occur. For one step my adhesion to the cliff was somewhat doubtful, and I have a very clear remembrance of my inability to get the right leg round an awkward bulge without throwing what seemed an undue strain on a handhold carefully carved out of the fragile snow above. However, cheered by encouraging remarks from Hastings, who always knows how to inspire the leader with confidence, the bulge was passed, and a comparatively simple piece of step-cutting brought us to the shelf. This in turn led us back to the ridge.
We were soon again forced off it, and had to ​descend a short distance on the Talêfre face. Climbing back, we were met by a great cornice fringed with a long row of icicles. We crept along between the snow wall and the icicles, fearing to touch the latter lest the whole structure should come down bodily on our heads. A small gap was at length reached, and after a few remaining tufts and tassels of ice had been hacked away, it was possible to crawl through. Good anchorage for the rest of the party being here available, I scrambled on to the cornice, and from that point of vantage was able to effect a lodgment on the next rocky tower. These various traverses and scrambles, interspersed with halts whenever the ingenuity of laziness could invent a tolerable excuse, consumed much time, and we were still without any very definite sign of the top.
Suddenly we stepped out of the cloud into brilliant sunshine, below us stretched an unbroken sea of billowy mist, from which Mont Blanc and the Grandes Jorasses alone emerged. Pressed for time as we were, we could not resist yet another halt to gaze at this extraordinary and most beautiful spectacle. Before us a short snow ridge led to what was obviously the top, and setting resolutely to work, a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes of step-cutting placed us on the summit (2 p.m.).
A biting northerly wind swept across the ridge, and kept the huge expanse of cloud below us in constant movement. At moments vast masses would ​be upheaved, and, caught by the wind, sailed away, throwing extraordinary shadows on the fleecy floor below. This, like some previous halts, was brought to an end by a sudden uprush of icy cloud and a sprinkle of snow. At 2.15 p.m. we left the top and sped hastily down the slope. In ever worsening weather, we sprawled and scrambled along the ridge as fast as we could go. Collie, despite the changed appearance of the mountain caused by the rapidly falling snow, followed our route of the morning with unwavering certainty. At exactly the right point he turned off the ridge (5.10 p.m.), and led us through the wet slush of new snow, down the rib, to the point where our tracks of the morning could be seen in the couloir. He preferred, however, to keep to the rib, and after a little winding and dodging we once more got on to our morning's line below the part where we had taken to the couloir, and followed it to the glacier and the Bergschrund. This latter was in a very soft and dangerous state, and required careful engineering. Once over (6.5 p.m.), we ran along the snow fields and down on to the stony slopes above the Couvercle.
Making our way across to the Pierre à Béranger we picked up our traps, and after a short meal we started at 7.40 p.m. for the Montenvers, through a persistent drizzle. We had intended to go down to Chamonix that night, and in consequence had sent on our baggage, but on our arrival we found it ​was far too late to do so. Friends, however, most kindly arrayed us in various garments, and about 11 p.m. we did rare justice to the efforts of Monsieur Simond's cook.
It is needless to say the ascent was made under very unfavourable conditions. We were constantly compelled to halt in order to wait for a break in the mist, and it is probable that the impossibility of seeing what lay in front occasionally prevented our taking the best route. The climb is, however, most interesting, and is, throughout, absolutely free from all danger of falling stones.