The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1882-10-05
Glacier Accidents in Switzerland.

from falls into riffs hidden under a
layer of snow. In the summer of 1929,
the day being Tuesday, as three men
of Lenk-Jacob Trachsel, Peter Blatter
and another-were crossing the Wild
horngletcher on their way home, Blat-
ter had the ill-luck to fall into con-
cealed crevasse. Though not so badly
hurt that he could not call out, he was
too far down to be helped up without
ropes. So it was agreed that Trachsel
should remain by the crevasse, while
the third man, whose name the
record has not reserved, went to
the nearest habitation for ropes
and help. When he returned Trachsel
had disappeared, and the rift into
which Blatter had fallen could not be
found. The third man and the men
he had brought with him after search
ing and shouting until far into the
night gave up Blatter for lost, and
went away without the least hope that
they should see him again. But, to the
unspeakable surprise and almost con-
sternation of his neighbors, he turned
uptwo days later at his own house, not
much the worse, seemingly, for his adj
venture. How he escaped is not men
TONED, probably by running down one
of the water courses, which run under
every glacier, to daylight.
Jacob Trachsel, who had left his post
on the crevasse simply because he was
weary of waiting, was tried at Lenk
for deserting his companion. Being
convicted of "faithlessness" he was SEN
fenced to three days Imprisonment and
to do the Herdfall, which signified ask
ing pardon, publicly of God and man
on bended knees for the sin he had
committed.
In July, 1887, similar accident be-
fell Christian Bohrer, of Grindelwald.
AS he crossed the upper Grindelwald
glacier toward the Mettenberg a snow
avalanche threw him into a crevasse
seventy feet deep. Though his arm
was broken and his wrist dislocated in
the fall, he managed to work his way
under the glacier to the stream at its
base, and after desperate struggle Of
two days he succeeded in escaping
from his icy prison.
The NdtdTgeSchichte deS Sch,Ueize1-
landeS tells of very unpleasant eX-
perience which in the early part of the
last century befell a chamois-hunter of
the name of Kaspar Stoeri. AS Stoeri
and two other hunters were in hot
chase after chamois on the Limmer-
nalp glacier, he disappeared as sud-
denly as if he had been swallowed up
by an earthquake. He had fallen into
hidden nj m,
peered fearfully into the hole down
which Stoeri had vanished, and think
ing that all was over with him, COM
mended hissoul to God. But when they
heard his voice family crying for help,
and perceived that he was clinging to a
ledge of the crevasse, they ran to a
goat-herd's hut hard by him in the
hope that they might possibly find there
rope. They found only an old coun-
terpane too rotten to be Of any use.
Meanwhile poor Stoeri was in fearful
plight-half his body in freezing gla-
clearwater, and holding on desperately
with hands and feet to the icy walls Of
the rift. He had given himself up for
lost, and was saying, as he thought, his
last prayer, when his comrades lowered
him rope, which they had contrived
to make with their belts and part Of
their clothes. He graspea it ioyfully
with both hands, his friends pulled
Justify, and Stoeri was Just about to
thank Heaven for his happy escape,
when one of the belts gave way, and
down he fell again. The second misfor-
tune was worse than the first; Stoeri took
part of the line down with him, and
in the descent one of his arms was
badly broken. But he held ON with
the other, and by splitting their belts
his companions made the eXtemporized
belts long enough to reach him a sec
ond time. AS one arm rested on the
ledge, and as he dared not remove it
for fear of falling further into the
abyss and being drowned in the water,
Of which the crevasse was nearly full,
he had to bend the rope round his body
with the broken limb, which caused
him terrible anguish. This time the
belt held, and Stoeri was safely landed
on the glacier. AS his companions
drew him out of the hole he fell into
dead faint, and it was long time be-
fore he came round and could be re-
moved to his home.
But not every one who falls into a
crevasse is equally fortunate. In 1921
NJ. Mouron, a clergyman from Vevey,
while crossing the Lower Grindelwald
glacier, went down a rift seven hun
dred feet deep. When his guide Ito
whom he ought to have been attached
by rope) reported the accident at
Grindelwald, a suspicion arose that the
poor man had been robbed and mur-
dered, and his body thrown into the
crevasse to conceal the crime. In
order to ascertain the truth, another
guide was tied to q rope and lowered
into the abyss. After several attempts,
the man, though he suffered much
from cold and bad air, succeeded in
fastening the corpse to his own body,
and so carried it to the surface. M.
Mouron's watch and purse being found
intact in his pockets, the guide was
freed from the suspicion which rested
upon him, and his character for hon
esty, if not for efficiency, redeemed.
In the year 1920 three guides were
swept into crevasse at the head of
the Grand Plateau at the foot of the
final slope of Mount Blanc. More than
forty years after they had been buried
in their icy tomb the remains of these
unfortunate men were found near the
end of the Glacier DIES Bossins, whittier
they had drifted with the moving ice,
miles below the rift in which they