The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1893-07-02

and wet. "a lay thickly everywhere.
But in the ear. avs of July an improve
ment began to 8. wv itself, and Mr.. Tuck
EFT, who for whole month had been able
to make no big expedition, resolved to
make an attempt upon the Eiger.
| The members of the party were Mr..
Tuckett, Mr.. Whitwell, j. II. Fox and
the guides, Christian and Ulrich Lauener.
They got off between and a. M, and
presently started to ascend the Eiger gla-
cier. The surface OF it was entirely con-
cealed with snow, but, for some reason,
they neglected to put on the rope. High
up IN front of them were the disordered
pillars and buttresses of the ice fall, and
above the ice-fall rested an enormous
weight of freshly fallen snow.
| Instead of ascending the center of the
glacier, the party, fortunately for them
selves, were keeping to the left, toward
the rocks OF the Rothstock. OF sudden
sort of crack was heard high up above
their heads, and every eye was turned
upon the hanging icecliff from which it
came. A large mass of serac was seen to
break away, mingled with still larger
contingent of snow from the slope above;
and the whole mass slid down like cata-
ract, filing the couloir to it's brim and
dashing in clouds of frozen spray over the
+ ocky ridges in its path, toward the
travellers.
For a moment they did not realize that
tn ey were in its track. But then the
they shouted to each other, run for
your lives,' and struggled desperately
through the deep, soft snow to reach the
rocks of the Rothstock, yet with their
faces turned TO watch the swift oncoming
foe.
Let Mr.. Tuckett himself describe that
thrilling race for life.
s'Nearer and nearer it came, its front
like mighty wave about to break, yet
that still "on the curl hands pausing;'
now it has traversed the whole width of
the glacier above us, taking somewhat
diagonal direction; and now run obi run,
If ever you did, for here il comes straight
at us, swift, deadly and implacable The
next instant we saw no more; wild con-
fusion of whirling snow and fragments
of ice-a frozen cloud-swept over us, en-
tirely concealing us from one another,
and still were untouched-at least knew
half second and the mist had passed, and
there lay the body of the monster, whose
head was still careering away at light
ming speed far below US, motionless, rigid
and harmless.
The danger was over, and the party ex-
amined the avalanche at their leisure 1t
had a length of 3, 800 feet, an average
of five feet. This is to say, its bulk was
Gil, 900 cubic yards, and its weight on a
moderate computation about 450, GOO TONS
Accidents of this sort, happily, are
very rare. and the climber who is carried
away by the avalanche has as a rule de-
liberately faced the task out of bravado,
and the desire to go home and boast that
he had done hard things. But there is
another sort ofavalanche which is much
more frequent source OF danger. 1t con-
sists of a stratum of snow loosely adher-
emit to slope OF neve or ice. The snow
breaks away under the weight of the
party, and carries them down with it,
sometimes to place of safety, sometimes
to a crevasse.
HOW BENNEN persisted.
Very similar in many respects was the
famous accident OF the Haut de Cry, IN
which J j. Bennen persisted in February,
1854. So sure of foot was Bennen that it
used to be said OF him, as it was said OF
Johann Lauener, who died upon the
Jungfrau, that nothing could bring him
TO grief but an avalanche. And the hour
came when the snow field which he was
crossing with his Herren split suddenly
and the ground on which tn stood be-
gan to move, and Bennen solemnly called
out the words, ssWir sind ale yerloren.,,
and never spoke again.
'sBefore long," writes Mr.. Gossett, one
of the survivors OF the accident. al was
covered up with snow aud in utter dark
ness / was suffocating when, with 8
jerk, l suddenly came to the surface
again. To prevent myself sinking again
made use OF my arms, much in the same
way as when swimming in standing
position. At last l noticed that was |