The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-07-10
CLIMBING SEASON BEGINS.
Tourists Are Hooking in Large Num-
 bers to the Alps.
From the London Express.


 The climbing season in the higher Alps has commenced. The hotels and inns have reopened their doors, and with one or two exceptions, the mountain railways are now running for the summer be- tween high walls of heaped-up snow. But while the means of reaching the great Alpine peaks are ready, the weather that terribly caprlcious master Of the ambitious Alpinist-has decreed that many of the higher summts must for the present be unattainable.
 The first ascent of Mont Blanc this year was a remarkable feat of Alpine climbing, and was made by Herr Hugo Mylius of Frankfort on February %. Her Mylus was attended by three guides, and much of the ascent, as well as almost the eu- tire decent, was made on skis. The df- faculties were immense, a strong. cold wind was blowing, and at time the tenn perature fell 10 40 degrees below zero (FahrenheiD. Herr Mylius had a foot and hand badly frozen, and a foot of one of his guides was also frost-bitten.
 The winter In the Alps was most severe and the snowfall very heavy, with the result that an early and particularly wet spring has caused a perfect rearrange-
 
 pilots of the mountain, the Alpine guides. no longer know their own particular climbing places, for crevasses now yawn where formerly solid snow lay. Narrow cracks or chlmneys that last year form ed short cuts to elevated plateaus have disappeared, and in their places are i'm passable walls of ice.
 Snow bridges that joined ridge to ridge have been swept away, and new means of communication have had to be found. Vast ayalanches have in many places changed the whole face of once familiar mountain side Avaanches. indeed, have seldom worked such dire disaster in the Alpine districts during the past spring. The loss of life from this cause alone has been far above all previous records. while the destruction of property has been im mense. Whole forests and villages have been swept away, families have been buried alive while several times entire hamlets have been aroused in the middle of the night by the alarm of an approch- ing avalanche, and the inhabitants have had to fly in their night attire to places of safety
 About the middle of April there was week of torrental rain, which caused many serious disasters, the worst of which was the terrible avalanche that swept away part of the village of Grcn- giols, near the Rhone glacier, costing thirteen lives and iniuring seven other persons who, though buried beneath the snow, were eventually rescued. The ava lanche of wet snow and mud was esti- mated to be 5000 feet long 250 feet wide and varying from 10 to 12 feet in depth
 Within few hours of this disaster an even worse catastrophe took place near Turin, where an avalanche descended a m pf mi at Dra 1a- stroying the cabins and burrying over 100 men, of whom 75 were killed on the spot. and several have since succumbed to the injuries they received.
 This was probably one of the most fatal avaianches that have ever fallen. though on one occasion in 1902 regiment of Alpine soldiers was carried away and buried under an avalanche while manoeu- vring on the mountains. On this occa- sion the snow was fairly dry. and to this fact the rescued men owed their lives It was two hours and q half after the accident occurred when the work of rescue began. and many of the men were buried beneath from four to eight feet of snow.
 The curious freaks of avalanches are shown by the case of seven Alpine tour ists who were carried over the Aroser Wcisshorn by an avalanche without one or the party being injured while it is on record that the late Professor Tyn- dall and party of friends once literally rode on an avalanche for a distance of 1000 feet without receiving any hurt
 Zermatt is already filling with visitors, though there Is a great deal of snow about. On the Riffelberg the snow is still 10 feet deep, while on the Gornergrat it Is over 90 feet deep In many places. The upper mountain railway started running on June 15 as far as Gornergrat, the most elevated mountain resort in Eu- rope, and will very shortly run right up to the RiffelaIp, the view from which is considered one Of the finest in the world