Above the Snow Line

A tropical day in the valley

In the early part of August 1870, our party walked one sultry day up the Saas Valley. The dust glittered thick and yellow on our boots. Many of the smaller brooks had struck work altogether, while the main river was reduced to a clear stream trickling lazily down between sloping banks of rounded white boulders [pg 10]that shone with a painful glare in the strong sunlight. The more muscular of the grasshoppers found their limbs so lissom in the warmth that they achieved the most prodigious leaps out of sheer lightheartedness; for they sprang so far that they could have had no definite idea where they might chance to light. On the stone walls busy little lizards, with heaving flanks, scurried about with little fitful spurts, and vanished abruptly into the crannies, perpetually playing hide and seek with each other, and always seeming out of breath. The foliage drooped motionless in the heavy air and the shadows it cast lengthened along the dusty ground as steadily as the streak on a sundial. The smoke from the guides’ pipes (and guides, like itinerant nigger minstrels, always have pipes in their mouths when moving from the scene of one performance to another) hung in mid air, and the vile choking smell of the sputtering lucifer matches was perceptible when the laggards reached the spot where a man a hundred yards ahead had lighted one of these abominations.

To pass under the shade of a walnut tree was refreshing like a cold douche; and to step forth again into the heat and glare made one almost gasp. Flannel shirts were miserably inadequate to the strain put upon their absorbent qualities.

When within a little distance of the hotel I enquired whether it was worth while for one of the party to push on to secure rooms. The guides thought, on the whole, that it was unnecessary, and this opinion was justified subsequently by the fact that we found ourselves the sole occupants of the hotel during the week or so that we remained in the district. It was the year of the war; ugly rumours were about, but very few tourists. Selecting, therefore, the most luxurious apartment, and having given over to the care of one Franz, who appeared in the character of “boots” to the hotel, a remarkable pair of cowhide brogues of original design, as hard as sabots and much more uncomfortable, I sat down on a stone slab, in order to cool down to a temperature that might permit of dining without fear of imperilling digestion. So pleased were the hotel authorities at the presence of a traveller that they exerted themselves to the utmost to entertain us well, and with remarkable results. I find a record of the dinner served. There were ten dishes in consecutive order, exclusive of what Americans term “fixings.” As to the nature of nine it was difficult to speak with any degree of certainty, but the tenth was apparently [pg 12]a blackbird that had perished of starvation and whose attenuated form the chef had bulged out with extraneous matter.

A narrow escape

We had arrived at the most difficult part of the whole climb, and at a rock passage which at that time we considered was the nastiest we had ever encountered. The smooth, almost unbroken face of the slope scarcely afforded any foot-hold, and our security almost entirely depended on the rope we had laid down in our ascent. Had not the rope been in position we should have varied our route, and no doubt found a line of descent over this part much easier than the one we actually made for, even without any help from the fixed cord. Imseng was far below, working his way back to the arête, while the rest of the party were holding on or moving but slowly with faces turned to the mountain. Suddenly I heard a shout from above; those below glanced up at once: a large flat slab of rock, that had afforded us good hold in ascending, but proved now to have been only frozen in to a shallow basin of ice, had been dislodged by the slightest touch from one of the party above, and was sliding down straight at us. It seemed an age, though the stone could not have had to fall more than ten feet or so, before it reached us. Just above me it turned its course slightly; Franz, who was just below, more in its direct line of descent, attempted to stop the mass, but it ground his hands [pg 50]against the rock and swept by straight at Imseng.

The landlord produced at once a battered teapot with a little sieve dangling from its snout, which had been stewing on the hob, and poured out the contained fluid into two stalked saucers of inconvenient diameter. Stimulated by this watery extract, we entered into conversation together. The sight of a tourist with an ice axe led by a kind of reflex process to the landlord’s unburdening his mind with his usual remarks. Like other natives of the valley he had but two ideas of “extraordinary” expeditions. “Monsieur is going to the Jardin?” he remarked. “No, monsieur isn’t.” “Then beyond a doubt monsieur will cross the Col du Géant?” he said, playing his trump card. “No, monsieur will not.” “Pardon—where does monsieur expect to go to?” “On the present occasion we go to try the Aiguille du Dru.” The landlord smiled in an [pg 72]aggravating manner. “Does monsieur think he will get up?” “Time will show.” “Ah!” The landlord, who had a chronic cold in the head, searched for his pockethandkerchief, but not finding it, modified the necessary sniff into one of derision, and then demanded the usual exorbitant price for the refreshment, amounting to about five times the value of the teapot, sieve and all. We paid, and left him chuckling softly to himself at our insane idea, as he replaced the teapot on the hob in readiness for the next arrival. That landlord, though physically sleepy, was still wide awake in matters of finance. He once charged me five francs for the loan of a secondhand collection of holes which he termed a blanket.

We see a chamois

We followed the gully running up from the head of the glacier towards the ridge above mentioned, keeping well to the left. Before long it was necessary to cross the gully on to the main peak. To make the topography clearer a somewhat prosaic and domestic simile may be employed. The Aiguille du Dru and the Aiguille Verte are connected by a long sharp ridge, towards which we were now climbing; and this ridge is let in as it were into the south-eastern side of the Aiguille du Dru, much as a comb may be stuck into the middle of a hairbrush, the latter article representing the main peak. Here we employed the ladder which had been placed in the right position the day previously. Right glad were we to see the rickety old structure which had now spent four years on the mountain, and was much the worse for it. It creaked and groaned dismally under our weight and ran sharp splinters into us at all points of contact, but yet there was a certain companionship about the old ladder, and we seemed almost to regret that it was not destined to share more in our prospective success. A few steps on and we came to a rough cleft some five-and-twenty feet [pg 209]in depth, which had to be descended. A double rope was fastened to a projecting crag, and we swung ourselves down as if we were barrels of split peas going into