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Read Ebook: Ein Blick in die Zukunft Eine Antwort auf: Ein Rückblick von Edward Bellamy by Michaelis Richard
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Ebook has 430 lines and 38403 words, and 9 pages
CHAP. PAGE
PREFACE vii.
GLOSSARY 293
INDEX 295
PAGE
Climbers Descending the Ortler 2
The Aletsch Glacier from Bel Alp 7
General View of a Glacier 8
A Glacier Table: after a Storm 11
A Crevassed Glacier 13
An Avalanche near Bouveret: a Tunnel through an Avalanche 17
Edouard Cupelin 22
Descending a Rock Peak near Zermatt 31
A Big Crevasse: the Gentle Persuasion of the Rope 37
A Typical Couloir: the Ober Gabelhorn: the Wrong Way to Descend: Very Soft Snow 42
Piz Pal?: Hans and Christian Grass 44
Christian Almer, 1894 54
An Avalanche Falling 59
Eiger and M?nch from Lauberhorn 66
Avalanche Falling from the Wetterhorn 79
On Monte Rosa 83
Mr Whymper: Mrs Aubrey Le Blond: Group on a High Peak in Winter 85
Mrs Aubrey Le Blond and Joseph Imboden: Crossing a Snow Couloir 89
Mont Blanc: Nicolas Winhart: a Banker of Geneva: the Relics of the Arkwright Accident 92
Alpine Snow-Fields 108
A Start by Moonlight: Shadows at Sunrise: a Standing Glissade: a Sitting Glissade 136
On a Snow-Covered Glacier 148
Martin Schocher and Schnitzler 150
Exterior of a Climber's Hut: Interior 157
The Meije: Ascending a Snowy Wall 171
Top of Piz Scerscen: Party Descending Piz Bernina: On a Mountain Top: Descent of a Snow-Ridge 194
Hard Work: Setting Out in a Long Skirt 204
A Steep Icy Slope: On the Top of a Pass 216
A Slab of Rock: Negotiating a Steep Passage 225
The Family of Herr Seiler, Zermatt: Going to Zermatt in the Olden Days 250
The Guides' Wall, Zermatt 259
The Zermatt Side of the Matterhorn: Rising Mists 260
A Bitterly Cold Day: The Matterhorn from the Zmutt Side 265
Jost, Porter of Hotel Monte Rosa, Zermatt 268
Hoar Frost in the Alps 274
ERRATA
The plate labelled to face page 225, to face page 11.
" " " " 5, " 83.
TRUE TALES OF MOUNTAIN
ADVENTURE
WHAT IS MOUNTAINEERING?
Mountaineering is not merely walking up hill. It is the art of getting safely up and down a peak where there is no path, and where steps may have to be cut in the ice; it is the art of selecting the best line of ascent under conditions which vary from day to day.
Mountaineering as a science took long to perfect. It is more than a century since the first ascent of a big Alpine peak was accomplished, and the early climbers had but little idea of the dangers which they were likely to meet with. They could not tell when the snow was safe, or when it might slip away in an avalanche. They did not know where stones would be likely to fall on them, or when they were walking over one of those huge cracks in the glacier known as crevasses, and lightly bridged over with winter snow, which might break away when they trod on it. However, they soon learnt that it was safer for two or more people to be together in such places than for a man to go alone, and when crossing glaciers they used the long sticks they carried as a sort of hand-rail, a man holding on to each end, so that if one tumbled into a hole the other could pull him out. Of course this was a very clumsy way of doing things, and before long it occurred to them that a much better plan would be to use a rope, and being all tied to it about 20 feet apart, their hands were left free, and the party could go across a snow-field and venture on bridged-over crevasses in safety.
At first both guides and travellers carried long sticks called alpenstocks. If they came to a steep slope of hard snow or ice, tjedermann frei, seinet with small axes which they carried slung on their backs. This was a very inconvenient way of going to work, as it entailed holding the alpenstock in one hand and using the axe with the other. So they thought of a better plan, and had the alpenstock made thicker and shorter, and fastened an axe-head to the top of it. This was gradually improved till it became the ice-axe, as used to-day, and as shown in many of my photographs. This ice-axe is useful for various purposes besides cutting steps. If you dig in the head while crossing a snow-slope, it acts as an anchor, and gives tremendous hold, while to allude to its functions as a tin-opener, a weapon of defence against irate bulls on Alpine pastures, or as a means for rapidly passing through a crowd at a railway station, is but to touch on a very few of its admirable qualities.
When people first climbed they went in droves on the mountains, or I should say rather on the mountain, for during the first half of the nineteenth century Mont Blanc was the object of nearly all the expeditions which set out for the eternal snows. After some years, however, it was found quite unnecessary to have so many guides and porters, and nowadays a party usually numbers four, two travellers and two guides, or three, consisting generally of one traveller and two guides, or occasionally five. Two is a bad number, as should one of them be hurt or taken ill, the other would have to leave him and go for help, though one of the first rules of mountaineering is that a man who is injured or indisposed must never be left alone on a mountain. Again, six is not a good number; it is too many, as the members of the party are sure to get in each other's way, pepper each other with stones, and waste no end of time in wrangling as to when to stop for food, when to proceed, and which way to go up. A good guide will run the concern himself, and turn a deaf ear to all suggestions; but the fact remains that six people had better split up and go on separate ropes. And if they also, in the case of rock peaks, choose different mountains, it is an excellent plan. The best of friends are apt to revile each other when stones, upset from above, come whistling about their ears.
The early mountaineers were horribly afraid of places which were at all difficult to climb. Mere danger, however, had no terrors for them, and they calmly encamped on frail snow-bridges, or had lunch in the path of avalanches. After a time the dangerous was understood and avoided, and the difficult grappled with by increased skill, until about the middle of the nineteenth century there arose a class of experts, little, if at all, inferior to the best guides of the present day.
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