Above the Snow Line: Mountaineering Sketches Between 1870 and 1880. Dent Clinton Thomas
perhaps, more good guides, at any rate there were fewer bad ones, in Chamouni than are to be found nowadays. We could not, however, obtain the services – even if we had desired them – of any of the local celebrities. As a matter of fact, we were both of opinion that a training in climbing, such as is acquired among the Oberland and Valais men by chamois hunting and constant rock work, would be most likely to have produced the qualities which would undoubtedly be needed on the aiguilles.
The question of the efficiency of the Chamouni guides and of the Chamouni guide system, a question coeval with mountaineering itself, was burning then as fiercely as it does now. The Alpine Club had striven in vain to improve matters; they had pointed out that ability to answer a kind of mountaineering catechism did not in itself constitute a very reliable test of a peasant’s power; they had pointed out too that the plan of electing a “guide chef” from the general body of guides was one most open to abuse, one sure to lead to favouritism and injustice, and one obviously ill calculated to bring to the front any specially efficient man. But unhappily the regulations of the body of guides were, and still are, entangled hopelessly in the French equivalent for red tape. Jealousy and mistrust of the German-speaking guides, whom serious mountaineers were beginning to import in rather formidable numbers, were beginning to awaken in the simple bosoms of the Savoyard peasants; and our proceedings were consequently looked upon with contemptuous disfavour by those who had any knowledge of our project.
A word on guides
On August 18, 1873, we started. Our guides were Alexander Burgener as leader, Franz Andermatten, the best of companions, our guide, our friend, and sometimes our philosopher, as second string, while a taciturn porter of large frame and small mind, who came from the Saas valley, completed the tale. Of Burgener’s exceptional talent in climbing difficult rocks we had had already good proof, and no doubt he was, and still is, a man of remarkable daring, endurance, and activity on rocks. I had reached then that stage in the mountaineering art at which a man is prone to consider the guide he knows best as, beyond all comparison, the best guide that could possibly exist. The lapse of years renders me perhaps better able now to form a dispassionate judgment of Burgener’s capacity and skill. Both were very great. I have seen at their work most of the leaders in this department. Burgener never had the marvellous neatness and finish so characteristic of Melchior Anderegg, who, when mountaineering has passed away into the limbo of extinct sports, such as bear-baiting, croquet, and pell-mell, will, if he gets his deserts, even by those who remember Maguignaz, Carrel, Croz, and Almer, still be spoken of as the best guide that ever lived. Nor was Burgener gifted with the same simple unaffected qualities which made Jakob Anderegg’s loss so keenly felt, nor the lightness and agility of Rey or Jaun; but he united well in himself qualities of strength, carefulness, perseverance and activity, and possessed in addition the numerous attributes of observation, experience, and desire for improvement in his art which together make up what is spoken of as the natural instinct of guides. These were the qualities that made him a first-rate, indeed an exceptional, guide. Nunc liberavi animam meam. There is an old saying, involving a sound doctrine, that
When you flatter lay it on thick;
Some will come off, but a deal will stick.
The porter proved himself a skilful and strong climber, but he was as silent as an oyster and, like that bivalve mollusc when the freshness of its youth has passed off, was perpetually on the gape.
A landlord’s peculiarities
A hot walk – it always is hot along this part – took us up to the Montanvert. The moonlight threw quaint, fantastic shadows along the path and made the dewy gossamer filaments which swung from branch to branch across the track twinkle into grey and silver; and anything more aggravating than these spiders’ threads at night it is hard to imagine. What earthly purpose these animals think they serve by this reckless nocturnal expenditure of bodily glue it is hard to say: possibly the lines are swung across in order that they may practise equilibrium; possibly the threads may serve as lines of escape and retreat after the male spinners have been a-wooing. The atmosphere through the wood was as stuffy as a ship’s saloon in a storm, and we were right glad to reach the Montanvert at 3.30 A.M. Here, being athirst, we clamoured for refreshment. The landlord of the ramshackle hostelry at once appeared in full costume; indeed I observed that during the summer it was impossible to tell from his attire whether he had arisen immediately from bed or no. He seemed to act on the principle of the Norwegian peasant, who apparently undresses once a year when the winter commences, and resumes his garments when the light once more comes back and the summer season sets in. Our friend had cultivated to great perfection the art of half sleeping during his waking hours – that is, during such time as he might be called upon to provide entertainment for man and beast. Now at the Montanvert, during the tourists’ season, this period extended over the whole twenty-four hours. It was necessary, therefore, in order that he might enjoy a proper physiological period of rest, for him to remain in a dozing state – a sort of æstival hybernation – for the whole time, which in fact he did; or else he was by nature a very dull person, and had actually a very restricted stock of ideas.
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 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 got on to the glacier at the usual point and made straight across the slippery hummocks to the grass slope encircling the base of the Aiguille du Dru and the Glacier de la Charpoua. The glacier above gives birth to a feeble meandering little stream which wanders fitfully down the mountain side. At first we kept to the left, but after a while crossed the little torrent, and bearing more to the right plodded leisurely up the steep grass and rock slope. We had made good progress when of a sudden Franz gave a loud whistle and then fell flat down. The other two guides immediately followed his example and beckoned to us with excited gesticulations to behave in a similarly foolish manner. Thereupon we too sat down, and enquired what the purport of this performance might be. It turned out that there was a very little chamois about half a mile off. Knowing that it would be impossible to induce the guides to move on till the animal had disappeared, we seized the opportunity of taking an early breakfast. The guides meanwhile wriggled about on their stomachs, with eyes starting out of their heads, possessed by an extraordinary desire to miss no single movement of the object of their attention. “See, it moves,” said Franz in a whisper. “Himmel! it is feeding,” said Burgener. “It must be the same that Johann saw three weeks ago.” “Ach! no, that was but a little one” (no true chamois hunter will ever allow that a brother sportsman can possibly have set eyes on a larger animal than himself). “Truly it is fine.” “Thunder weather! it moves its head.” In their excitement I regretted that I could not share, not being well versed in hunting craft: my own experience of sport in the Alps being limited to missing one marmot that was sitting on a rock licking its paws. In due course the chamois walked away. Apparently much relieved by there being no further necessity to continue in their former uncomfortable attitudes, the guides sat up and fell to a warm discussion as to the size of the animal. A chamois is to a guide as a fish to the baffled angler