The Story of Mont Blanc |
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Aiguille Alps appeared arrived at Chamouni Arve ascent attempt avalanche baton bottles Bourrit breakfast bridge Cachat caravan châlet chamois climb Cluse Col du Géant cold companions Côte Couttet crevasse crevice cross danger descended Devouassoud dinner edge English excursion fatigue feet foot François francs gave Geneva Glace Glacier des Bossons Goûté Grand Plateau Grands Mulets granite guides half-past halt Hamel Jacques Balmat Jardin Jean Tairraz journey knapsacks Lake of Geneva Les Rousses light looked Martigny Mer de Glace minutes Mont Blanc Montanvert morning mountain mules night o'clock once ourselves Paccard party passed rarefaction reached the summit ridge road Rochers Rouges rock round route Salanches Saussure scarcely Servoz side sleep slope snow soon steep summit of Mont table d'hôte tion told took traveller valley of Chamouni village walk weather Windham wine
Popular passages
Page 175 - ... pale carmine, of a shade similar to that which snow at times assumes, from some imperfectly explained cause, at high elevations — such, indeed, as I had seen, in early summer, upon the Furka and Faulhorn. These beautiful hues grew brighter as the twilight below increased in depth ; and it now came marching up the valley of the glaciers, until it reached our resting-place. Higher and higher still it drove the lovely...
Page 189 - I got ready for the climb. I have said the Mur de la Cote is some hundred feet high, and is an all but perpendicular iceberg. At one point you can reach it from the snow, but immediately after you begin to ascend it obliquely, there is nothing below but a chasm in the ice more frightful than anything yet passed. Should the foot slip, or the baton give way, there is no chance for life — you would glide like lightning from one frozen crag to another, and finally be dashed to pieces, hundreds and...
Page 55 - June, and crossed the Arve over a wooden Bridge. Most Maps place the Glacieres on the same Side with Chamoigny, but this is a Mistake. We were quickly at the Foot of the Mountain, and began to ascend by a very steep Path through a Wood of Firs and Larche Trees. We made many Halts to refresh ourselves, and take breath, but we kept on at a good Rate. After we had passed the Wood, we came to a kind of Meadow, full of large Stones, and Pieces of...
Page 156 - ... considerable distance with us. I had a mule waiting for me at the bridle-road that runs through the fields towards the dirty little village of Les Pelerins — for I wished to keep myself as fresh as I could for the real work. I do not think I gained anything by this, for the brute was exeedingly troublesome to manage up the rude steep path and amongst the trees.
Page 190 - Côte calls for no ordinary determination to mount it. Of course, every footstep had to be cut with the adzes ; and my blood ran colder still, as I saw the first guides creeping^ like flies upon its smooth, glistening surface. The two Tairraz were in front of me, with the fore part of the rope, and Francois Cachat, I think, behind.
Page 197 - ... and temperatures, have added nothing to what he told us sixty years ago. But we had beheld all the wonders and horrors of the glacier world in their wildest features; we had gazed on scenery of such fantastic yet magnificent nature as we might not hope to see again: we had laboured with all the nerve and energy we could command, to achieve a work of downright unceasing danger and difficulty, which not more than one-half of those who try are able to accomplish, and the triumph of which is, even...
Page 153 - T heard every click it gave, all through the night ; and I forestalled its office in the morning, by getting out of bed myself at sunrise and stopping it. We met at seven o'clock on the morning of Tuesday the 12th, to breakfast. All our guides and porters had a feast in the garden, and were in high spirits — for the glass had gone up half an inch, and not a cloud was to be seen in the sky. Nothing could exceed the bustle of the inn-yard: everybody had collected to see the start; the men were dividing...
Page 164 - ... at others, we would find ourselves all wedged together, not daring to move, on a neck of ice that at first I could scarcely have thought adequate to have afforded footing to a goat. When we were thus fixed, somebody cut notches in the ice, and climbed up or down, as the case required ; then the knapsacks were pulled up or lowered ; then we followed, and, finally, the rest got up as they could. One scramble we had to make was rather frightful. The reader must imagine a valley of ice, very narrow,...
Page 195 - ... altogether more interested in finding out the peaks and gorges comparatively near the mountain, than straining my eyes after remote matters of doubt. Of the entire coup d'ceil no descriptive power can convey the slightest notion. Both Mont Blanc and the Pyramids, viewed from below, have never been clearly pictured. from the utter absence of anything by which proportion could be fixed. From the same cause, it is next to impossible to describe the apparently boundless undulating expanse of jagged...
Page 158 - This part of the journey requires a strong head ; here, -and towards the termination of the ascent, dizziness would be fatal. Along the side of the mountain, which is all but perpendicular, the goats have worn a rude track, scarcely a foot broad. On your left your shoulder rubs the rock ; and on your right there is a frightful precipice, at the bottom of which, hundreds of feet below you, is that confusion of ice, granite blocks, stones, and dirty roaring water, which forms in its ensemble the boundary...