The Story of Mont Blanc |
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Aiguille Alps appeared arrived at Chamouni Arve ascent attempt avalanche batons bottles Bourrit breakfast bridge bright Cachat caravan châlet chamois climbing Cluse Col du Géant cold Côte Couttet crevasse crevice cross danger descend Devouassoud diligence dinner edge English excursion fatigue foot François francs gave Geneva Glace Glacier des Bossons Goûté Grand Plateau Grands Mulets granite guides half-past halt Hamel Jacques Balmat 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 191 - ... of Mont Blanc. The danger was now over, but not the labour, for this dome of ice was difficult to mount. The axe was again in requisition; and everybody was so "blown," in common parlance, that we had to stop every three or four minutes. My young companions kept bravely on, like fine fellows as they were, getting ahead even of some of the guides; but I was perfectly done up. Honest Tairraz had no sinecure to pull me after him, for I was stumbling about, as though completely intoxicated. I could...
Page 109 - ... left. I was thrown instantly off my feet, but was still on my knees and endeavouring to regain my footing, when, in a few seconds, the snow on our right, which was of course above us, rushed into the gap thus suddenly made, and completed the catastrophe by burying us all at once in its mass, and hurrying us downwards towards two crevasses about a furlong below us, and nearly parallel to the line of our march. The accumulation of snow instantly threw me backwards, and I was carried down, in spite...
Page 112 - ... upon the new-fallen snow. Happily it did not give way beneath our weight. Here we continued, above a quarter of an hour, to make every exertion -in our power for the recovery of our poor comrades. After thrusting the poles in to their full length, we knelt down, and applied our mouth to the end, shouting along them, and then listening for an answer, in the fond hope that they might...
Page 188 - I conjured up such a set of absurd and improbable phantoms about me, that the most spirit-ridden intruder upon a Mayday festival on the Hartz mountains was never more beleaguered. I am not sufficiently versed in the finer theories of the psychology of sleep to know if such a state might be ; but I believe for the greater part of this bewildering period I was fast asleep, with my eyes open, and through them the wandering brain received external impressions ; in the same manner as, upon awaking, the...
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 cxeedingly troublesome to manage up the rude steep path and amongst the trees.
Page 175 - ... 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 glory of the sunlight before it, until at last the vast Dome du Goute and the summit itself stood out, icelike and grim, in the cold evening air, although the horizon still gleamed with a belt of rosy light.
Page 183 - Once or twice in my life I have been placed in circumstances of the greatest peril, and I now experienced the same dead calm in which my feelings always were sunk on these occasions. I knew that every step we took was gained from the chance of a horrible death ; and yet the only thing that actually distressed me was, that the two front lanterns would not keep the same distance from one another — a matter of the most utter unimportance to everybody. At last we got under the shelter of the Rochers...
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...
Page 165 - One scramble we had to make was rather frightful. The reader must imagine a valley of ice, very narrow, but of unknown depth. Along the middle of this there ran a cliff, also of ice, very narrow at the top, and ending suddenly, the surface of which might have been fifteen feet lower than the top of this valley on either side, and on it we could not stand two abreast. A rough notion of a section of this position may be gained from the letter W, depressing the centre angle, and imagining that the cliff...
Page 182 - Blanc, apparently as close and inaccessible as ever ; and immediately on our left was the appalling gulf, yawning in the ice, of unknown depth, into which the avalanche swept Dr. Hamel's guides ; and in whose depths, ice-bound and unchanged, they are yet locked. Tairraz crept close to me, and said, through his teeth, almost in a whisper — " C'est ici, Monsieur, que mon...