Part 11 (2/2)
The summit of the Aiguille Verte would have been one of the best stations out of all these mountains for the purposes of my friend. Its great height, and its isolated and commanding position, make it a most admirable point for viewing the intricacies of the chain; but he exercised a wise discretion in pa.s.sing it by, and in selecting as our first excursion the pa.s.sage of the Col de Triolet.(128)
We slept under some big rocks on the Couvercle on the night of July 7, with the thermometer at 265 Faht., and at 4.30 on the 8th made a straight track to the north of the Jardin, and thence went in zigzags, to break the ascent, over the upper slopes of the Glacier de Talefre towards the foot of the Aiguille de Triolet. Croz was still my guide, Reilly was accompanied by one of the Michel Payots of Chamounix, and Henri Charlet, of the same place, was our porter.
The way was over an undulating plain of glacier of moderate inclination until the corner leading to the Col, from whence a steep secondary glacier led down into the basin of the Talefre. We experienced no difficulty in making the ascent of this secondary glacier with such ice-men as Croz and Payot, and at 7.50 A.M. arrived on the top of the so-called pa.s.s, at a height, according to Mieulet, of 12,162 feet, and 4530 above our camp on the Couvercle.
The descent was commenced by very steep, but firm, rocks, and then by a branch of the Glacier de Triolet. Schrunds(129) were abundant; there were no less than five extending completely across the glacier, all of which had to be jumped. Not one was equal in dimensions to the extraordinary chasm on the Col de Pilatte, although in the aggregate they far surpa.s.sed it. ”Our lives,” so Reilly expressed it, ”were made a burden to us with schrunds.”
We flattered ourselves that we should arrive at the chalets of Pre du Bar very early in the day; but, owing to much time being lost on the slopes of Mont Rouge, it was nearly 4 P.M. before we got to them. There were no bridges across the torrent nearer than Gruetta, and rather than descend so far, we preferred to round the base of Mont Rouge, and to cross the snout of the Glacier du Mont Dolent.(130)
We occupied the 9th with a scramble up Mont Dolent. This was a miniature ascent. It contained a little of everything. First we went up to the Col Ferret (No. 1), and had a little grind over shaly banks; then there was a little walk over gra.s.s; then a little tramp over a moraine (which, strange to say, gave a pleasant path); then a little zigzagging over the snow-covered glacier of Mont Dolent. Then there was a little bergschrund; then a little wall of snow,-which we mounted by the side of a little b.u.t.tress; and when we struck the ridge descending S.E. from the summit, we found a little arete of snow leading to the highest point. The summit itself was little,-very small indeed; it was the loveliest little cone of snow that was ever piled up on mountain-top; so soft, so pure; it seemed a crime to defile it; it was a miniature Jungfrau, a toy summit, you could cover it with the hand.(131)
But there was nothing little about the _view_ from the Mont Dolent.
[Situated at the junction of three mountain ridges, it rises in a positive steeple far above anything in its immediate neighbourhood; and certain gaps in the surrounding ridges, which seem contrived for that especial purpose, extend the view in almost every direction. The precipices which descend to the Glacier d'Argentiere I can only compare to those of the Jungfrau, and the ridges on both sides of that glacier, especially the steep rocks of Les Droites and Les Courtes, surmounted by the sharp snow-peak of the Aig. Verte, have almost the effect of the Grandes Jora.s.ses. Then, framed, as it were, between the ma.s.sive tower of the Aig.
de Triolet and the more distant Jora.s.ses, lies, without exception, the most delicately beautiful picture I have ever seen-the whole _ma.s.sif_ of Mont Blanc, raising its great head of snow far above the tangled series of flying b.u.t.tresses which uphold the Monts Maudits, supported on the left by Mont Peuteret and by the ma.s.s of ragged aiguilles which overhang the Brenva. This aspect of Mont Blanc is not new, but from this point its _pose_ is unrivalled, and it has all the superiority of a picture grouped by the hand of a master.... The view is as extensive, and far more lovely than that from Mont Blanc itself.](132)
We went down to Courmayeur, and on the afternoon of July 10 started from that place to camp on Mont Suc, for the ascent of the Aiguille de Trelatete; hopeful that the mists which were hanging about would clear away. They did not, so we deposited ourselves, and a vast load of straw, on the moraine of the Miage Glacier, just above the Lac de Combal, in a charming little hole which some solitary shepherd had excavated beneath a great slab of rock. We spent the night there, and the whole of the next day, unwilling to run away, and equally so to get into difficulties by venturing into the mist. It was a dull time, and I grew restless. Reilly read to me a lecture on the excellence of patience, and composed himself in an easy att.i.tude, to pore over the pages of a yellow-covered book.
”Patience,” I said to him viciously, ”comes readily to fellows who have s.h.i.+lling novels; but I have not got one; I have picked all the mud out of the nails of my boots, and have skinned my face; what shall I do?” ”Go and study the moraine of the Miage,” said he. I went, and came back after an hour. ”What news?” cried Reilly, raising himself on his elbow. ”Very little; it's a big moraine, bigger than I thought, with ridge outside ridge, like a fortified camp; and there are walls upon it which have been built and loop-holed, as if for defence.” ”Try again,” he said, as he threw himself on his back. But I went to Croz, who was asleep, and tickled his nose with a straw until he awoke; and then, as that amus.e.m.e.nt was played out, watched Reilly, who was getting numbed, and s.h.i.+fted uneasily from side to side, and threw himself on his stomach, and rested his head on his elbows, and lighted his pipe and puffed at it savagely. When I looked again, how was Reilly? An indistinguishable heap; arms, legs, head, stones, and straw, all mixed together, his hat flung on one side, his novel tossed far away! Then I went to him, and read him a lecture on the excellence of patience.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Portraits of Mr. Reilly on a wet day]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Portraits of Mr. Reilly on a wet day]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Portraits of Mr. Reilly on a wet day]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Portraits of Mr. Reilly on a wet day]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Portraits of Mr. Reilly on a wet day]
Bah! it was a dull time. Our mountain, like a beautiful coquette, sometimes unveiled herself for a moment, and looked charming above, although very mysterious below. It was not until eventide she allowed us to approach her; then, as darkness came on, the curtains were withdrawn, the light drapery was lifted, and we stole up on tiptoe through the grand portal formed by Mont Suc. But night advanced rapidly, and we found ourselves left out in the cold, without a hole to creep into or shelter from overhanging rock. We might have fared badly, except for our good plaids. When they were sewn together down their long edges, and one end tossed over our rope (which was pa.s.sed round some rocks), and the other secured by stones, there was sufficient protection; and we slept on this exposed ridge, 9700 feet above the level of the sea, more soundly, perhaps, than if we had been lying on feather beds.
[Ill.u.s.tration: OUR CAMP ON MONT SUC.(133)]
We left our bivouac at 4.45 A.M., and at 9.40 arrived upon the highest of the three summits of the Trelatete, by pa.s.sing over the lowest one. It was well above everything at this end of the chain, and the view from it was extraordinarily magnificent. The whole of the western face of Mont Blanc was spread out before us; we were the first by whom it had been ever seen.
I cede the description of this view to my comrade, to whom it rightfully belongs.
[For four years I had felt great interest in the geography of the chain; the year before I had mapped, more or less successfully, all but this spot, and this spot had always eluded my grasp. The praises, undeserved as they were, which my map had received, were as gall and wormwood to me when I thought of that great slope which I had been obliged to leave a blank, speckled over with unmeaning dots of rock, gathered from previous maps-for I had consulted them all without meeting an intelligible representation of it. From the surface of the Miage glacier I had gained nothing, for I could only see the feet of magnificent ice-streams, and no more; but now, from the top of the dead wall of rock which had so long closed my view, I saw those fine glaciers from top to bottom, pouring down their streams, nearly as large as the Bossons, from Mont Blanc, from the Bosse, and from the Dome.
The head of Mont Blanc is supported on this side by two b.u.t.tresses, between which vast glaciers descend. Of these the most southern(134) takes its rise at the foot of the precipices which fall steeply down from the Calotte,(135) and its stream, as it joins that of the Miage, is cut in two by an enormous _rognon_ of rock. Next, to the left, comes the largest of the b.u.t.tresses of which I have spoken, almost forming an aiguille in itself. The next glacier(136) descends from a large basin which receives the snows of the summit-ridge between the Bosse and the Dome, and it is divided from the third and last glacier(137) by another b.u.t.tress, which joins the summit-ridge at a point between the Dome and the Aig. de Bionna.s.say.]
The great b.u.t.tresses betwixt these magnificent ice-streams have supplied a large portion of the enormous ma.s.ses of debris which are disposed in ridges round about, and are strewn over, the termination of the Glacier de Miage in the Val Veni. These moraines(138) used to be cla.s.sed amongst the wonders of the world. They are very large for a glacier of the size of the Miage.
The dimensions of moraines are not ruled by those of glaciers. Many small glaciers have large moraines,(139) and many large ones have small moraines. The size of the moraines of any glacier depends mainly upon the area of rock surface that is exposed to atmospheric influences within the basin drained by the glacier; upon the nature of such rock,-whether it is friable or resistant; and upon the dip of strata. Moraines most likely will be small if little rock surface is exposed; but when large ones are seen, then, in all probability, large areas of rock, uncovered by snow or ice, will be found in immediate contiguity to the glacier. The Miage glacier has large ones, because it receives detritus from many great cliffs and ridges. But if this glacier, instead of lying, as it does, at the bottom of a trough, were to fill that trough, if it were to completely envelope the Aiguille de Trelatete, and the other mountains which border it, and were to descend from Mont Blanc unbroken by rock or ridge, it would be as dest.i.tute of morainic matter as the great _Mer de Glace_ of Greenland. For if a country or district is _completely_ covered up by glacier, the moraines may be of the very smallest dimensions.(140)
The contributions that are supplied to moraines by glaciers themselves, from the abrasion of the rocks over which their ice pa.s.ses, are minute compared with the acc.u.mulations which are furnished from other sources.
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