Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 1.djvu/117

76 lish conditions to the base of the hindering cliff. A narrow arête of several rods in length connected it with the snow shoulder, and this arete was itself ominously corniced, and with snow in a most treacherous state. Seldom have I seen Hasler so trepidant, so insistent that the ice-axes should be so planted as not to serve as levers to start a crack that would imperil the entire party, should the cornice fall; but, in good time, we were standing at the base of the cliff.

On either side of us, steep couloirs swept down thousands of feet; before us rose this beetling face of dark rock, with little snow-patches here and there revealing possible stations, between which only cracks and slight protuberances offered scanty holds for foot and hand. Hasler led off and attained the first anchorage; then Scattergood boldly followed. My turn came next, and I remember having some doubts as to the entire safety of the sport of alpinism for the next few minutes; indeed, for the next half hour. On my reaching the anchorage, the same tactics were repeated by the first two, after which Outram came up to my level, and I then went forward. Our third station brought us to the top of the cliff—and to the end of our ascent.

A most ominous situation revealed itself. The final peak was before us, and its summit hardly three hundred feet distant—a great white hissing mass,—a precipice on the hidden left side, a steep snowslope of perhaps 65 to 70 degrees on the right. Under the July sun its whole surface was seemingly in a state of flux, slipping, over the underlying mass with a constant, threatening hiss. A second narrow arete led across to this final summit. This, too, was corniced, and in a remarkable way. The swirl of the wind had produced an unusual spectacle. At the beginning and at the end, the cornice hung out to the right; in the middle, a reversed section of it overhung the abyss on the left.