Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/125

100 Here we made a halt and proceeded to search the knapsack for possibly hidden stores of food. While Venetz and I were engaged in this duty, Burgener screwed himself and his telescope into a variety of extraordinary attitudes, and at length succeeded in making a satisfactory examination of our peak. An hour later we started again and tramped up to the base of the long couloir which leads to the depression between the Grépon and the Charmoz.

We crossed the Bergschrund at a quarter to nine, and at once turning to the left, out of the couloir, worked our way up some good rocks for three-quarters of an hour, only one or two slabs offering any sort of resistance to our progress. By this time we had reached the top of a secondary ridge, which here abuts against the final cliffs of the mountain. We sat down on an ice-coated rock and, producing our limited supplies of food, once more solemnly reviled the Chamonix porter. We then deposited the wine tin in a safe comer, and unanimously discarded coats and boots, which, with two out of three hats and the same proportion of ice-axes, were packed away in a secure cleft. The baggage, consisting of a spare rope, two wooden wedges, the food, a bottle of Bouvier, a tin of cognac, and an ice-axe, was made over to me.

The two men began to worm their way up the cliff, Venetz usually being shoved by Burgener