Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/190

Rh throwing operations which have hitherto always been found essential on this side. In the event of failure they were to accept a helping hand from us, so soon as we should have reached the foot of the final peak and were in a position to give them one. As the only serious difficulty by the C. P. route is a section of about thirty feet, immediately below the platform underneath the summit rock, it was obvious we should be able to do this without much trouble.

Five consecutive days of evil weather had sufficed to plaster the couloir with ice and loose snow. We were, in addition, altogether over-weighted with luggage—a half-plate camera and a spare sixty feet of rope, in addition to food, &c., sufficing to bulge out the knapsack in a most obese and uncomfortable way. I also distinguished myself by getting too much to the right in the couloir, and, to avoid descending, we had to make a traverse which involved climbing of a merit fully equal to anything required above.

On reaching the point where the Grépon route diverges from that to the southern pinnacle of the Charmoz, we found the couloir in a most unsatisfactory condition. Not merely were the rocks as rotten as usual, but they were decorated with great frills and tassels of brittle ice, the interstices being filled up with the loosest and most powdery snow. It was impossible to tell what was sound and what was loose, though we found it a good working