Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/207

166 again breaking in with an unanswerable demonstration of the inferiority of the Alps, for climbing purposes, to Skye and other Scotch districts.

At 3.10 a.m. we started up the moraine, led by Collie, who had prospected this part of the route on the previous afternoon. We then crossed a level tongue of glacier to the foot of the steeper slopes. Here we found the ice just as steep as it was possible to walk on without cutting steps. More than once, I expected to effect an involuntary glissade to the bottom; but as the rest of the party seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves, I concealed my difficulties and pretended that I liked it. We then reached more level ice, and had the choice of either going to the left on to the open glacier, or keeping to the right along an apparently easy valley between it and the rocks of our peak. Unluckily I led off by the apparently easy valley, and soon found it would not do; it appeared, however, possible to cut up a sérac and reach the glacier, and thus avoid actually retracing our steps. The sérac proved long and hard, and both Hastings and I had a try at it before we succeeded in cutting our way to the top. The top proved to be merely a peninsula of ice with crevasses on three sides and a perpendicular wall from twenty to twenty-five feet high on the other. The lowest and only vulnerable part of this wall was at the left corner and immediately over a large and nerve-shattering crevasse.