Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/223

182 with equal kindness presented his bag to Collie, we started down the stones, screes, and waterfalls that lead to the glacier. Wishing to avoid the necessity for jomping innumerable crevasses, I suggested going down the Chamonix guides' route to the séracs of the Géant. The previous year had descended it without jumping a single crevasse, and both Hastings and I agreed that this was well worth half an hour's détour. Alas, on reaching the point where in 1892 an unbroken causeway led between the Tacul system of crevasses on the one hand and the Trélaporte system on the other, we found that the two systems had joined hands, and the next hour and a half were expended in jumping and dodging and running across knife-edges, so that our arrival at the Montenvers was only effected at 4.30 a.m. The door was shut, but the smoking-room window was open, and having accomplished that well-known problem we filled our pockets with biscuits and retired to our respective rooms.