Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/261

216 to see, and the remainder of our time had to be expended in its repair. Owing to these various operations we spent one hour and twenty minutes on the summit, and it was not till 1.30 p.m. that we started on the, to us, wholly unknown descent to the Jardin. We began, rightly or wrongly I hardly know, by descending towards Les Droites, and, on reaching the head of the great couloir, we swung round and cut our way down extremely steep ice to a patch of rocks that gave us footing and enabled us to look about. Below us a line of rock broke at intervals through the ice of the couloir, and as the slope was not very steep, and time pressed, Burgener suggested a novel method of procedure. First I lowered him on the rope to the next patch of rock, and then, with the confidence of youth, I glissaded down, Burgener skilfully "fielding" me when I got within his reach. In sections where this process was not admissible, we hitched the rope and slid to the next suitable rock. By these and other similar methods, and almost without cutting a step, we descended the whole length of the great couloir to the point where the rocks of the Moine ridge project fax into the couloir, nipping it till it resembles a fashionable lady's waist. The outermost series of these rocks is separated from the main mass by a narrow gully partly glazed with ice, but so precipitous that any falling stones would keep well beyond the heads and other