Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/344

Rh it was always necessary to descend with one's head over one's shoulder to see what little jokes the mountain might be seeking to play at our expense.

The last slope, consisting of a most objectionable mixture of loose stones, ice, and snow, we declined to have anything to do with, and, after much labour and search, discovered a precipitous line of rock leading into a tiny couloir. Once in it, we sped through a cloud of snow-dust to the welcome field of névé. Tramping back to the top of the steep slopes that led down to our bivouac, Zurfluh made for the head of the great couloir, and boldly proposed glissading to the bottom. The couloir was bent, and a deep groove, cut by water and falling débris, crossed it from side to side; to glissade the open couloir would, in consequence, have involved a sudden drop into this deeply eroded channel. Zurfluh, to obviate this difficulty, suggested that we should glissade in the groove itself. Its exaggeration of the great bend of the couloir and a variety of minor sinuosities and wriggles, materially reduced the angle of its slope, and compensated, in some measure, for the icy character of its floor.

Zurfluh shot off down the channel, and whisked away round the first corner; he emerged into sight some few hundred feet lower down, and was again lost in another curve. He appeared, however, very comfortable, so I committed myself to the groove. I was swung round corners at a furious pace, and