Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/400

Rh Zermatt, disaster was narrowly escaped from this very cause.

There are many gullies in which it is absolutely impossible to avoid dislodging stones, and as a consequence large parties are forced to "close up." Whilst this, to some extent, obviates the risk from falling stones, it negatives any advantage from the rope, and frequently compels all but the first man to be simultaneously on bad ground. Even then I have, more than once, seen a man badly hurt by such stones, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that some unexplained accidents may have resulted from a dislodged stone knocking a companion out of his steps, and his fall dragging the members of a "closed up" party, one after another, from their hold. On very steep ice, again, the leader is sometimes seriously hampered by the existence of a large party below him, and the consequent necessity of only cutting small pieces of ice with each stroke of the axe, and absolutely to avoid, on reaching rocks, any endeavour to clear the ice from them; the chance of detaching a fragment sufficiently large to knock a companion seventy or eighty feet below from his steps, being greater than the advantage of getting reliable footing.

These considerations of roping and numbers apply with even greater force to any danger arising from ice avalanches. Every additional