Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/76

Rh shut us in to the couloir, and, far above, black overhanging rocks broke through the snow and seemed to bar further passage. It looked scarcely possible to get up, and there was more than a touch of anxiety in Burgener's "Wir mussen, Herr Mommerie, sonst sind wir beide caput."

Meanwhile my companion's knuckles were beginning to suffer severely from that occasional contact with the slope, which is unavoidable when cutting up steep snow. As he had evidently plenty of work before him, it was considered desirable that less valuable fingers should be sacrificed at this stage of the proceedings. I, accordingly, took the lead. Now and again the snow thinned out and heavy blows were required to cut into the ice, but ever, as we advanced, the labour became less, and at length a single chip with the axe, backed up with a few good blows from a hobnailed boot, sufficed to make a reliable step. We advanced, rapidly and easily, to the foot of the rocks to which reference has previously been made, and which constitute one of the most serious difficulties of the pass. These rocks, as we had noted on our preliminary survey of the mountain, were flanked on either hand by narrow ice-glazed gullies. That on our right looked the easier, but, unluckily, the sun was already blazing on the Tête du Lion, and its rays were loosening the frosty bonds that alone held the icicles and stones in their places, with