Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/154

148 glacier, Burgener and I had utilised our halts for the careful study of this eastern face. We discovered excellent gullies at the top, convenient snow couloirs below, and the eye of faith was able, with some effort, to discern pleasing cracks, ledges, and traverses which connected the one system with the other. Having thus worked out a most excellent route—assuming that the eye of faith was to be depended on—we determined to put it into execution. Accordingly, on the 1st of August, 1881, we assembled in the salon of the Montenvers Hotel at 1 a.m. Burgener, unluckily, proved to be very unwell, and had to be dosed with chartreuse and brandy before he could be got under weigh. Somewhat delayed by this, it was 2 a.m. before we started. We spent the rest of the night miserably floundering amongst endless stones and moraine-choked crevasses. Having turned the promontory of Trélaporte, we left the Mer de Glace and worked up to some grass ledges. These we followed, bearing always to the left, till we got on to the little Glacier de Trélaporte. From this glacier we had seen, on our previous inspection from the Verte, that three couloirs lead up into the mountain. Our affections had been fixed on the middle one, which had appeared from every point of view the most suitable to our enterprise.

On reaching its base, we found it open to the serious objection, that it was wholly and totally