Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/224

218 snow was reached, affording no reliable hold for the fingers. As moreover the groove was obviously and obtrusively the channel down which the mountain shot all its rubbish, it did not appear desirable that two of us should be in it at the same time, a circumstance which precluded the help of a shoulder and a good shove. We decided at length that the rocks opposite were not worth the effort, and I scrambled back on to the open surface of the couloir.

Our next hope of escape from interminable step-cutting lay in a gully that opened into the couloir about 250 feet above. On reaching its base, however, we found that it was ice glazed, precipitous, and led to huge unbroken slabs. Some distance further ahead we descried more broken rocks, and, even before reaching them, were rejoiced by finding hold for our right hands on the rock-wall, and an occasional step between it and the slope (where the heat of the rocks had melted the snow in contact with it) that could be relied on to anchor the party. Reaching the more broken rocks, we struck on to them, but were soon pulled up by a bare slab some twelve feet high. The only possibility of ascent was afforded by a small and inferior knob of rock that could be just reached by the fingers of the left hand, but which was so nearly out of reach that it was well nigh impossible to test its security. Twice I essayed to go up, and on each occasion my courage failed me; but an endeavour to find an alternative