Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/227

Rh footing I managed to cut a step in the ice itself, and the traverse into the couloir was accomplished.

The ascent of the ice gully was not wholly enjoyable; there was no possibility of escape should stones or other missiles see fit to fall, and the angle of the ice rapidly steepened till it verged on the perpendicular. This excessively steep part of the gully did not exceed ten or twelve feet in height, and, once above it, a slope of fifty degrees led upwards towards practicable rocks. Before, however, sufficient rope could be paid out to enable me to reach them, it was necessary that the rest of the party should advance. Unluckily, though good footing on firm rock, well sheltered from falling stones, was easily accessible on the right, it was impossible to reach it without cutting away the fringes and sheets of ice masking certain intervening slabs. To do this would have involved the rest of the party, who were immediately underneath and sixty or seventy feet below, in serious danger. For ice of this sort is extremely apt to flake away in large plate-like masses, and the cliff below being practically perpendicular, these masses would have alit with resistless force on Slingsby and Collie, who were exactly in the line of fire. Indeed, the tiny fragments of ice hewn out of the solid slope above the traverse called forth many remarks of a deprecatory character. From subsequent discussion it appears that whilst to those below these