Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/252

 CHAPTER X. THE AIGUILLE VERTE—BY THE MOINE RIDGE.

HE ascent of the Verte just described is open to the objection that almost at every step the texture of one's skull is likely to be tested by the impact of a falling stone. Though this lends much interest and excitement to the climb, it is of a sort that altogether loses its power of pleasing so soon as the mountaineer has passed the first flush of youth. A similar objection, though in a very modified form, may be taken to the ordinary route; indeed, various parties have been so battered and harassed by falling missiles, that the ascent has, of late years, been very rarely effected. Oddly enough the Dru, which so appalled the early explorers and which they unhesitatingly described as absolutely inaccessible, has become an everyday ascent, and is regarded as comparatively easy. A third route, leading from the Argentière glacier discovered by Messrs. Maund, Middlemore and Cordier, is yet more exposed to avalanches and stones, and, so far, no one has ventured to repeat it.

Under these circumstances it obviously behoved