Page:Whymper - Scrambles amongst the Alps.djvu/240

198 to the Brèche would consequently be at an angle of not much more than 20°. But it is not possible to make the ascent as the crow flies; it has to be made by an indirect and much longer route. Our track was probably double the length of a direct line between the two places. Doubling the length halves the angles, and we therefore arrive at the somewhat amazing conclusion, that upon this, one of the steepest passes in the Alps, the mean of all the angles upon the ascent could not have been greater than 11° or 12°. Of course, in some places, the angles were much steeper, and in others less, but the mean of the whole could not have passed the angle above indicated.

We did not trouble ourselves much with these matters when we sat on the top of the Brèche. Our day's work was as good as over (for we knew from Messrs. Mathews and Bonney that there was no difficulty upon the other side), and we abandoned ourselves to ease and luxury; wondering, alternately, as we gazed upon the Rateau and the Ecrins, how the one mountain could possibly hold itself together, and whether the other would hold out against us. The former looked [ so rotten that it seemed as if a puff of wind or a clap of thunder might dash the whole fabric to pieces ] ; while the latter asserted itself the monarch of the group, and towered head and shoulders above all the rest of the peaks which form the great horse-shoe of Dauphiné. At length a cruel rush of cold air made us shiver, and shift our quarters to a little grassy plot, 3000 feet below—an oasis in a desert—where we lay nearly four hours admiring the splendid wall which protects the summit of the Meije from assault upon this side. Then we tramped down the Vallon des Etançons, a howling wilderness, the abomination of desolation; destitute alike of animal or vegetable life; pathless, of course;