THE COL DU GEANT 243 



Piedmontese official of the name of Arnod of an attempt made 

 by him with three hunters. There existed at Courmayeur, Arnod 

 asserts, a vague tradition handed down from father to son, that a 

 passage to Chamonix over the glaciers of Mont Frety had once been 

 practicable. He then describes his own attempt in 1689 : 



' Je pris trois bons chasseurs avec des grappins aux pieds, dee 

 hachons et des crocs de fer a la main pour se faire pas sur la glace 

 II n'y eut pourtant jamais moyen de pouvoir monter n'y avancer & 

 cause des grandes crevaces et interruptions qui se sont faits depuis 

 bien d'annees.' l 



Both Windham and Martel, in their respective pamphlets, 

 record a similar tradition as prevalent at Chamonix, and a possible 

 instance of such a passage is referred to in a letter by Gosse 

 published in the Journal de Geneve. 2 The experience of the last 

 sixty years has shown living mountaineers that the only difficulty 

 of the pass lies in traversing the broken glacier on the Savoyard 

 side, the labyrinth of the Seracs du Geant, and that this varies 

 greatly from year to year, and from month to month. In the 

 late summer of 1863 first-rate guides held the icefall impassable, 

 and led a party of travellers, of whom I was one, along the steep 

 slopes of La Noire on the right of the glacier. On several subse- 

 quent occasions I have walked, both up and down, straight 

 through the Seracs. It seems therefore reasonable to suppose 

 that the story is not without foundation, and that from time to 

 time some of the Courmayeur hunters, who, Bourrit tells us in 

 his first book (1773), had gained the ridge from the south-east side, 

 hardier than their comrades, risked the perils of the crevasses, and 



1 Relation des Passages de tout le circuit du Duche cCAosta (1691 and 1692). 

 Edited by Signer Vaccarone, Boll, del Club Alpino Italiano, 1880, and reprinted 

 by Mr. Coolidge in his Josias Simler. 



2 Quoted in Alpine Journal, vol. ix. p. 88. The short time alleged to have 

 been taken is a very uncertain proof. Sallanches might be reached from Cour- 

 mayeur in less time by the Col des Fours than by the Col du Geant. Ribel, the 

 courier in question, was a German of disreputable connections, whose wife was 

 expelled from Geneva for immorality. On this occasion he was carrying letters 

 from Geneva to Turin. The usual route was the Mont Cenis. The growth of 

 the tradition seems to me very obvious. Bordier's report of a legend that peasants 

 at one time were in the habit of crossing from Chamonix to Courmayeur in six 

 hours or less, and his story of the witty Capuchin who asserted he had walked over 

 the ice from Aosta to Chamonix in fourteen hours, are clearly exaggerations. 

 Nor can the assertion of the Due de la Rochefoucauld's guide (see Ann. du Club 

 Alpin Francais, vol. xx. (1893)) be easily fitted to any pass approached by the 

 Mer de Glace. It is possibly a misreported reference to the Col du Tour. 



