FIRST SUCCESSFUL ASCENT, 1870 



and it is at the corner or junction of these two faces 

 that the ridge joined it at a point about a thousand feet 

 below its top. On the southern face the strata were 

 inclined at an angle of thirty degrees. Crossing by the 

 saddle from the ridge, despite a strong wind which swept 

 across it, we gained a narrow ledge formed by a stratum 

 more solid than its fellows, and creeping along it, hug- 

 ging close to the main rock on our right, laboriously and 

 cautiously continued the ascent. The wind was blow- 

 ing violently. We were now crawling along the face 

 of the precipice almost in mid-air. On the right the 

 rock towered far above us perpendicularly. On the 

 left it fell sheer off, two thousand feet, into a vast abyss. 

 A great glacier filled its bed and stretched away for 

 several miles, all seamed or wrinkled across with count- 

 less crevasses. We crept up and along a ledge, not of 

 solid, sure rock, but one obstructed with the loose stones 

 and debris which were continually falling from above, 

 and we trod on the upper edge of a steep slope of this 

 rubbish, sending the stones at every step rolling and 

 bounding into the depth below. Several times during 

 our progress showers of rocks fell from the precipice 

 above across our path, and rolled into the abyss, but 

 fortunately none struck us. 



Four hundred yards of this progress brought us to 

 where the rock joined the overhanging edge of the vast 

 neve or snow-field that descended from the dome of 

 the mountain and was from time to time, as pressed 

 forward and downward, breaking off in immense 

 masses, which fell with a noise as of thunder into the 

 great canyon on our left. The junction of rock 

 and ice afforded our only line of ascent. It was an 

 almost perpendicular gutter, but here our ice-axe came 

 into play, and by cutting steps in the ice and availing 

 ourselves of every crevice or projecting point of the 

 rock, we slowly worked our way up two hundred yards 

 higher. Falling stones were continually coming down, 

 both from the rock on our right and from the ice in 



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