CLIMBING BELUKHA 201 



inches of very hard snow, almost as hard as ice, was 

 frozen on my tent, and the boulders piled round the 

 tent, which had been turned over, were ice-glazed. 



I decided that I would not sleep in that tent 

 another night. The hunters had made a faithful 

 promise to be up at the tent by four o'clock, but it 

 was now nearly five and there was no sign of them. 

 I could see that it was no use relying upon them to 

 take my tent to the base of the actual peaks above 

 the glacier, so I decided to make a. bold bid, or 

 rather a rush, for the summit. I took as little 

 baggage as possible, and proceeded over the ice- 

 glazed boulders. I have had considerable experience 

 in scrambling over Swiss boulders, but those which 

 formed the moraine of the Belukha were glazed from 

 the fresh snow that had frozen upon them. They 

 were nearly all covered in this manner, and I found 

 it very difKcult to keep my feet upon them. To 

 avoid sinking up to the hips in the soft snow that lay 

 between the boulders it was necessary to jump from 

 one to the other of them, and with all my care I 

 overbalanced myself repeatedly, and was obliged to 

 step down between two of them, severely jarring my 

 legs and narrowly escaping a broken limb. I have 

 never found climbing so difificult as on the moraine 

 of the Belukha glacier. 



I then decided to try the glacier itself, but could 

 make no better progress. The ice was too hard to 

 allow the nails of my boots to grip, especially as I 

 was not sufficiently heavy, although my boots were 

 shod with Mummery steel Alpine nails. The weather 

 had become very warm and sultry. I changed my 

 course once more a,nd took to the boulders. As I 

 stepped from one to another of them I loosened them, 

 and it was rather interesting to hear how boulder 

 after boulder, as I stepped from them, went tumbling 

 down into unseen holes. Several times I only 



