Chapter VI. 
proceeded with their faces turned to the wall, placing their 
feet with caution in the wide steps which Petigax cut in the 
snow, which was fortunately hard and bore them well. 
The col is a narrow strip of ice between two wide crevasses 
( bergschrund ); these crevasses pass from one peak to another 
without a single bridge. It was impossible to turn to the right 
or to the left ; they could only go straight forward to the ice 
wall, which they could barely make out through the mist. 
Where the slope commenced to become steep they put down 
their rucksacks and other unnecessary impedimenta, and Petigax 
set to work again. T1 lev soon stood nearly vertically one above 
the other, climbing slowly by the steep steps which Petigax cut 
in the ice wall, showering down a hail of snow and ice upon the 
others. Below them the wall was almost immediately swallowed 
up in the mist, so that they seemed suspended over a bottomless 
abyss. 
In tliis way they reached the bottom of the cornice where 
the pendant icicles, joining the upright ice needles, formed 
a colonnade as thick as the trees in a forest, upon which 
rested the heavy snow-dome whose solidity was open to doubt. 
The effect seen through the mist was strange and weird. In 
their insecure position, holding fast to the steep slope, they had 
to climb around the ice columns to reach the point where the 
cornice jutted out from the ice wall in order to find a passage. 
This passage they found in a cleft of the cornice which formed 
a narrow vertical gully some six feet high. Ollier, standing 
firmly upon a wide step, served as a ladder for Petigax, who 
climbed on his shoulders and then upon his head, with his heavy 
nailed boots, and stuck his ice-axe firmly in the snow above the 
cornice. In this way he hoisted himself on to the top. It was 
easy enough for the others to join him. The ridge was now 
182 
