The Matterhorn refused to take in its signal flags of storm.
Still the sun shone clear. We had put in six of the eight hours' work
of ascent when snow began to fall. Soon it was too thick to see far.
We came to a chasm that looked vast in the deception of the storm. It
was only twenty feet wide. Getting round this the storm deepened till
we could scarcely see one another. There was no mountain, no sky. We
halted of necessity. The guide said, "Go back." I said, "Wait." We
waited in wind, hail, and snow till all vestige of the track by which
we had come--our only guide back if the storm continued--was lost
except the holes made by the Alpenstocks. The snow drifted over, and
did not fill these so quickly.
Not knowing but that the storm might last two days, as is frequently
the case, I reluctantly gave the order to go down. In an hour we got
below the storm. The valley into which we looked was full of brightest
sunshine; the mountain above us looked like a cowled monk. In another
hour the whole sky was perfectly clear. O that I had kept my faith in
my aneroid! Had I held to the faith that started me in the
morning--endured the storm, not wavered at suggestions of peril, defied
apparent knowledge of local guides--and then been able to surmount the
difficulty of the new-fallen snow, I should have been favored with such
a view as is not enjoyed once in ten years; for men cannot go up all
the way in storm, nor soon enough after to get all the benefit of the
cleared air.
Pages:
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68