ALPINE GLIMBING.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12727, 20 December 1909, Page 4

ALPINE GLIMBING.

A writer on Alpine climbing snys the Dent Blanche was the scene of n tradegy and a wondot'i'ul escape. A. party of live roped together were ascending the mountain. Everything went on all right till they reached a buttress of rock leu feet in height which, it was necessary to negotiate. The buttress of rock was so smooth that .the leading guide could gain no hold on it. He called on his mate behind him to hold- an axe so that he might stand on the head of it and reach to the buttress top. This the second guide did, with the assistance of tlie third. climber. Trie leading guide, Furrcr, stepped on the axe, but when he attempted to grip the rock to raise himself, his hands slipped, and he fell backwards on the two crouching men, aiid the three fell as one Into the abyss below. A moment later the next guide was jerked, after them, and also disappeared.- The last climber," Mr. Glynne Jones, turned his face .to the, wall awaiting his turn clinging to the rock. When no jerk came, however, he found that in some unaccountable way the rope had been severed, and he was saved. So deeply impressed was Professor Maitland Balfour, brother of Mr. Ai- j thur Balfour, with the perils involved j in mountaineering, that before attempting tlie hazardous ascent of j Mont -Blanc, he made his will", and in- I sured an ample provision for the 1 family of -the- -guide who was to abeam-, pany him. The sad premonition, if ] one might so term it, was all too trag-*| ically fulfilled* Professor Balfour, and his' guide perishing in the attempt. Their bodies were found together,..attached by a rope', where they fell on the Fresnay Glacier. ■Another. eminent man who met his fate Jn the neighbourhood of thissame white monster, Mont Blanc,-'was--jVIr, iS"<?tSt3osnap, -bii-c- <3is-fcin£^wassJi«=<i Ore ford scholar and pliilosopiier. Mr. Nettleship took to climbing at a comparatively late period of life, and his friends always felt somewhat nervous at the zeal with which he threw himself into it. 7 .'.-.;■

His guides escaped from the stojin after a night in a snow .cave, which 'ithey. .dug out, but Mr. Nettleship fell -dead from exhaustion just -as they emerging into sjinlight. Nothing could be finer in the history of climbing than . the - 'story . of the ■. high Socratic calm with which. the heroic scholar faced his death/ or the efforts wliich he made during that night in the icy cave to keep up Tliis "companions' spirits and'to cheer them in the cold aiKhdurkncss. .