Ski-runs in the high Alps . had pre-viously arranged with a friend to cross the mountainsto Villars, a four-day trip, but on arriving found thathe was unable to go. I was introduced to Mr. W., who had only beenon ski three afternoons, but volunteered to left next morning at 4 , climbed for eighthours up to the glacier of the Plaine Morte, and thenseparated. Mr. W. went on to the hut and I climbedthe Wildstrubel alone, from the summit of whichI saw a beautiful sunset. The solitary trudge backover the glacier at night thoroughly exhausted me,and I narrowly escaped frost-bite in one o
Ski-runs in the high Alps . had pre-viously arranged with a friend to cross the mountainsto Villars, a four-day trip, but on arriving found thathe was unable to go. I was introduced to Mr. W., who had only beenon ski three afternoons, but volunteered to left next morning at 4 , climbed for eighthours up to the glacier of the Plaine Morte, and thenseparated. Mr. W. went on to the hut and I climbedthe Wildstrubel alone, from the summit of whichI saw a beautiful sunset. The solitary trudge backover the glacier at night thoroughly exhausted me,and I narrowly escaped frost-bite in one of my Lenk that night, 6,000 feet lower down, they had40 degrees of frost, and the cold in the hut wasalmost unbearable. We did manage to get a firealight, which proved a doubtful blessing, as it thawedthe snow in the top bunk, forming a lake whichtrickled down on our faces during the night in inter-mittent showers. The next morning our blanketswere frozen as stiff as boards. Even the iron stovewas sticky with COL DU PILLON TO THE GEMMI PASS 71 * Our natural course led over the Wildhorn, adelightful ski-run, but though Mr. W. throughoutdisplayed wonderful pluck and perseverance, hislimited experience prevented our tackling the longbut safe Wildhorn. So we took a short anddangerous cut down to Lenk, following a trackwhich crossed several avalanche runs. We racedthe darkness through a long hour of unpleasantsuspense, and won our race by a head, getting offthe cliff as the last rays of light disappeared. Anight on the Eawyl would probably have endeddisastrously. The remaining two days of the expedition werecomparatively uneventful, but we were dogged byan avenging Providence. A telegram miscarried,and a search party was organised to hunt for ourremains. The guests at Montana spent a verypleasant day with ordnance maps in attempting tolocate the position of our corpses, and were not alittle disappointed when they learnt that the searchparty had found nothing but our
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectmountai, bookyear1913
