. The encyclopaedia of sport. so much the more rapidly being de-stroyed. Above the snow-line the process ofdestruction goes on faster than below. Snowcollects on ledges, melts in the sunshine, andrun into cracks, then freezes and acts as a wedge,opening the crack wider. Thus rocks becomedetached from their beds, and, when the thawcomes, one or another falls away, bounds downon others loosened like itself, sets them inmotion ; and they in turn set more off, till awhole hill-side becomes alive with falling a man on the hill-side the effect is appalling,but the chances in his favour are
. The encyclopaedia of sport. so much the more rapidly being de-stroyed. Above the snow-line the process ofdestruction goes on faster than below. Snowcollects on ledges, melts in the sunshine, andrun into cracks, then freezes and acts as a wedge,opening the crack wider. Thus rocks becomedetached from their beds, and, when the thawcomes, one or another falls away, bounds downon others loosened like itself, sets them inmotion ; and they in turn set more off, till awhole hill-side becomes alive with falling a man on the hill-side the effect is appalling,but the chances in his favour are very great. Falling stones on a rock-face seldom hit anindividual. Generally a hill-side becomes ridgedand furrowed by aerial and aqueous the furrows or gullies become stone-runs,and in them a climber is liable to be in realdanger from falling stones. A steep and verynarrow rock gully is called a chimney ; a widergully, the bed of which is filled with snow orice, is called a couloir, either a snow-couloir or. Climbing a Chimxev. an ice-couloir. Stones do not often fall inchimneys. If they did, chimneys would bevery fatal places. In couloirs stones frequentlyfall, but if the couloir is straight, falling bodiesgenerally fly down the middle of it, where theymake a deep furrow. If this furrow is carefullyavoided, the danger will be reduced to a mini-mum. Of course, falling stones going downsuch a furrow carry some snow with snow tends to form bridges over crevassesand bergschrunds (see below); and it thusoften happens that the only way to cross a mountaineering] THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF SPORT 29 bergschrund in a couloir is to go over the bridgethus formed, right in the track of the fallingstones. The danger here, however, is small,for the bergschrund is always at the bottom ofthe couloir, whilst the stones fall from the top,so that there is always time enough to getout of the way before a block comes. Thegreatest danger from falling stones is in a bentcouloir
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectgames, booksubjectspo
