IF Biner had known we were nearing the top, he kept it to himself. To us three it came as an entire surprise—and an unspeakably joyous one. We were still alive. That was the main point. We had surmounted that inconceivable cliff and were still alive!
However, we could not stop long to rejoice. The summit of the pass was barely big enough to stand on. The wind swept across it furiously and the cold was unbearable. Above us on either side rose the rocky, snowy peaks of the Finsteraarhorn, Lauterhorn and Schreckhorn groups, only a few thousand feet higher than we were. Behind us was the precipice we had just climbed. Before us dropped very, very steeply, yet not in a precipice, a much longer slope of snow, at the bottom of which lay a great glacier. The distance, Biner said, was three thousand feet, and we absolutely must not slip, as there would be no stopping-place short of the bottom. He made Frater and Belle Soeur change places, so as to put Frater’s strength at the rear for bracing back should any of us start sliding. However, he impressed it upon us that we must not slide. He told us afterwards that he was much more afraid of this part of the trip than of the climb up the cliff, but it was by no means so fear-inspiring to us, nor so physically exhausting.
It was a shame to leave that tremendous, awesome, Walpurgisnacht revel of glacierdom visible from the summit of the pass so soon. But flesh and blood could not endure the freezing gale.
The last night’s fall of snow added much to the danger of the descent, as it made the surface treacherous. Biner cut out each step ahead of him with his ice-axe, taking care to get down to the hard-packed surface beneath. As he put his foot in it, I put mine in the step he had just vacated. Belle Soeur took my last resting-place and Frater hers. It was slow, and we had our minds firmly fixed on not sliding. But it was heaven compared with the cliff climb!
The rest of the afternoon’s trip, between rocks and ice, was strenuous, and we should have considered it highly perilous before our last experience. But now we took everything as a matter of course. We were in the midst of very wild and magnificent scenery, of which the continued cloudiness somewhat impaired our view, while the intense cold and our knowledge of the flight of time kept us from lingering to enjoy what we could see. As it was, we just barely reached the Schwarzegg hut before dark.
To our great relief, we found it empty. The other party had gone on to Grindelwald. Never, I am sure, was a refuge more gratefully and joyously entered. It was not so large as the Dollfus Pavilion, having only one room. But it was Waldorf-Astoria and Paradise all rolled into one to us!
We put two francs in the tin box on the wall and took a bundle of wood from the closet (at the Dollfus we had to bring our own fuel with us), and in a few minutes Biner had a fire crackling in the stove. We took off our ice-caked shoes and stood them by the stove whence arose a steaming vapor for hours. Belle Soeur and I stuffed our wooden clubhouse shoes full of straw to keep them on, and getting rid of our skirts, which were frozen stiff as boards almost to the waist, we hung them also to steam near the stove and wrapt ourselves, Indian fashion, in gray blankets. We were enduring acute physical pain as our frozen toes and fingers thawed out, but our minds were so at ease that we did not care.
Soon Biner was handing us great tin cups full of steaming coffee.—Oh, the joy of it!—And as we drank scalding gulps of it between bites of bread and cheese, we were as happy a little party as one would care to see. And then we rolled up in, oh, ever so many blankets, six pairs apiece, I think, and went to sleep in the straw on the shelf.
We did not get a very early start next morning. It was so luxurious to take things easy! The coffee was a second brewing from last night’s grounds, and the bread and cheese a little scanty, but we didn’t mind. We knew we should soon be where we could get more.
The view in the morning was very, very beautiful. At first the whole Grindelwald valley was covered with fleecy white clouds and even the glacier immediately below thrust only an ice crag here and there through the foamy mist. The hut was on a rock ledge over this great ice river, which, sweeping downward, becomes the Lower Grindelwald Glacier. Gradually the air cleared, the upper regions first, the sky above disclosing itself a dazzling and unspotted blue, while the cloud strata below us were still intact.
What a magnificent day it would have been for going over the Strahlegg, had we only waited!
We stood for a long time outside the hut, ready to start, but hating to leave the magnificent spectacle presented as the clouds below us dissolved.
There is a passage in Manfred which describes wonderfully just this scene:
“The mists boil up around the glaciers; clouds
Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury,
Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell.”
Our way, it is true, did not lead us out of sight of our magnificent views, but we knew we could only give them a divided attention when we had started climbing.
The Schwarzegg hut being put in excellent order and the last two-francs-for-fuel piece dropped in the box, we bade the place a grateful farewell, adjusted the faithful rope once more and started along the trail—there really is one from here on—which skirts the right bank of the glacier. Wherever there is a bad stretch of rock to be gotten up or down, iron spikes have been driven in, affording foothold and handhold. What luxuries iron spikes would have been the day before in that much more formidable cliff we had to climb!
I wouldn’t recommend the walk between the Bäregg and the Schwarzegg hut to children or invalids, nor should it be undertaken without a guide, but it presents no real difficulties or dangers to vigorous young people with steady heads and a little climbing experience. We were even able to enjoy the scenery.
The Glacier from below the Schwarzegg Hut looking towards the Strahlegg and Schreckhorn
The mists gradually all rolled away and revealed the green Grindelwald valley and its clustered châlets, not quite so far to the right as the Edelweiss, but still we felt very close to home.
After a couple of hours’ climbing, we were able to dispense with the rope, which we did with decided relief at regaining our individual liberty. We had been roped the day before for ten and a half consecutive hours.
Arriving at the Bäregg inn, we ordered café complet served at the table outside (for the thought of a room suffocated us), removed a few layers of wraps become unnecessary at this lower level, and had a very refreshing repast.
We were objects of intense interest to a party of English tourists of both sexes who had walked up from the valley, whether wholly on account of our late mountaineering hardships and achievements, doubtless communicated from our guide to theirs, or partly because of our undeniably disreputable appearance, I do not know. But we had the prestige of the High Alps about us and did not care for the strange red glaze which the successive action of frost and sun had left on our faces or the bloodshot surface of our eyes. We bore ourselves proudly as befitted our estate, and were conscious all the way home of the interest, sometimes not unmixed with envy, which we excited.
At the turn of the road before reaching the Châlet Edelweiss, we met the Mother watching for us, who had become alarmed at the delay in our arrival. She had decided if we did not appear by two o’clock (it was then about half-past one) that she would call on the curate of the English Chapel, who is also a famous mountain-climber, and ask him to organize a search party.