The Dent Perroc and Neighbouring Peaks
ON the 17th of July eleven members of the Cambridge Club met at the Hotel du Pigne at Arolla in the Val d’Hérens. The President and Secretary had come from three weeks’ successful climbing in the Mont Blanc Massif, and two others, also in good training, had come by way of the Rhine and the Black Forest. The rest had crossed France in a very crowded third class railway carriage, and had no doubt been broken in to greater discomforts than the mountains were likely to give, but their general condition had not been improved by the journey, despite a solemn training walk in full kit from the Gare du Nord to the Gare de Lyon. Besides this variety in training there were also differences in the matter of experience, for some members of the meet had never been in the Alps before. That a fair estimate of the success of the meet may be made, the unsettled state of the weather should also be emphasised. On those days on which climbing was possible, there was often a clouding over at midday, followed by rain or snow, which tended rather to curtail expeditions.
As we arrived in the evening of Friday, starts were as late as 6.0 a.m. on the following day. The secretary took his party over the Petite Dent de Veisivi, which they found to be an excellent ridge traverse on rock as sound as Pillar or Gable. The other two parties decided that what they principally needed was experience of snow and ice. Consequently the President’s and Treasurer’s parties struggled over the three snow cols, the Col du Collon, the Col de L’Evêque, and the Col des Vignettes. The day was muggy with low mist, and the snow conditions so unsatisfactory that afterwards there was less keenness about practising snow and ice work.
On the next day Van Noorden’s party made an adventurous traverse of the Douves Blanches and the Tsa. On the arête just before reaching the Tsa two massive slabs of rock, between which the party had begun to move, started to close up on the second man, who made a leap into the air, and the rock jaws bit at the rope only, which was cut in two. There was also a hurried descent of three of ’the party down the couloir on the west face of the Tsa, but as each bounced down the President gently fielded them and placed them on a safe ledge. Wager’s party climbed the Cime Méridionale of the Aiguilles Rouges by way of the couloir leading to the Col de Slingsby. They returned the same way as far as the Col de Slingsby, and then went down the Arête de la Mangette, which was made of soft mica schist totally unlike the splendid rock of the Cime Méridionale. The Secretary’s party attempted the Mont Collon, but the eggs eaten for lunch made the party turn when they were quite near the top.
A "jour de repos" was spent in over-eating in the traditional way. Some climbers are known to object to the continued harping on the subject of food, but they are probably in the minority, and therefore it shall be explained that the President and Secretary, being old hands at the game, arrived before the rest on the first day of the meet, and they were not only found by a tired and hungry party to have annexed the two best beds, but at dinner the President’s and Secretary’s chairs were hard by the kitchen door. It was a great satisfaction to the remoter members at the dining table to find this latter precaution was unnecessary, as Monsieur Bovier:, the proprietor, actually encouraged the practice of over- eating. After lunch, therefore, on this first off-day there was a very general feeling of shame, and a party went down the valley, climbed the Dent de Satarme, and bathed in the Lac Bleu, while two others cut some way up the Glacier du Mont Collon ice fall. The feeling of shame did not extend to the President and Secretary, and they marked the occasion by two ’ Thés complets.’
On the following day the parties resumed their labours and Harris repeated his attempt on the Mont Collon and traversed it. They went up by the west arête and down by the
Chancelier ridge. At the bottom of the ridge the leader made an attempt to teach the art of glissading. He went down first, belayed himself comfortably, gave the rope a sharp jerk, and shouted instructions as the members of his party rolled past. The President’s party traversed the Cime Méridionale of the Aiguilles Rouges from the Col Sud nearly to the Col de Slingsby and down the face a little to the North of the couloir, as the latter was throwing stones. The Treasurer’s party failed on the Dent Perroc. After endless loose rock and very little climbing, on the ridge which comes down towards Arolla, an enormous boulder slithered down rather close to one of the party. This made them move very slowly, and they turned near the top just before a snow storm broke.
The parties now went to three separate huts. One party on the way up to the Bertol hut found an unfortunate guide carrying one large rucksack, one small one, a large cloak, and attached to his coat-tail his employer, a retired German general. As the pace was slow they refrained from hanging on too. They made a three o’clock start for the Bouquetins, but impossible weather turned them at 6 a.m., and they went back to Arolla. For the next three days they made early starts for the Tsa, but on each occasion they were turned by the weather. Another party started after lunch for the hut in the Val des Dix. At the top of the Pas de Chèvres they found two disconsolate tourists from Sion, who had slept the night out and lacked the necessary courage to brave the difficulties of the pass. They refused all offers of help, and what ultimately became of them is not known. On a fairly hopeless morning they left the Val des Dix hut hoping to climb Mont Blanc de Seilon, but at the Col de Serpentine, after having made their way up the ice fall, they were turned by the weather, and they eventually returned to Arolla by the Pas de Chèvres.
The third party from the invariably crowded Jenkins hut on the Col des Vignettes were able to make a later start. This fitted in better with the idiosyncrasies of the weather, and Donkin, who had just come out from England, led the party over the Petit Mont Collon. It was remarkable that while the other mountains in the neighbourhood were in thick cloud, the Petit Mont Collon was more often in sunshine. As there was some doubt of the standard route, the party made an interesting way up the southern end of the Peak.
Subsequently the Douves Blanches and Tsa was climbed by the Secretary’s party. The President’s depleted party traversed the Petite Dent de Veisivi, descending the Tour Rouge without the use of a doubled rope. The Treasurer’s party climbed the Haute Cime of the Aiguilles Rouges, and also traversed the popular Petite Dent de Veisivi. On the last day of the meet a compound of the remains of the various parties, with the addition of Kempson, started in doubtful weather for the Mont Collon. Half way up the moraine of the Pièce Glacier heavy rain came on, and the party sat down round the glacier lantern. Three of them watched the rain frizzle on the top of the lantern, and two curled up to keep warm and succeeded in going off to sleep. In half an hour the watchers had not decided to return to bed, and the rain began to stop; after threequarters of an hour, when we were beginning to dry, more by luck than determination the party started up instead of down the track. The weather cleared, and a perfect day was spent in the traverse of the Collon.
With this, the official meet ended, but there was a rearrangement of parties and a scattering in different directions. Their subsequent history may be briefly described. One party left for the Bertol hut en route for Zermatt. Another went up the Tsa by the West face and down to Bricolla. Bad weather here prevented them carrying out their programme, so they crossed to Zermatt and climbed the Wellenkuppe and Obergabelhorn in a snow storm. The remainder of the party some days later traversed the Monte Rosa with an entertaining but mad Italian porter. The third party went down the Otemma glacier to Chanrion climbing La Sangla on the way. In the bad weather that followed they zig-zagged across frontier cols to the Italian Val Ferret, from which they managed one climb during a week’s stay. This suggested more col walking, which took them eventually to the Central Graians, and on a last hurried day they traversed the Ciamarella and Albaron.
The Meet was a success, for it attained the results for which a meet in the Alps was originally intended. A meet on the lines followed by the Cambridge Mountaineering Club enables the expense of a climbing holiday to be reduced by the cost of hiring guides. Though the saving of expense was the alleged justification for the first meet arranged by L. A. Ellwoad in the Alps in 1923, yet the greatest value of these meets undoubtedly is that they provide guideless climbing. Those who have a little more experience in the Alps form a party with one or two of less experience and, of course, only easy climbs are attempted; as a result the party is of a different nature from any ordinary guided party. The leader has at an early stage the responsibilities and delights of leadership, and the others, for whom the Meet is primarily designed, share some of the feeling of responsibility, learn something of route finding. Such a party will work better as a unit than one formed of a guide, a porter, and two beginners.
The party is usually able to deal adequately with the rock on the easier climbs because its members have had some practice in the Lake District or Wales, and all that they have to learn at first is care on loose rock and speed an easy rock. On snow and ice it is otherwise, and the leader will not only be over-cautious, but his technique will always be clumsy or bad when compared with that of a guide. On the whole, however, this tends to produce a safer and better attitude towards mountaineering than difficult expeditions led by a good guide, whose rapid and accurate judgment of conditions prevents the beginner from realizing many of the dangers of climbing, and whose skill masks the difficulties of the technique. It is for these reasons, and also because it is an enjoyable communal activity of the Club, that the summer Meet exists.