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The uppermost crevasse, or "bergschrund," where the névé was attached to the mountain, was from 12 to 14 feet wide, and was bridged in a few places by the remains of snow avalanches. Creeping along the edge of the schrund, holding on with benumbed fingers, I discovered clear sections where the bedded structure was beautifully revealed.
He was fresh from London; we had passed a night in a comfortless cave; the day was hot, and his weight made a plod through deep snow necessarily fatiguing. We reached the summit with considerable difficulty. On the descent he slipped above a certain famous bergschrund; the fall of so ponderous a body jerked me out of the icy steps, and our combined weight dragged down the guides.
The pillar on the left was more approachable, but we were unable to determine its dimensions; for on the outer side, where it stood a few feet or yards clear of the side of the cave, the rounded ice at its foot fell off at once into a dark chasm, a sort of smooth enticing Bergschrund, which we did not care to face.
Often it was only by the grace of God that I did not fall headlong, and pull Wake out of his hold to the bergschrund far below. I slipped more than once, but always by a miracle recovered myself. To make things worse, Wake was tiring. I could feel him drag on the rope, and his movements had not the precision they had had in the morning. He was the mountaineer, and I the novice.
In any season it is always difficult to cross that bergschrund on to the steep ice-slope beyond. It is so badly bridged with snow. This season it will be as bad as can be. The ice-slope up to the Col will also take a long time. So start very early." As Michel spoke, as he anticipated the difficulties and set his thoughts to overcome them, his eyes lit up, his whole face grew younger.
The sky had clouded over, and ugly streamers floated on the high slopes. We tied on the rope at the foot of the bergschrund, which was easy to pass because of the winter's snow. Wake led, of course, and presently we came on to the icefall. In my time I had done a lot of scrambling on rocks and used to promise myself a season in the Alps to test myself on the big peaks.
For in winter the crevasse of the bergschrund which surrounds the neve field is filled with snow and the neve is frozen fast to the rocky sides of the valley. In early summer the neve tears itself free, dislodging and removing any loosened blocks, and the open fissure of the bergschrund allows frost and other agencies of weathering to attack the unprotected rock.
This supposition is easily confirmed: by observing the field we find that the sheet is everywhere drawing away from the cliffs, leaving a deep fissure between the névé and the precipices. This crevice is called by the German-Swiss guides the Bergschrund. Passage over it is often one of the most difficult feats to accomplish which the Alpine explorer has to undertake.
Happily the bergschrund was choked with snow, and we escaped with an involuntary slide. As we plodded slowly homewards, we expected that his exhaustion would cause a difficulty in reaching the inn. But by the time we got there he was, I believe, the freshest of the party. I remember another characteristic incident of the walk.
It breaks itself loose from the thinner snows about it, too shallow to share its motion, and from the rock rim which surrounds it, forming a deep fissure called the bergschrund, sometimes a score and more feet wide. SIZE OF GLACIERS. The ice streams of the Alps vary in size according to the amount of precipitation and the area of the neve fields which they drain.
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