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Updated: May 12, 2025
As for myself, I profess to be little more than a greenhorn above the snow-line. I have done but little and may do but little more. Yet there are so many that have done nothing that the plain account of a plain and long Alpine pass may interest them. I will take one of the easiest, the Schwartzberg-Weissthor, and walk it with them and with a friend of mine and two well-known guides.
The Schwartzberg-Weissthor, a pass from Zermatt to Mattmark in the Saas Valley, is indeed easy. It is nothing more than a long "snow-grind," as mountaineers say. It is supposed to take ten hours, and it can certainly be done in the time by guides. But then guides can always go twice as fast as any but the first flight of amateurs.
But when he and I get together, as we usually do when climbing comes on, we always quarrel in the most friendly way upon that subject. But for my own part I declare that I will never again do another pure snow-grind such as the Schwartzberg-Weissthor for any other purpose than to fetch a doctor, or to do something equally useful in a case of emergency.
There is really only five minutes of interest on the Schwartzberg-Weissthor. We came to that in the arête, for after following it for a few minutes we turned off it to the left and came to the bergschrund, the big crevasse which separates the highest snows or ice from the glacier. By now I was quite anxious that the guides should find the schrund difficult.
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