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Updated: June 7, 2025
A strip of the main trunk about a mile in width, extending along the eastern margin about fourteen miles to a lake filled with bergs, has so little motion and is so little interrupted by crevasses, a hundred horsemen might ride abreast over it without encountering very much difficulty.
After examining the first of the two widest crevasses, I followed its edge half a mile or so up and down and discovered that its narrowest spot was about eight feet wide, which was the limit of what I was able to jump.
Rocky crevasses and gorges cut more or less deeply into the mountain range, and up to its ridge extends the desert, destructive of all life, with sand and stones, with rocky cliffs and reef-like, desert hills. Behind the eastern range the desert spreads to the Red Sea; behind the western it stretches without limit, into infinity. In the belief of the Egyptians beyond it lay the region of the dead.
How ridiculous it is to find pleasure in climbing ice-precipices, and leaping over crevasses, and sitting under shower-baths of boulder-stones. I'm sure that I could not find pleasure in such pranks even if I were to make the effort. How much better to seek and find enjoyment in wandering with a book through shady forests and gathering wild-flowers! Don't you agree with me, Count?"
We understood now that the haycock formations were the result of pressure, and that crevasses were always found in their neighbourhood. That day was for the most part thick and hazy, with a northerly wind, and snow-showers from time to time. Between the showers we caught sight of lofty very lofty pressure ridges, three or four of them, to the eastward.
But this flashing devastation is not incoherent, as at the time of the conflict of the first elements and the groping of dead things. For its crevasses and flowing fires show a symmetry which is not Nature's; it reveals discipline let loose, and the frenzy of wisdom. It is made up of thought, of will, of suffering.
The depth of some of the crevasses may be conjectured from the fact stated by Agassiz, that the thickest parts of the glaciers are over one thousand feet in depth. Friday, July 8. Chamouni to Martigny, by Tete Noir. Mules en avant. We set off in a caleche. After a two hours' ride we came to "those mules." On, to the pass of Tete Noir, by paths the most awful.
The snow-shoes which F. and myself had donned, alone saved us several times from a similar, uncomfortable fate. Our path, properly speaking, should have led over the very centre of the glacier; but, in consequence of the numerous crevasses and the early appearance of the new snow, our guide steadily refused to take us over the pass by that route.
The glacier brought us up some height, but after a time the surface began to be broken by big crevasses. We spent two hours picking our way across and at noon saw we must find another route. The slope on the right would take us off our line; on the left there were high, icy rocks that would puzzle a member of the Alpine club." "We sat down and examined the mountain with the glasses.
Next day we abandoned the camp, leaving all standing, and, putting our packs upon a Yukon sled, rejecting the ice-creepers, and resuming our rough-locked snow-shoes, we started down the glacier in soft, cloudy weather to our base camp. Again it had been wiser to have waited till night, that the snow bridges over the crevasses might be at their hardest; but we could not wait.
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