Читать книгу Ski-runs in the High Alps - F. F. Roget - Страница 7

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The different ski-ing zones—Their characteristics and dangers—The glaciers as ski-ing grounds—The ski-running season—Inverted temperature—The conformation of winter snow—Precautionary measures—Glacier weather—Rock conditions—Weather reports—Guides and porters.

In a chapter like this, a writer on the High Alps may well abstain from poetical or literary developments. His subject is best handled as a technical sport, and personal experience should alone be drawn upon for its illustration.

Little more than ten years have elapsed since men with a knowledge of summer mountaineering began to explore the Alps in winter. Not only are the successes, which have almost invariably attended the winter exploration of the Swiss ice-fields, full of instruction for the novice, but also the accidents and misfortunes which, sad to say, ended in loss of life or limb, have conveyed useful lessons.

In this chapter the writer has nothing in view but to be practical and pointed. His remarks must be taken to apply exclusively to the Alps. He has no knowledge of any other ski-ing field, and is conversant with no other experience but that gained in the Alps by himself and members of the Swiss ski-ing clubs, which count in their membership thousands of devotees.

It is necessary to distinguish the zones of meadow land and cultivated fields, forest land, cattle grazings, and rocks.

In the forest zone the snow presents no danger except, perhaps, in sharply inclined clearings where its solidity is not sufficiently assured either by the nature of the underlying ground or by the presence of trees growing closely together at the foot of the incline.

Above the forest belt the zone of pastures is a favourite ski-ing ground. This zone is wind-swept, sunburnt during the day, and under severe frost at night. As a general rule, it may be laid down that snow accumulated in winter on the grazings frequented by cows in summer affords a safe and reliable ski-ing ground, at any rate in all parts where the cows are in the habit of standing. When in doubt, the ski-runner should ask himself: Are cows, as I know them, likely to feel comfortable when standing on this slope in summer? If an affirmative answer can be given in a bona-fide manner, the slope is not dangerous.

Alpine grazing lands being selected for the convenience of cows, they are almost throughout well adapted to ski-runners. It is, of course, understood that gorges, ravines, and steep declivities will be avoided by Swiss cows just as much as by those of any other nationality. The ski-runner should leave those parts of the grazing alone on which a herd would not be allowed to roam by its shepherds.

The deepest and heaviest Alpine snows lie on the grazings, and the avalanches that occur there in spring are of the heaviest type and cover the most extensive areas. These are spring avalanches. They are regular phenomena, and it is totally unnecessary to expect them in midwinter.

Above the grazings begin the rocks. They are either towering rocks and walls, or else they lie broken up on slopes in varying sizes. In the latter case the snow that may cover them is quite safe, provided the points of those rocks be properly buried. As a rule, wherever there is a belt or wall of solid rock above a grazing (which is practically the case in every instance when it is not a wood), the loose stones at the foot of the rocks give complete solidity to the snow surface resting on them. The danger arises from the rocks towering aloft. If these are plastered over with loose snow, the snow may come down at any moment on the lower ground. One should not venture under such rocks till the snow that may have gathered in the couloirs has come down or is melted away.

Avalanches are a matter belonging more particularly to snow conditions in the grazing areas, but they need not to any degree be looked upon as characteristic of this area. Their cause has to be sought in the weather, that is in the rise and fall of the temperature, and in the wind. There is quite a number of slopes at varying angles, where it is impossible that the snow surface should be well balanced under all weather conditions, and these are the slopes where mishaps do occur. The easiest method to avoid accidents is to keep on obviously safe ground, and it is also on such ground that the best and most steady running can be got.

The glaciers of Switzerland are a magnificent and absolutely unrivalled ski-ing ground.

The months appointed by natural circumstances for ski-running in the High Alps are the months of January and February. This period may quite well be taken to include the whole month of March and the last days in December.

There are reasons for excluding the first three weeks in December, and the last three in April.

In night temperature, but in night temperature only, the passing from summer to winter, upwards of 9,000 feet may indeed be said to have fully taken place long before the end of the year. This passage is marked by the regular freezing at night of all moisture, and by the regular freezing over of all surfaces on which moisture is deposited by day. Still, the first fall of a general layer of snow, which will last throughout the winter on the high levels, may be much delayed. Till that first layer has covered the high ground, the ski-runner’s winter has not begun.

THE WILDSTRUBEL HUT.

To face p. 21.

The first general snowfall, if it mark the beginning of the ski-runner’s winter, does not yet mark the setting in of the ski-running season. For a time, which may extend from November to near the end of December, moisture proceeding from the atmosphere, that is rain and vapours (warm, damp winds), is not without effect at the altitudes which we are considering. Such a damp condition of the air and any risk of rain are quite inconsistent with ski-running. But everybody should know that if such risks must be taken throughout the winter by a ski-runner residing, for instance, at the altitude of Grindelwald, they may practically be neglected by a sportsman whose field of exercise is that to which the Swiss Alpine Club huts afford access.

There, from Christmas to early Easter, the only atmospheric obstacle consists of snowstorms, in which the wind alone is an enemy, while the snow entails an improvement in the conditions of sport each time it falls. The November and December snowfalls prepare the ground for running, and running at those heights is neither safe nor perfect as long as the process goes on. In January and February any snowfall simply improves the floor or keeps up its good condition. It may be taken that during these months the atmosphere is absolutely dry from Tyrol to Mont Blanc above 8,000 feet, and that a so-called wet wind will convey only dry snow. Any moisture or water one may detect will be caused by the heat of the sun melting the ice or the snow. It is a drying, not a wetting, process; it leaves the rocks facing south, south-east, and south-west beautifully dry, and completely clears them, by rapid evaporation, of the early winter snows or of any casual midwinter fall accompanying a storm of wind.

Such are the atmospheric reasons which help to determine the proper ski-running months in the High Alps.

There are others which are still of a meteorological description, but which are connected mainly with the temperature. We shall begin by giving our thought a paradoxical expression as follows: it is a mistake to talk of winter at all in connection with the High Alps. According to the time of year, the weather in the Alps is subjected to general rain conditions or to general snow conditions. Under snow conditions the thermometer falls under zero Centigrade, and the temperature of the air may range from zero to a very low reading; but the sun is extremely powerful, its force is intensified by the reflection from the snow surface. The temperature of the air in the shade is therefore no clue to the temperature of material surfaces exposed to the rays of the sun. The human frame, under suitable conditions of clothing and exercise, feels, and actually is, quite warm in the sun, a violent wind being required to approximate the subjective sensations of the body to those usually associated with a cold, damp, and biting winter’s day.

This is a general characteristic of the Alpine winter, to which must be added an occasional, though perfectly regular, feature, namely, that the Alps may offer, and do offer every winter, instances of inverted temperature. This name is given to periods which may extend over several days at a stretch, and which are repeated several times during the winter months. These are periods during which the constant temperature of the air—that is, the average temperature by night and by day in the shade—is higher upon the heights than in the plains and valleys.

As a general principle, the winter sportsman may be sure that in the proportion in which he rises he also leaves behind him the winter conditions, as defined, in keeping with their own notions and experience by the dwellers on plains, on the seaside, or in valleys. When travelling upwards he reaches a dry air, a hot and bright light, and maybe a higher temperature than prevails in the lower regions of the earth which lie at his feet.

We said a little while ago that in January and February any snowfall improves the floor. In the preceding months the high regions pass gradually from the condition in which they are practicable on foot to those under which they are properly accessible to the ski-runner only. Time must be allowed for the process, and till it is completed ski-running is premature and consequently distinctly dangerous. The Alpine huts should not be used as ski-ing centres before they can be reached on ski, and one should not endeavour to reach them in that manner as long as stones are visible among the snow.

The distinctive feature of the ski-runner’s floor is that it is free from stones and from holes. The stones should be well buried under several feet of snow, and the holes filled up with compressed or frozen snow before the ski-runner makes bold to sally forth, but when they are he may practically go anywhere and dare anything so far as the ground is concerned, provided he is an expert runner and a connoisseur in the matter of avalanches. Of course, our “anywhere” applies to ski-ing grounds only, and our “anything” means mountaineering as restricted to the uses to which ski may fairly be put.

The floor of the ski-runner is a dimpled surface consisting of an endless variety of planes and curves. It is a geometrical surface upon which the ski move like instruments of mensuration that are from two to three yards long. Snowfalls and the winds determine the geometrical character of the field upon which the long rulers are to glide. This, the only true notion of the ski-ing field, means that the detail of the ground has disappeared. It presents a continuity of differently inclined, bent, edged, or curved surfaces, all uniformly geometric in the construction of each. Any attempt at ski-running upon this playground before its engineers and levellers (which are snow and wind) have achieved their work in point of depth, solidity, and extent, is unsporting and perilous.

The continuous figure or design presented by the upper snow-fields of the Alps in January, from end to end of the chain, is broken by prismatic masses, such as cones, pyramids, and peaks, on the sides of which the laws of gravity forbid the establishment by the concourse of natural forces of snow-surfaces accessible with ski. The runner who has been borne by his ski to the foot of those rock masses—such, for instance, as the top of Monte Rosa as it rises from the Sattel—will continue his ascent as a rock-climber. He will probably find the state of the rocks quite as propitious as in summer, and often considerably better.

To sum up, the characteristics of the ski-running season are: stability of weather, constant dryness of the air, a uniform and continuous running surface, windlessness, a constant body temperature from sunrise to sunset, at times a relatively high air temperature, solar light and solar heat, which must not be confused with air temperature and present an intensity, a duration most surprising to the dweller in plains and on the seaboard; last, but not least, accessibility of the rocky peaks with climbing slopes turned to the sun.

A real trouble is the crevasses. The ice-fields form such wide avenues between the peaks bordering them that a ski-runner must be quite a fool if an avalanche finds him within striking distance. But the crevasses are quite another matter. In summer the protection against falling into crevasses is the rope and careful steering between them. In winter mountaineering the ski, properly speaking, take the place of the rope. The longest traverses in the Alps have been performed by unroped ski-runners. At the same time, the usefulness of the rope, in case of an accident actually occurring, cannot be gainsaid, though it cannot be maintained that the rope, which has been known to cause certain accidents in summer, may be called absolutely free from any such liability in winter. Of the use of the rope we therefore say, “Adhuc sub judice lis est.”

There are two golden rules for avoiding a drop into a crevasse: firstly, keep off glaciers or of those parts of any glacier where crevasses are known to be numerous, deep, long, and wide; secondly, if called upon to run over a glacier that is crevassed, use the rope, but use it properly—that is, bring its full length into use, take off your ski, and proceed exactly as you would do in summer by sounding the snow and crossing bridged crevasses one after another. It is absurd to mix summer and winter craft; they are distinct. When the rope is used under winter conditions, let it be exactly according to the best winter practice.

If going uphill you find yourself landed on ice, take off your ski and gain a footing on the ice by means of the heavy nails on your boots. Never attempt glacier work with unnailed boots or short, light bamboo sticks. If any accident happens suddenly to your ski you are helpless and hopeless without nails; you probably will not have time to take your climbing irons off your rucksack and bind them on to your feet.

Accidents to ski generally happen when one is on the move on difficult and dangerous ground. It is absurd to expect that the difficulty or danger will abate while you take off your rucksack, sit down, and strap on your climbing irons. Remember that you are on the move and that your impetus will carry you on, if not immediately checked by nails gripping the ice. That, too, is the reason why a short, light bamboo will not do; it is a fine-weather weapon and quite the thing on easy snows. On rough ground you want something with a substantial iron point, a weapon of some weight and strength which can support your body and help in seeing you home should your ski be injured. A good runner would never put his stick to unfair uses, such as riding and leaning back.

If on going downhill you find yourself landed on ice, the essential thing is to be able to keep on your feet first, to your course next. A stout stick with a sharp point will then be sorely needed, and if you have been careful to fasten on to your ski-blades an appliance against skidding or side-slip, you will find it much easier to steer and keep to your course. On the whole, it is wiser on iced surfaces which are steep—and these are generally not extensive—to carry one’s ski.

There ought to be an ice-axe in the party, but this ice-axe should be carried by a professional and used by him. Nobody can cut steps or carry safely an ice-axe without some apprenticeship, and this it is impossible to go through in severe winter weather.

The principal glacier routes of Switzerland have been proved over and over again to be free from any particular risk or danger arising from winter conditions. The ratio of risk is the same as in summer. Consequently, select the best known routes, which are also the most beautiful and ski-able. Take with you, as porters and servants rather than guides, men who have frequently gone over those routes in winter with some Swiss runner of experience. This is important, because many guides, particularly the most approved summer guides, are creatures of routine, and will take you quite obdurately along the summer routes, step for step and inch after inch. Now, this is wrong and may lead to danger. The ski-runner must dominate the snow slopes. His place is on the brow, or rather on the coping, not at the foot of the slopes along which the summer parties generally crawl.

When going uphill for several hours consecutively, as it is necessary to do in order to reach the Alpine huts, an artificial aid against slipping back is indispensable. When going uphill the ski support the weight of the runner and keep his feet on, or above, the snow. But they do not distinguish between regressive and progressive locomotion. The whole of the work of progression falls upon the human machinery. Under those conditions the strain put on the muscles by continuous or repeated backsliding is objectionable. The use of a mechanical contrivance is made imperative by the steepness of the slopes and their great length.

Another point is that when running downhill, say, from the Monte-Rosa Sattel to the Bétemps hut, it is never advisable to pick out the shortest and quickest route, which means the steepest run possible. High Alp ski-running demands the choice of the longest course consistent with steady progress and with an unbroken career along a safe line of advance. The watchword of the good runner will always be—at those heights and distances where so much that is ahead must remain problematical—move onward on curves, so as to approach any obstacle by means of a bend, admitting of an inspection of the obstacle, if it is above the surface, before you are upon it, and which, if it is the running surface which presents a break, even a concealed one, will prevent your hurling yourself headlong into the trap.