Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1876 — A Winter Ascent of Mont Blanc. [ARTICLE]

A Winter Ascent of Mont Blanc.

The Paris Debals publishes from a correspondent a very interesting account of an ascension of Mont Blanc made on the 20th of January lost by Mr. James Eccles, an English geologist, and M. Gabriel Loppe, a French painter. Winter visits to the snowy monarch are not of very common occurrence, and Alpine tourists will perhaps be surprised to learn that his hoary majesty is far more agreeable and worth seeing in winter than in .summer. We append the most salient features of the ascent: “ MM. Eccles and Loppe left Chamounix on the evening of the 19th. Chamounix is very pleasant and inhabitable in the winter. While the papers were announcing bitter cold and snow from the south of France, the thermometer atChamounix was warming itself quietly in the sun and rising to twenty-three degrees above zero. At 9:30 o’clock on the morning of the 20th the two tourists set out from the Hotel Couttet. Not a cloud was to be seen in the sky. The great slopes that lead up to the Aiguille du Midi, which in summer are strewn with rhododendrons, were carpeted with a fresh, soft covering of snow, in which one might have rolled himself with pleasure. The two Alpine explorers, accompanied by two guide? and two porters, ascended gaily as far as the upper part of the Glacier des Bossons, where they arrived at 4:35 o’clock, and where they reposed themselves for a short time to admire the finest sight that winter ever offered to the eye. The sky was clear, without the slightest speck, and a ( thin mist hovered over Lake Leman. But the tourists were forced to cut short their admiration of the scene before them in order to accomplish the most difficult part of the ascent before nightfall. They had to leave the junction of the glaciers of Bossons and Taconnay, and climb up to the GrandsMulels, up steeps of ice and over crevices which often frighten apprentices. Some of the crevices are so wide that a ladder has to be used to irem tiipm, others * ltl hidden by accumulations of snow, which suddenly give war unto the foot. The fatigpe is great, Tnft tne- danger Is small, as the climbers, who ascend one by one, are attached to one another with ropes. He who falls into a crevice is at once drawn out by those behind or before. Add to these ordinary difficulties an accumulation of fresh, fine snow and that mud peculiar to winter, into which you sink knee deep, and the reader will easily understand why our travelers did not reach the pavilion of the Grands-Mulets, the highest habitation tkst exists in Europe, before 5:80 o’clock in the evening. This pavilion, especially in winter, is a delicious retreat. It contains three liitle rooms, provided with mattresses and rugs, under which the tourist reposes better than in the best of hotel beds. Moreover, it possesses a tuisine whose advantages it would be difficult to appreciate too much after seven hours’ ascension. The supper was perfect, and the repose excellent. The temperature was extraordinarily mild. On the preceding night it had frozen at Lhgliouat, which is 180. kilometers south of Algiers. At the Grands-Mulets, in the open air, 3,000 meters above the level of the sea, none of the three thermometers borne by Mr. Eccles fell below seven degrees centigrade, which is about 44 3-5 degrees Fahrenheit. The little Alpine party resumed their ascent at six o’clock on the following morning, each man bearing a lantern. The cold was so little intense that; the guides took off their thick gloves to hbid their piolets or ice-choppers. At seven o’clock, at the corner of the Dome, the glass did not mark more than eight degrees centigrade, while at the same hour, at the bottom of the Valley of Chamounix, the thermometer of the Hotel Couttet fell to eleven degrees centigrade, which proves that it* is warmer up than down the Alps—a filet hitherto unknown. At nine o’clock the painter and the geologist were on the grand plateau. They now had only to climb the final summit of Mount Blanc, a comparatively easy' ascension, which M. Loppe had often made in two hours and a half. A little more courage, and the intrepid tourists would be the first men that ever sat in full winter on the apex of Mont Blanc, which dominates all Europe. But the east wind had been blowing for several hpura, and it grew stronger. Soon it blew the fine snow into a mist, and finally it whirled the snow about in dense whirlwind cpiuums. They who have never ascended tfte higher summits know' not what.is the wind. There are travelers who complain of the bite of Geneva and the mistral of Avignon, but they are Sybarites; they should see and feel what the wind is on the snowy heights of the Alps. Six years ago, and in the summer, too, a party of ten persons were smothered by a similar wind on the apex of Mont Blanc, and all their bodies have not yet been recovered. When the snowy whirlwind ceased a little, the tourists were able to see that the other summits were perfectly clear and sunny. But for this wind the temperature would have been bearable; the glass fell to only thirteen decrees centigrade, rOn the same plateau in summer tne thermometer often falls much longer. Picture these six men in the midst of such a whirlwind," at 4,000 metres above the level of the sea, in the depth of winter, liable to be blown away at every moment and buried forever in tbe secret depths of the snowy mountain 1 They now had to descend- Driven by the wind, the tourists desettoded, or rather roiled down to the Grands-Mulets, at times going over in five minutes a space of ground which had taken them one hour to ascend. At half-past four o’clock they returned to Chamounix, where they found the sun shining and a spring-like breeze blowing. - To clxas Britannia metal, use finelypowdered whiting, two tablespoonfuls of .sweet oil, and g little yellow soap melted to some thickness; mix with a little spirits of wine. Rub this cream on with a sponge or soft flannel, wipe it Off with a soft cloth and polish with a leather.