Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 March 1905 — ALPINE GUIDES. [ARTICLE]

ALPINE GUIDES.

The Trouble They Sometime! Have With Reokleae Cliiubera. The Alpine guide frequently risks his health, strength, even his life, for persons who may have been themselves the cause of tlie peril encountered. The qualities of a first cinss guide, says the author of “Adventures on the Roof of the World,” Include not only skill in climbing, but the ability to form sound conclusions in moments of danger. A certain climber tells an anecdote which bears on the importance of the guide’s powers of judgment A member of the Alpine club was ascending a peak in company with ail Oberland guide. Part of their course lay over a snow field which sank gradually on one side, sharply ended by a precipice on the other. The two were walking along not far from the edge of this precipice when the Englishman, thinking that an easier path might be made by going still nearer the Mdge, diverged a little from his companion’s track. To his surprise, the guide Immediately caught hold of him and pulled him back with more vigor than ceremony, well nigh throwing him down in the operation. Wrathful and not disinclined to return the compliment, the Englishman remonstrated. The guide’s only answer was to point to a small crack, apparently like scores of other cracks in the neve, which ran for some distance parallel to the edge of the precipice. The traveler was not satisfied, but he was too wise a man to argue while a desired summit was still some distance above him. On the descent when the scene of the morning’s incident was reached the guide pointed to the crack, which had grown perceptibly wider. “This marks,” he said, “the place where the true snow field ends. I feel certain that the ice from here to the edge is nothing but an unsupported cornice hanging over the tremendous precipice below. It might possibly have borne your weight, though I don’t think it would.” Thereupon he struck the neve on the farther side of the ice sharply with his ax. A huge mass Immediately broke away and went roaring down the cliff. The traveler was full of amazement and admiration and thought bow there, on an easy mountain and in smiling weather, he had been very near to making himself into an avalanche.