Jakob Anderegg
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JAKOB ANDEREGG JAKOB ANDEREGG BY D. F. 0. DANGAR T was unusual in the early years of the Club for a detailed obituary of a guide to be published in the Alpine Journal. Michel Croz, for instance, has no such notice; Andreas Maurer is dismissed in half a page and even in the case of Emile Rey, Giissfeldt and de Dechy, while paying tribute to him in the Correspondence columns, give all too few details of his career. Not until the death of Christian Almer in 1898 did a full-length biographical notice of a distinguished guide appear.1 As a result, the records of the achievements of the old-time guides are scattered through many volumes of the Journal, making it not always an easy matter to reconstruct the career of a particular guide. J akob Anderegg is a case in point; his brief obituary by A. W. Moore2 does not name a single expedition in which he took part. It was in the summer of r864 that Jakob, unknown and untried, appeared upon the Alpine scene and in the short space of fourteen years reached the highest ranks of his profession and at his death in r 878 left behind him a reputation for brilliant and daring enterprise equalled by few, if any, of his contemporaries. He was born in r827 and nothing is heard of him until A. W. Moore found him at Zermatt with the Walker family in July, r864.3 On July 12, this 'fine, handsome, fair man, with a profusion of beard and apparently as strong as a horse ' made his first recorded expedition, the second ascent of the Rimpfischhorn. J akob was Melchior Anderegg's cousin; the latter had been engaged by the Walkers for July, r864, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that when the question of a second guide arose, he suggested that J akob should fill the position. After an attempt on the Grivola the Walkers went up the Grand Combin on July 5 and it is probable that this was J akob's first successful expedition in a professional capacity. The Walkers with the two Andereggs subsequently made the first ascent of the Balmhorn, the only occasion in Alpine history on which a father, son, and daughter took part together in a first ascent. J akob went with them to Grindelwald and with a large party took part in the fourth ascent of the Eiger. The Walkers returning home after this 1 Some ten years earlier, however, Cunningham and Abney had published biographical details of certain guides in Pioneers of the Alps. 2 A. J. 9· r2o. 3 The Alps in r864, p. 207. go JAI{OB ANDEREGG expedition, J akob and his cousin were engaged by Leslie Step hen, who had a highly successful four weeks. J akob took part in all the new expeditions which included the Kammliliicke, J ungfrau from the Rottal, West peak of the Lyskamm, and the Zinal Rothorn. After three weeks' climbing with him Stephen was astute enough to realise that he had found in J akob a man who gave every indication of becoming a first class guide and he concluded his account of the Rothorn ascent with this tribute: ' Of J akob Anderegg I must add that he showed himself on this as on other occasions to be a first-rate man. He is a powerful, very good-looking fellow. He is always good tempered, as strong as a horse, willing to take any trouble, and on bad places as handy and steady as a man can be. I cannot conclude this paper better than by strongly recommending his claims to any of .my alpine friends who are un provided with a guide, and who require one for difficult expeditions. '4 and in J akob 's Ftihrerbuch5 he expressed the opinion that 'when he has gained knowledge of more districts he will be one of the best guides for difficult expeditions to be met with in the Alps'. This was high praise for a guide at the end of his first season but Stephen knew his man and the judgment he expressed was to prove perfectly correct. In 1865 Moore and Horace Walker engaged Jakob as sole guide, a remarkable tribute to his powers because it was unusual in those days to climb with only one guide. This was one of his greatest seasons and he led his party in a triumphant succession of first ascents. At the end of the summer it was evident beyond all doubt that a new star had risen in the Alpine world. After some expeditions in the Todi and Albula districts, including the crossing of three new passes, the party reached Pontresina towards the end of June and on the 28th made the first ascent of Piz Rose g. None of the previous attempts on the tnountain had got further than the Schneekuppe, or North-west peak, and their success was received with incredulity in Pontresina and elsewhere. 6 ' Our only guide', wrote Moore in the Visitors' Book of the Kronenhof hotel, Pontresina, ' 'was Jakob Anderegg, of whose skill, courage, and general conduct we cannot speak in sufficiently high terms.' A move was then made towards Zermatt. Moore's diary reveals that they had intended to leave Pontresina by the Porta da Roseg ( Gtissfeldtsattel) but 'we had' seen yesterday that the wall below the col on the North side was of great height, excessively steep and bare 4 A.J. 2. 79· 5 His Fi.ihrerbuch was issued in 1866. The first entry is a copy of a certificate given to him by Moore the previous year covering the five weeks ending July 2 5, I 86 5. Two pages further on is a copy of the certificate Step hen gave him in I 864. These are the only entries dealing with the years 1864-5. 6 See A.J. 63. 46. JAKOB ANDEREGG ice: in short, not a place which a single guide should be asked to attack'. 7 On July 4 they made the second passage of the Sesiajoch. 8 'Nothing could stop J akob who did not once change his direction, not even when a huge slab of smooth rock seemed an apparently insuperable obstacle; up he went, and we perforce followed, trusting much to the rope.' A day's rest was followed by the first ascent of the Ober Gabelhorn. Two unsuccessful attempts had recently been made on this peak by Lord Francis Douglas, led by 'Old' Peter Taugwalder. On both occasions he was taken up the wrong mountain (results that added nothing to Taugwalder's reputation) and it was a great feat on Jakob's part to lead his party straight to the summit at the first attempt. He then took them over the Col de Bertol and Col de la Serpentine (both first passages) and led them up the Pigne d' Arolla (first ascent). After an abortive expedition up the Val Grisanche they reached Courmayeur on July rz with the object of making the first ascent of Mont Blanc from the Brenva glacier. This project, it is worth re calling, had been discussed and turned down as impossible by some of the leading amateurs and guides in r863, but Moore, from what he had seen when descending Mont Blanc in r864, had come to a different conclusion. The following day Frank Walker (then aged fifty-seven) and G. S. Mathews with Melchoir Anderegg arrived to join the party. The difference between the two Andereggs is brought out very clearly by this expedition. Melchior, ever cautious, had not changed his opinion of r863; Jakob, with an unbroken sequence of successes behind him, was convinced that an ascent could be made, as, in fact, were the amateurs of the party. It so happened that when in the course of the ascent the ice-arete was reached J akob was in the lead, a circum stance that Moo re regarded as 'providential', for he believed that if Melchior had been leading the expedition would then and there have come to an end. If, he said, Melchior had a fault, it was excessive prudence . but in J akob that virtue 'was conspicuous chiefly from its absence'; he was not in the least put out by the sight of what lay ahead and went quietly on without even bothering to turn his head to see what ·the rest of the party thought of it. Melchior, however, led the party through the seracs. Farrar remarks in A.J. 29. 73· ' ... Melchior might with profit have absorbed a dash of that "devil" which vvas so pronounced a feature in his daring kinsman Jakob Anderegg, his com panion possibly chosen out of some unconscious feeling of need on most of his great climbs, and indeed, in part, his leader on his greatest 7 For an account of the first attempt on this pass and a brief note on its history see A.J. 6o. 302. 8 Moore had also made the first passage in 1862. See A.J. 29. 105 and 119 for his accounts of these expeditions. 92 JAKOB ANDEREGG expedition, the Brenva face of Mont Blanc.' At the end of the season, and after five weeks with J akob, Moo re wrote in his Fuhrerbuch 'he is in all respects a first-rate mountaineer of great strength and unvarying good humour, and we can confidently recommend him to anyone in want of a really competent guide to the High Alps'. J akob next turns up at Zermatt where he was awaiting the arrival of R.