Accidents in 1933. 407

Accidents in 1933. 407 ETON CoLLEGE MEMORIAL SERVICE. A memorial service for the four Eton mast ers killed on Piz Roseg was held in the College Chapel on September 22, in the presence of the H eadmaster, Mr. Claude A. Elliott, Dr. C. A. Alington, the Provost, Governing Body and a great crowd of sympathizers. Sir John J. Withers, President, represented the Alpine Club. Obituaries of Messrs. Slater, Howson and Powell will appear in the May, 1934, number of the JouRNAIJ. ACCIDENTS IN 1933. THE season, save for a few unfortunate mishaps, was singularly free from accidents up to the end of July. Following the heavy snow falls of May and June, conditions -vvere most favourable, and the weather extremely fine and warm. Suddenly, about the end of the first week of August, catastrophes began to occur throughout the length and breadth of the Alps. So frequent were these that over 90 deaths are calculated to have t aken place in that one month alone. August 17 was a disastrous day for British mountaineering. It will be remembered for its twofold tragedies. Not since the Matter horn accident of 1865 and the Gran Paradiso disaster of 1904 have the lives of four Britons three of them members of the Alpine Club -been involved in one day on a single mountain. Let us say it at once 1 : Hugh Howson, Eric Powell, Charles White-Thomson and that sturdy veteran 'Sam' Slater, formed an experienced and thoroughly competent party. For many seasons, generally in company, they had accomplished first-class ascents regularly and without professional assistance. The ascent of Piz R oseg lay easily within their powers. Had we, a week previously, been asked the question of wha~ was the chief Alpine characteristic of the doomed party, we should have replied unhesitatingly : 'Their high factor of safety.' To Eton and the rising generation their loss is grievous ; to British m.ountaineering it may prove a set-back as serious as the fatal July 14, 1865. The same August day witnessed the death of a guide closely connected with the history of this Club the ineompara ble Franz Lochmatter himself. We employ the superlative purposely. In the long list of outstanding Alpine professionals, beginning and ending with the two Christians, Almer and K.lucker , Franz was perhaps unique. To paraphrase a great mountaineer and writer : ' ... In Franz was produced probably the most perfect mountaineer, 1 An unusual amount of nonsense uttered by well-meaning but irresponsible persons has appeared in the Press. 408 Accidents in 1933. physically and temperamentally, whom the Alps have known.' This is the considered and published opinion of one who had been present with Franz on a terrible occasion, 'the most dangerous expedition in • the lives of two men, the writer and the guide.' No man, amateur or professional, will be more regretted. The noble tribute to his memory paid elsewhere in this same JOURNAL, will find an echo in the hearts of generations of mountaineers yet unborn. Of other accidents, one of the most serious entailed the deaths on the Matterhorn, on July 7, of Signori Amilcare Cretier and Basileo • Ollietti, together with the guide Antonio Gaspard. The party had attained the Pic Tyndall direct from the S.2 and were descending by the ordinary I tali an ridge. The party was composed of some of the most skilful of young Italians. No less than jive other accidents have occurred on the Swiss side of the Matterhorn, for one of which at any rate, at the very base of theN. face, there seems to have been no excuse. Herr G. Kroner,3 desperate climber and well-known Munich artist, was overwhelmed by falling rocks, his companion, H err W. Stoesser, escaping by having taken cover in the bergschrund. It would have been hard to find a more unsuitable late summer for attempts on the N. face. We must consider this regretfully as a case of bad mountaineering, and on a par with the accident, reported in these pages, on l\1ont Blanc de Courmayeur. Besides those related, other disasters have occurred on La Meije, Mt. Pelvoux (1\iomie Gla_cier), the Mer de Glace face of the Aiguille de Grepon, Aiguilles Dorees, Lysjocb, Zinal-Rothhorn, Piz Bernina, Gross Glockner region (in which an Englishman perished), Guglia di Brenta, where three young Germans, including a girl, fell while trying a peak far too severe for their powers. Besides these, count less others are recorded in the Eastern Alps and Dolomites. Further comment is superfluous as well as useless. The Accident near La Grave. ON Sunday, August 13, R. P. Verschoyle and I set out from La Berarde for the Promontoire hut. On the rocks below that hut we met Casimir Rodier, returning from his assault on the Couloir en Z, on the N. face of La Meije.4 At the hut we discovered three other caravans which meant to traverse La Meije. In view of the iced condition of the Glacier Carre, we decided to -------------------------------·---------------------- 2 See Alpes Valaisannes, ii, ' route 633,' pp. 292-3. The party is stated in the Press to have been ' practising for the N. face of the Grandes Jorasses.' The British Press was ill-informed enough to magnify the two deaths that have occurred on that latter face, into the preposterous statement that 'twenty-seven persons had already been lOlled there.' 3 A.J. 43, 371, footnote 3; 44, 334- 6 ; 45, 107. 4 P. 404. • • Accidents .in 1933.. 409 niake an early start. When I looked out at 2 A.M. the moon was beginning to illuminate the rocks above the hut, which had hitherto been in shadow, so we started at once. At dawn we were at the ., foot of the Grande M uraille, and at 7.30 were breakfasting on the summit. The sky had suddenly become overcast while we were on the Cheval rouge, and our arrival on the top was simultaneous with the first fall of hail. We decided that it would be better to go on than to turn back, particularly in view of the fact that' there were three caravans behind us. We therefore continued the traverse, at first in hailstorms separated by fair intervals. Before however reaching the Pic Central, the haH began to be accompanied by ~hunder, while on the Pic itself we had the usual phenomena which an electric storm produces on a narrow ridge. 'V e reached the summit shortly before noon, and immediately descended to the point where it is customary to leave the ridge. Here we joined the first French party, which had passed us while we were on the Grand Pic. As things were now extremely unpleasant on the arete we tied our climbing rope and theirs to our rappel (their rappel line had been used by both parties for the descent into.the Breche Zsigmondy; and left there for the third caravan) and in this way made a rappel which we hoped w·ould be long enough to reach the schrund, ·though as visibility was then about 10 yards we could not be sure of this until the first man had descended. This duly succeeded. I was the last man to go, and as these proceedings had taken some tim·e, the third party had arrived before I left. I learnt from them that they had left the other rappel cord for the fourth party, so I arranged with them that they should now use our cord, which we would leave in situ, and bring it in with them. It was no weather in which to linger on a sharp ridge. Soon afterwards the weather cleared 3tnd V erschoyle and I arrived at the Refuge de l'Aigle at about 2.30 in bright sunshine, the sky being cloudless. · · As the storm had been quite general throughout the district and very violent, I was anxious to telephone to my wife before nightfall, all the more as I had arranged to do this before leaving La Berarde: I knew that the telephone exchange closed at 6 P.M., and that it would probably take ·more than 2 hrs. to reach the valley from the hut, since the Tabuchet Glacier might be expected to be badly crevassed in its lower part, making it necessary to take the rather circuitous route 'empruntant du sentier du Bee de l'Homme,' in M. Gaillard's words. Verschoyle had gone down by this route the year before with Casimir Rodier and he described the way to me. It was decided that I, as the faster member of the party, should go down first and endeavour to reach the telephone before 6, while Verschoyle should follow with the spare rope when it arrived. I left the hut about 3 P.M., following the La Grave route to the base of the Glacier du Bee de l'Homine. La Grave is invisible from this point and I became involved in various scrambles and detours, VOL. XLV. NO. CCXLVII~ . 2 E .. 410 -Accidents ·in 1933. with the result that I finally got to Villard d'Arene just after the exchange had closed, and presently walked along the high road to La Grave. Shortly before 7 P.M. rain began to fall, and the storm was renewed later with great violence. On this day was the only bad weather experienced in 3 weeks. I expected Verschoyle at the Meije Hotel about 8 P.M., but when he did not arrive I concluded that he had been delayed at the hut, and when it became certain that more bad weather was at hand had then decided to stay the night .

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