Crevasse.
It’s a jagged noun, treacherous
with sibilance. Right in the middle there’s that pit of a V; V for
very deep, very bad idea....Very
scary.
‘I
had heard of glaciers: places where enormous holes can open up
without warning and swallow up entire parties without a trace…I
imagined that we would have to creep snail-like across the snow,
afraid lest the slightest footfall reveal a fathomless crevasse. It
was said that even the most expert, the most experienced guides could
not always detect the presence of crevasses.’-René Desmaison,
Total Alpinism, 1982
‘They
are formed suddenly, and frequently with a noise that may be heard at
the distance of several miles, and with a shock that makes the
neighbouring country tremble: this effect takes place principally in
summer. These rents are from a few inches to 20, 30, or even 50 or 60
feet in breadth, and generally of immense depth: probably extending
to the bottom of the glacier. They present the greatest danger and
difficulty to the passenger. They are often concealed by a layer of
snow, which gives no indication on its surface, of its want of
solidity; and it often happens that the chamois hunter,
notwithstanding all his caution, suddenly sinks through this
treacherous veil into the chasm beneath.’ - W.M Howard, MD.
Narrative
of a journey to the summit of Mont Blanc made in July 1819. Published
1821.
In
the second narrative quoted above, the order in which the crevasse is
dealt with is of interest. First it is described impersonally. Then
the danger; the outcome of an unroped fall, is described and the
precautions taken against such an occurrence are outlined.
‘To
avoid the danger of falling into the crevices, especially those
masked by the snow, we connected ourselves, three persons together,
at the distance of 10 or 12 feet apart, by a cord round the body: so
that in case of one of the three falling into a chasm, the other two
could at least support him, until assistance could be procured from
the rest of the party.’ - W.M Howard, MD. Narrative
of a journey to the summit of Mont Blanc made in July 1819. Published
1821.
Lastly,
some personal curiosity is dealt with.
‘We
threw down into some of the narrow cracks, pieces of ice and
fragments of rock, and heard for a considerable time, the more and
more distant sound, as they bounded from side to side. In no instance
could we perceive the stone strike the bottom; but the sound, instead
of ceasing suddenly, as would then have been the case, grew fainter
and fainter, until it was too feeble to be heard. What then must be
the immense depth of these openings, when in these silent regions,
the noise of a large stone striking the bottom is too distant to be
heard at the orifice!’ - W.M Howard, MD. Narrative
of a journey to the summit of Mont Blanc made in July 1819. Published
1821.
Cattle
were driven across the mer de grace to graze on the Plan du Dru (a
practice which ended as recently as 1920), their hooves swaddled in
rags to give friction against the ice. The same method was used to
safeguard mules bearing early tourists, with the ‘Torrent des
chausettes’ on the 1:25000 IGN map taking it’s name from where
these ‘socks’ were taken off.
Crystal
hunters explored the mountains from the mid 18th century in search of
smoky quartz and pink fluorite, with many of these men becoming the
first mountain guides. Surefooted chamois were hunted in these
mountains and, as the hunted crossed glaciers, so too did the hunter.
Gentlemen mountaineers and scientists were far from being the first
to have business in the high places and thus were not the first to
observe the quirks of ice on the move. The tendency of glaciers to
advance and recede had been remarked on as early as 1781, by Swiss
pastor Jakob Samuel Wyttenbach.
In
1814 Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and Percy Shelley left England to see
the sights of continental Europe, arranging to meet Lord Byron on the
way. This trip was the genesis of much poetry and prose from the
talented friends; most famously Mary (by then) Shelley’s gothic
classic ‘Frankenstein’,
published anonymously in 1818. Less well known is ‘History
of a six weeks’ tour … with letters descriptive of a sail round
the lake of Geneva, and of the glaciers of Chamouni’, published
by the married couple in 1817.
‘We
did not, as we intended, visit the Glacier
de Boisson to-day,
although it descends within a few minutes' walk of the road, wishing
to survey it at least when unfatigued. We saw this glacier which
comes close to the fertile plain, as we passed, its surface was
broken into a thousand unaccountable figures: conical and pyramidical
crystallizations, more than fifty feet in height, rise from its
surface, and precipices of ice, of dazzling splendour, overhang the
woods and meadows of the vale.’
The
romantic and the scientific merge and blur in these letters, giving a
glimpse into how the locals viewed the glaciers and how these
educated, foreign romantics saw nature at work.
‘Within
this last year, these glaciers have advanced three hundred feet into
the valley. Saussure, the naturalist, says, that they have their
periods of increase and decay: the people of the country hold an
opinion entirely different; but as I judge, more probable. It is
agreed by all, that the snow on the summit of Mont Blanc and the
neighbouring mountains perpetually augments, and that ice, in the
form of glaciers, subsists without melting in the valley of Chamouni
during its transient and variable summer. If the snow which produces
this glacier must augment, and the heat of the valley is no obstacle
to the perpetual existence of such masses of ice as have already
descended into it, the consequence is obvious; the glaciers must
augment and will subsist, at least until they have overflowed this
vale.’
Swiss
naturalist Horace Bénédict
de Saussure’s ‘sliding’ theory was the beginning of the
systematic scientific study of glaciers, heralding the dawn of
scientific knowledge rather than folk knowledge of glaciers. Through
to the mid 19th century it competed with the ‘expansion’ theory
(that water permeated ice and froze, causing the glacier to lengthen)
and the ultimately accepted ‘viscous’ theory, as proposed by
Louis Rendu as early as 1841, in his ‘Théorie
des glaciers de Savoie’.
Edinburgh
physicist James David Forbes, Swiss biologist and geologist Jean
Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (born in Switzerland, though he would
later emigrate to the United States) and Irish physicist John Tyndall
were, following on from de Saussure, at the forefront of research
into the movement of glaciers, working in partnership and latterly in
competition (the taciturn Forbes published his observations on some
of Agassiz’ fieldwork without informing Agassiz, who viewed this as
a breach of trust and accused Forbes of such in a letter.) The
viscous theory hinged on the understanding of ‘regelation’, a
phenomenon described by Michael Faraday in 1860, which was understood
by Tyndall but not by Forbes.
The
acrimony and controversy among these early scientists undoubtedly
hindered their research into glacial movement. In the aftermath of
the bitter arguments over who had discovered what and when, the
seemingly even-handed Tyndall, in his 1860 ‘The
Glaciers of The Alps’ stated that;
‘The
idea of semi-fluid motion belongs entirely to Louis
Rendu; the proof of the quicker central flow belongs in part to
Rendu, but almost wholly to Louis
Agassiz and
Forbes; the proof of the retardation of the bed belongs to Forbes
alone; while the discovery of the locus of the point of maximum
motion belongs, I suppose, to me.’
These
scientist-mountaineers, spending time on glaciers and mountains,
wrote little on the subject of crevasses, other than as an impediment
to travel and occasionally mentioning them in support of their
theories. Tyndall, during an attempt to climb the Jungfrau in 1863,
was stopped when one of his porters fell forty feet into a crevasse.
In a letter to Michael Faraday, Tyndall, despite this incident,
stated that;
“There
is certainly no more real danger of falling into a crevasse on the
Aletsch glacier, than there is of being run over by a cab in crossing
from Albemarle Street to James’s Street. Recklessness however makes
both positions dangerous.” (Jackson, 2018)
Slowly,
alpine climbing techniques developed, contemporaneously with these
scientific, exploratory, and sporting ascents. Following several
experiences of his own and of others, and in reaction to a written
plea urging
him to pressure guides to abandon the use of ropes altogether, he
instead forwarded the letter to the Times, adding that he thought the
solution was not practicable in all situations and that it would be
better to split larger parties up (Jackson, 2018). Given the rope
technology and climbing techniques available at the time this seems
to have been an eminently sensible suggestion.
‘We
looked into the hole, at one end of which the vision was cut short by
darkness, while immediately under the broken bridge it was crammed
with snow and shattered icicles. We saw nothing more. We listened
with strained attention, and from the depths of the glacier issued a
low moan. Its repetition assured us that it was no delusion—the man
was still alive.’ (Tyndall, 1896).
In
1872 ‘The fortieth ascent of Mont Blanc’ was published,
attributed to Jules Verne but possibly written by his brother, Paul.
‘We
were about to advance upon the Bossons glacier. This glacier,
difficult at first, presents yawning and apparently bottomless
crevasses on every hand. The vertical sides of these crevasses are of
a glaucous and uncertain colour, but too seducing to the eye; when,
approaching closely, you succeed in looking into their mysterious
depths, you feel yourself irresistibly drawn towards them, and
nothing seems more natural than to go down into them.’ (Verne,
1872)
As
well as an account of an emotional draw to explore the crevasse
(although the above passage might also be an example of
Freud’s ‘Todestrieb’, or
‘death-drive’) the short story includes a description of the
precautions taken when crossing bridged crevasses.
‘You
advance slowly, passing round the crevasses, or on the snow bridges
of dubious strength. Then the rope plays its part. It is stretched
out over these dangerous transits; if the snow bridge yields, the
guide or traveller remains hanging over the abyss. He is drawn beyond
it, and gets off with a few bruises. Sometimes, if the crevasse is
very wide but not deep, he descends to the bottom and goes up on the
other side.’
As
mountaineers, our experiences with crevasses and our relationship
with them generally changes and evolves as we grow in experience,
much like our relationship with the mountains themselves. While a lot
of ink has been spilled about the latter, from Wordsworth’s florid
prose to Twight’s abrasive punk articles, our relationship with
crevasses goes by relatively unexamined. Perhaps because, while the
mountain gives and takes, allowing the tension of juxtaposition and a
degree of navel gazing, the crevasse just takes; it swallows a foot,
a leg, a piste-basher. Maybe crevasses are just too dark to be
anything other than the bad guy; an obstacle on the way to that
shining summit.
For
the most part crevasses, to the
mountaineer, represent a danger, a hidden or obvious threat to our
well-being, our leisure and at times our existence.
‘I
look to my right, the slowly tapering walls of hard ice slither into
darkness. I know that it isn’t bottomless. The pressure of the deep
glacial ice will press the walls together at around 60 or 80 feet.
That’s how people die in crevasses. They become slotted into a
narrow, gently tapering crevice. Their body heat melts the ice a
little, and their body weight wedges them deeper into a self-made
sarcophagus. They get compressed and it gets harder to breathe. Their
body temperature drops steadily, fatally, until they are 32 degrees
and dead. The snow ledge - for now - has saved me from this, my most
frequent nightmare.’ - Steve House, Beyond the Mountain. House
managed to climb free, despite having broken his leg in the fall.
For
the most part crevasses, to the
mountaineer, represent a danger, a hidden or obvious threat to our
well-being, our leisure and at times our existence.
They
can also be places of refuge and of great beauty, with a unique
atmosphere, as much deserving of the title ‘nature’s cathedral’
as any limestone grotto.
I
heard of crevasses in the weeks prior to my first alpine climbing
trip. At that point I had worn crampons only once and hadn’t
climbed anything longer than three pitches. My older and marginally
more seasoned companions decided, quite wisely, that we should learn
crevasse rescue before we left Scotland.
We
met at a local quarry with featured bolt anchors near the rim and
spent a few hours one dreich afternoon hauling an almost empty
rucksack up a grotty slab. I had been advised to get some prussic
loops and had dutifully bought two lengths of blue 5mm cord, tying
them as instructed.
Two
loops of cord, a few spare screw gates and two ice screws apiece.
This totemic protection gave my partners and I the confidence to make
our way up a few easy peaks, roped as a four. Nothing untoward
happened and I began a love affair with mountains.
And
I saw my first crevasses.
I
remember the bergschrund below the summit of Mont Dolent, a ragged
and narrow slot that I hurried over, trying to think myself lighter,
dehydrated and and dizzy with exertion.
I
remember the dry slots of the Mer de Glace, flaked with dust and
dirt. Hopping over them, I was told that above the firn line the
brethren of these slots would be lying in wait, ready to drag me into
the cold and dark; to squeeze me to death between their walls, to
mangle and freeze me. I didn’t dare get close enough to the rim to
see far down but I got the message, loud and clear.
Once
we started onto the wet glacier beyond the Courvercle hut I remember
the feeling of not knowing what was underneath my feet and finding
that sensation deeply disconcerting. A crevasse, as I understood
them, could get me at any moment, anywhere. Solid ground, granite,
dirt…these had never felt so good as when I got off a glacier.
I
was safer than I had known on those first forays. My companions had
kept an eye on me, educating me at a pace that they thought I could
handle. Soon though I began organising my own trips, with less
experienced friends. That’s where things started to get dangerous;
when the bridges were weakest under my feet and the drops the
biggest.
If
I were to tally up the ascents I made with fellow neophyte alpinists
I would be able to show that I spent months of days walking on
crevassed glaciers with companions who couldn’t have built a
useable snow anchor and, even if they had, would have struggled to
rig a basic haul. We had the gear, just, but no idea; those same two
ice screws, two loops of cord (now looking worse for wear) and a
handful of snapgates…because I’d learned about going lightweight.
We were a disaster waiting to happen that, somehow, never happened.
About
this time a girlfriend took me to a modern art museum. It was free, a
short walk from her flat. Among the exhibits were a series of
paintings and woodcuts by Edvard Munch. While I had blitzed through
much of the building, in a hurry to be elsewhere, I lingered by that
display for some time, drinking it in and thinking about what was in
front of me.
The
three ages of woman. The unthreatening, demure virgin, the lusty and
sensual woman in the prime of life, and the dark and haunting spectre
of spent womanhood. What captured my attention was, of course, how I
could recognise the interplay of these stages in the women in my
life. Of course.
Years
later that image came back to me while thinking about the three ages
of the mountaineer. Reductionist, yes, but sometimes even crude tools
have a use. The enthusiastic and naive beginner, the brash and
headstrong young professional and the knowledgeable and staid
alpiniste.
Place
yourself on the scale. Now think where you would have placed yourself
two, three, four years ago.
At
some point during the danger years I realised know little I knew and
set to work remedying the situation. From online resources, books and
anyone I could pump for information I soaked up anything that would
help me in the mountains. I lacked mentors; I could have learned so
much more if I had been part of a group. I dismissed deadmen and
snowstakes; they seemed too bulky and old fashioned for the kind of
alpine climbing I aspired to. I added a tibloc to my rack and then a
micro traxion and two DMM revolvers (snapgates; I was still into
saving weight). Gradually my technical skills and mountain sense
improved.
At
the same time, I started going solo on glaciers.
‘A
common expectation of avalanche education is that it should reduce
the frequency of avalanche deaths. But is this expectation realistic?
After all, education campaigns aimed at reducing unsafe sex, illegal
drug use, unsafe driving and other risky behaviors have met with very
limited success, and in some cases have even worsened the problems
they were intended to solve.’ -From abstract ‘Sex, drugs and the
white death’ Ian McDammon
I’d
done a few routes with Ed and he was tired. But the weather was good
and I knew I could keep climbing, should keep climbing, because when
the weather broke I’d regret it if I took a break. I took the
telepherique to the Aiguille du Midi and across the Vallée Blanche,
getting the best possible view of the bus-sized slots that appeared
and disappeared beneath the thin summer snow. I left the lift
station, shouldered my pack and trudged through the wet afternoon
snow from the Helbronner station to the Tour Ronde. As a concession
to safety, I followed the trench carved into the glacier by the feet
of other climbers and carried my poles by the middle, so that if I
fell in I wouldn’t go further than my waist. I was a walking,
sweating example of risk homeostasis and poor decision making. I
found a flat spot, set up my tent and slept till early morning.
The
next day, returning to my tent as the sun painted the summits red, I
heard icicles dropping away beneath my feet and felt my heart jump
into my mouth.
Somehow,
I’m 29 now.
Eventually
my instinct for self preservation overcame the blinkers put in place
by my ego. I stopped enjoying my little island of knowledge and
started exploring the jagged but fruitful coastline of my ignorance,
and being right became more important than preserving my sense of
rightness. During the last few seasons I spent in the alps I was
confident that my partners and I were being safe, that I had done
everything I could to mitigate the risk. When I punched both feet
through a mushy bridge on the way up the Argentiere glacier my
partner and I were ready.
None
of that explains why I fell in love with them.
As
a result of the process outlined above I found myself in Antarctica,
tasked with keeping scientists and technicians safe in a pristinely
beautiful but potentially hostile environment. Not only with keeping
them safe, but taking them climbing, skiing, mountaineering and
crevassing in their allocated recreation time.
In
the culture in which I now found myself crevassing had long been a
recognised recreational activity. At first I had assumed it was
enjoyed by the non-mountaineers because, like going for a ride on a
skidoo, it didn’t involve too much exertion. Fortunately for
everyone involved my opinion was moot; what the scientist wants to do
on their winter trip is for the field guide to facilitate, not to
criticise. I accepted that I’d lose some mountaineering days to
crevassing and committed to going down a hole.
I
abseiled off a three snow stake anchor. My colleagues and their
charges had been inside this slot the previous week and everyone had
raved about how good it was. A convenient platform and entrance to
the crevasse had been created by the repeated collapse of a section
of the roof, resulting in a relatively straightforward slope leading
into the darkness. As I spun three screws into solid ice to protect
the next abseil I was painfully aware that this process was ongoing
and that there were large, snow-plastered icicles ending a few feet
above my head, suspended from several tons of snow-ice.
As
I inched my way deeper the light faded to a pale blue and I became
conscious of the surreal beauty of my surroundings. Icicles wove
their way down the walls, some at odd angles from the wind or from
the movement of the blocks they were growing from. Only once I was
made fast to a belay at the bottom and ready to start moving together
did I have time to really look around and appreciate where I was.
Above
me the crevasse was closed over, about thirty meters up. At the
widest point it was twenty meters wide, with sheer to overhanging
walls, festooned with icicles. Every kind of ice imaginable was
visible; hard, black ice transparent to three meters at least,
delicate clusters of hexagonal ice crystals that tinkled at the
slightest touch; rounded blobs, the stalagmites to the stalactites
above.
The
floor was solid for the most part. At the deeper side of the chamber
a layer of ice, millimetres thick, shattered noisily under our
crampons. I’m no glaciologist but the logical explanation is that
in the height of summer water must rise to that level. Once the
cooler weather comes the top layer freezes as the rest drains away,
leaving a false floor behind.
We
worked deeper, finding more and more to look at. The main chamber
split into two; one branch giving a classic crevasse, an aesthetic
slot of striated ice that pinched together at the top and at the
bottom. The other fork led to an odd, angular grotto. Neither avenue
offered much additional distance; in total we had gone perhaps 150m
horizontally from where we had entered. Photography wasn’t easy due
to the dull, flat light, coming through the ceiling like an out of
focus milky way.
I
left with a totally different view of crevasses then I had gone in
with.
If
this article shows any trend in the literature regarding crevasses,
it is this; they are still treated in much the same way by modern
alpinists as they were by the early explorers and scientists, often
using the very same adjectives -fearsome, gaping, ominous. Our
scientific understanding of glacial movement has changed immensely
since those early days and our ability to navigate glaciers safely
has been transformed by modern equipment, and, most importantly,
modern techniques. Our emotional response to crevasses and the
resulting references in mountain literature remain stuck in 1819,
with W.M. Howard and his six foot baton.
There
are exceptions. A search for ‘crevasse’ on the web brings forth
reports of climbers killed in crevasse falls, a glacier made
impassable by crevasses…but also of a bivvy in a crevasse, an idea
that would have been utterly alien to early mountaineers. A few fresh
adjectives have begun to creep in.
‘We
brought sleeping bags and sleeping pads, but no tent, planning to
bivouac in crevasses during the descent…We dropped the first 1,500m
of the descent fairly quickly (which is actually the Japanese route,
not the Sultana Ridge), and then continued along the Sultana Ridge a
short ways before finding a hospitable crevasse to take shelter in.
After sleeping about five hours, we got up and continued on our way.
On the east ridge of Lady Point we popped into a crevasse that we had
used as a shelter during our acclimatization venture to melt more
snow, take some rest, and take a very short nap (maybe 30
minutes).’-Colin Haley, ‘Infinite Spur Laps’
http://www.colinhaley.com/infinite-spur-laps/
An
article in ‘Summit’ magazine persuaded me that this piece could
be of interest to a wider audience. The author of that article had
enjoyed an introduction to crevasses while doing the same job as I
was, a concurrence that convinced me both that crevasse exploring is
not yet a widespread activity and that it has a certain affect on
those who partake of it.
Instead
of the fear based approach to crevasses that I started off with, why
not try something different. Don’t look down on them; look up, to
the glittering chandeliers with the pale glow of a hidden sky above
them. Get to know your enemy. Spend some time exploring, in the
spirit of whichever Verne peered over those edges. The risks inherent
to crevassing are no worse than those tolerated elsewhere on a
mountain and the experience of being inside a slot, of imagining what
it would be like to fall through that thin roof and crumple on the
floor, will cure anyone of a desire to tramp about solo on wet
glaciers in the heat of the afternoon sun.
Rob. Taylor
Images supplied by the author
Bibliography
Desmaison,
R. and Taylor, J., 1982. Total Alpinism.
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July 1819. Baltimore: Fielding Lucas, Jr.
Shelley,
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a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland; with Letters
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Clarke,
G., 1987. A short history of scientific investigations on
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J., 2011. The Glaciers Of The Alps.
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I., 2004. SEX, DRUGS AND THE WHITE DEATH:
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I’m
indebted to Anne and Bernadette of ‘Le Bureau
des Amis du Vieux Chamonix’ for information concerning the
final year that cows were driven across the Mer de Glace.
Burton,
I., 2013. Crack Addict, Summit.
(70), pp.44-48.
