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• 88 THE CENTENARY MEET AT ZERMATT, 1957 movesteadilyinthestepsmadebytheleadingparty. Wegradually caught up with them as they were engaged on the lower rocks of the big gendarme. From here onwards the climbing was con- tinuou.sly interesting and difficult. The rocks were plastered vvith ice as well as a covering of snow and a good deal of time was spent on a steep pitch of about 100 ft., up a steep ice slope beneath vertical rocks, where we traversed to the left in order to swing a leg across the blade-thin edge of the rock ridge. Rock alternated with equally delicate and narrow snow crest for some distance until we arrived above a slight depression in the arete, before it makes its final great upswing towards the summit ramparts of the East summit of the Breithorn. At this point I noticed, for the first time, faint traces of two Americans, Burgess and Sadler, who had done the climb on the previous day. A steep descent over awkward rocks onto the left flank brought us level with the depression, where we were ablerto traverse horizontally back to the ridge, which was again acutely narrow and elegant. I sat astride it a very numbing experience for about fifteen minutes while Hobhouse tackled the next, severe-looking rock step which led to the last big snow slope. The rock was, in the event, quite straightforward but we made very slow progress up the snow towards the final rocks; the leading pair were engaged. on the brief upward traverse which leads out onto the summit ridg~, so the rest of us were held up. This last passage, from a good piton belay at the foot of the rocks, up to the right across a shallow ice gully and up its left edge to a rock rib just below the crest, turned out to be far less fierce than I had supposed; again we were spared the hard work of step cutting and were able to benefit by an ice piton and two rock pegs which had been placed by Band when his turn came. At 2.15 p.m. Hobhouse and I came up through the cornice to the warmth and shelter of the ridge and joined the others. A grand climb. . . . After a short day traversing the Unter Gabelhorn with my wife and daughter, Hobhouse, Tyson and I bivouacked beside the Arben glacier on the evening of August 25, intending to climb the South face of the Ober Gabelhorn. We were joined at our camp site by Mike Banks and two Marine Commandos, and all of us settled down in a bitterly cold wind, somewhat anxious about the signs of bad weather. August 2 6 . A t 2 a.m. the cloud indications were so unpromising that we decided to wait a further hour before stirring ourselves; the Commando party, more confident and less demoralised by the cold, set off at the agreed hour but we did not get away until 4 a.m., very doubtful about the weather prospects. But with sunrisePDF Image | Zermatt Ski Map
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