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THE CENTENARY MEET AT ZERMATT, 1957 August 27. The climb was bedevilled by excessive cold and strong wind; in fact the conditions were typical of winter and half- way up the ridge I found the water in my flask had half frozen, although it was packed among spare clothing in my sack. rfhe · weather steadily deteriorated as we climbed and, although we were moving fast, reaching the summit in under six hours from the hut, we were too late; the mists had blotted out the view some time before we reached it, reducing visibility to a few yards. On the way up we had been able to see down to the Weingarten and Alphubel glaciers on either side of us, but apart from the other search party, there was no sign. So thick was it on the summit that there seemed little point in traversing along it before descend- ing to the joch; but just to complete the task we did so, calling at intervals on the way. Turning at its end, with the banal remark, 'Well, that's that', I suddenly saw two figures in a slight clearing of the mists ahead of us and to the left, about two hundred yards distant on the sheltered east flank of the ridge. We shouted, but they seemed to take .little interest. As we approached, one of the men tried to move towards us and we noticed that there was a small snow-hole, in which a third figure was lying. We reached the two standing figures, who turned out to be Chris Massey and Dr. Hugo Rast. Two were very weak but reasonably cheerful; Massey's hands appeared to be frost-bitten. The third man, NowilJ, still lay in the snovv-hole, apparently helpless and in a bad way; it was difficult to rouse him. We managed with some diffi- culty to induce them to take some food and drink, supplied them with dry gloves, dug out one of their ropes and arranged them on one long rope; most of their kit was buried in the hole and, in view of their condition and the weather, we wasted no time in searching for it. It was now midday. The first 200 ft. up to the sumn1it, in the strong wind, almost nil visibility and with three extremely exhausted men to assist, seemed endless; I wondered if the doctor would make it, for he was flound~ring and falling at almost every step, despite gallant efforts and a complete absence of fuss. We found the direction of descent by compass and changed the order on the rope before going down, in order to provide the best assurance. Hobhouse led off and very soon found that the slope was in ice as the angle steepened; it was really uncomfortably steep for an operation of this sort. Luckily he had one ice piton in his sack, which was passed up to me at the rear to provide anchorage. And so we descended, desperately slowly, but in an excellent staircase of steps cut by Hobhouse. We began to merge through the mists, and were able to confirmPDF Image | Zermatt Ski Map
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