The day had broken fine, and the sun shone gloriously when he crossed the actual valley and began to fly high above the mountains upon the other side. Warned that height would be his salvation, he now soared to a great altitude that he might be sure of stable currents and not be drawn down by any of those eddies in which aeroplanes founder so quickly. Of the latter he had a momentary experience at the mouth of the Black Valley, where the cross winds caught him and turned him completely about before he could recover control, so that he was facing Brigue again and looking toward Italy and not toward France. This salutary warning found him more watchful afterwards; and when he had put the machine straight he mounted still higher, and found a dead calm, wherein he ignored the bitter cold and quickly left the valley behind him.
Now for the first time Lake Leman was visible to the northwest. He could see its waters shining in the sun and thought he could locate the heights of Caux; but of this he was not sure, and his knowledge of the Alps being very limited, he but guessed at his precise environment. Of Mont Blanc, however, he never lost a clear vision, and heading his ship for that, had eyes for little else.
There were glaciers shaping at this point of the journey, and the sun showed him desolate fields of snow slashed with the jagged bands of ice and often cut by the black rocks of some fearsome arrête. The loneliness of his situation was emphasised by this vision of a world apart; of ravines which the foot of man had never trodden; of heights which the foot of man had never conquered. Descending a little, he searched out the dark places with curious eyes, tried to make villages of the tracery below him; said that the zig-zags stood for vines upon the hillside and the black lines for railways. When he heard quite distinctly the whistle of a locomotive upon its way to Martigny, the message appeared to come out of the unknown, a voice from a house of his dreams. It recalled him to a sense of his own situation, to the possibilities of failure and of death. He remembered that he was very cold, and wondered if he would have the physical strength to continue.
It was an unhappy foreboding, and he shook it off as well as he could and tried to remember the speed at which he was flying and the hour at which it would bring him to the Valley of Chamonix. The mighty shape of Mont Blanc had begun to emerge more plainly from the mists at this time, and to show its sloping summit, with the attendant needles very distinctly to be seen. He knew that he must pass right across the great mountain, and then find what landing he could in the valley, and the desire to do this with credit put other thoughts from his head. The Val d’Hauderes was behind him at this time, and the head of his ship pointed almost directly to the Aiguilles Rouges, beyond which lay the Valley of Chamonix. When he looked at the chronometer, fixed upon the right-hand side of the frame, he learned that he had already been flying for one hour and twenty minutes; but of his actual direction he could glean nothing by the compass, which swung to every point as the ship sagged and recovered in the varying currents. This mattered little while the weather remained clear; and when, almost with the swiftness of a vision, the valley came into view he believed his object to be already attained.