“The Englishman has marked out a few corners of the Alps as being exclusively British. There are, however, neutral zones where Britons and Continentals meet, but the Englishman keeps in the main to certain well-known routes. You will find him at Zermatt, at Grindelwald, at Binn, and at Arolla. At Champex he will be outnumbered, and at Morgins he was, until quite recently, entirely unknown. It was the discovery of Morgins as a winter sports centre that brought the tardy Englishman to this retiring valley.
“Years ago I had looked across the waters of Léman to the range of fronting hills, and idly wondered whether some hidden and silent valley lurked among their recesses. Leslie Stephen’s “Bye Day in the Alps”, which I discovered in an old _Cornhill_—it was not reprinted in the “Playground of Europe”—gave form and personality to an outstanding sentinel of these Savoy hills, but it was some time before I explored for myself these outlying heights that guard the central citadels of the Alps. Since then I have often revisited the long defile that leads to Morgins.
“You reach Morgins by a curious little mountain railway that connects Monthey and Champéry. At Troistorrents you leave the train and prepare for a sleigh drive up the valley which branches off to the right. Troistorrents is a characteristic Alpine village. It lies in the heart of the Val d’Illiez, one of the loveliest of Alpine glens, which is still quite unspoiled. The big hotels of Champéry are hidden from view and there is nothing to disturb the quiet music of the three streams that meet below the parish church, and give to Troistorrents its name. Of course the chief glory of this valley is the incomparable Dent du Midi. This mountain, or rather this grouping of separate and successive rock towers, has a curious fascination; it is so distinctive. There are domes not unlike Mont Blanc, pyramids that resemble the Matterhorn, peaks very like the Weisshorn; but in the whole Alpine range you will find no match to the Dent du Midi. Its outline is unique. Its history is interesting, and considering its moderate height it has attracted a very large share of Alpine literature. Like so many mountains, it was first climbed by the parish priest of a neighbouring valley.[19] Its conquest occurred in 1784. Sixty years later five men of the Valais climbed the beautiful eastern peak that rises like a lion above the towers of Bex. The last turret, the Eperon, only yielded its secret as late as 1892.