The following morning I was up before dawn, and after a breakfast of a pannikin of steaming tea and some bacon, I reached the first rocks at the base of the peak, before as much as ‘shooting light’ had chased away darkness. To be early on the ground is a great advantage, for the chamois’ day is half over at what most people would consider a reasonable breakfast hour, and moreover it usually gives the stalker the two winds, i.e. the one ordinarily blowing down the mountain before the rays of the rising sun strike the slope, and the one blowing in the contrary direction after that has occurred. Leading up to the rocks was an exceedingly steep grassy slope, which the hard frost of the night had turned into a precipitous field of ice, to ascend which my light pair of crampons (so useful for rockwork in a limestone formation) came in very handy. On reaching a good point of outlook a definite plan of action had to be decided upon. As the wind would be soon drawing up the slope, it became necessary to gain a point above the proposed stalking ground, which could be done by climbing the peak from the back. It was not of great altitude, perhaps some two thousand five hundred or two thousand six hundred feet over the moor where the Alp-hut stood, but the back rose in bold proportions and presented a face almost bare of vegetation, towering up like a huge wall, so that the task of scaling it from that side was a stiff one. A couloir-like cleft running almost vertically up the face of the rock offered the only practicable means of ascending the first ninety or hundred feet, by a free use of one’s back and knees in chimney-sweeper’s style. One’s progress would have been more rapid but for the rifle and rücksack hampering one’s movements. Protected, as the muzzle of the rifle should always be when real climbing is to be done, by a sheath of sole-leather five or six inches long drawn over the sight, it often materially assists to take the rifle apart, and wrap the stock and the barrels separately in the folds of the game-bag (to prevent chafing). By thus making a compact parcel of it, and with the assistance of a few fathoms of strong cord, which should always be carried with one, it can be drawn up after one at the more difficult places. Three hours’ stiff climbing landed me at last near the top of the peak, where further progress was rendered easier by the existence of horizontal ledges running towards the side of the mountain which I was striving to gain. Wriggling along one of these bands, now on my hands and knees, then again in an upright position with my back scraping against the rock, I finally weathered the corner or shoulder of the mountain, and there at my feet lay the slope to gain the command of which had entailed such hard work.