The description gives some idea of what stiff rock-climbing is really like; and it should be remembered that in the Dolomites more awkward places even than the Lochmatters' corner have often to be passed, and that when, as often happens, the rocks are glazed with ice, the danger of climbing them is more than doubled.
It is always assumed that the Dent Blanche is inaccessible in such a case. Yet the story is told of an inexperienced climber who managed to get to the summit in spite of the ice.
He was on his first visit to Switzerland; and as soon as he got to Zermatt he engaged the best available guide.
"What are considered the hardest mountains here?" he asked.
The guide told him: "The Dent Blanche, the Weisshorn, and the Ober Gabelhorn."
"Very well," said the novice; "we'll begin with the Dent Blanche."
The guide protested. Did not his _Herr_ think it would be better to begin with something easier--with the Rothhorn, for instance, or the Strahlhorn, or the Unter Gabelhorn?
"No," was the reply; "you've got to take me up the Dent Blanche. I've climbed in Wales, and I'll undertake to climb any rock you show me."
So the guide yielded, and the two started, with a porter, and for a certain distance got on very well. But at last they came to a point where all the hand-holds within reach were frozen up; the nearest practicable hand-hold could only just be found by stretching out the ice-axe. The guide explained the situation, and insisted that they must turn back. But his employer had been roused to such a pitch of excitement that he would not hear of it.
"Look here," he said, "you're a bachelor; I'm a married man with a family. If I can afford to risk my life you can afford to risk yours. You've got to go on up this mountain. Otherwise I'll throw myself over the precipice, and as you're roped to me you'll have to come, too."
The man was absolutely mad. There was no question that, in his excitement, he would do what he threatened if he were not obeyed. So the guide sullenly struck his ice-axe into the fissure, and climbed up it hand over hand, and took his lunatic up and down the Dent Blanche at a time when its ascent ought by all the laws of ice-craft to have been impossible.
To turn from rock to snow climbing. Accidents are constantly happening on glaciers; yet the observance of the most elementary precautions ought to make such accidents absolutely impossible.