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  Various other interests were later incorporated within the structure of the PGHM, the army (EMHM: Ecole Militaire de Haute Montagne), the Ecole Nationale de Ski et d’Alpinisme (ENSA) and the Company of Guides, which provides a back-up to the PGHM.

  At present [1987] two Alouette III helicopters which can carry seven people are available. These two machines are owned by the Gendarmerie and the Civil Security and stay in the Chamonix valley during the peak summer period. Their off-mountain duties include the evacuation of road accident casualties and general hospital ambulance duties.

  The present policy is to use these helicopters for ninety per cent of mountain rescue situations, which is now possible due to their more powerful turbines and sophisticated winches, able to control a fifty-metre cable.

  On a busy day there can be ten rescues; without helicopters it would be impossible, as most of the evacuations are difficult and dangerous, both to patient and rescuer.

  In ideal conditions, using the Alouettes, an injured person can be delivered to the Chamonix hospital in as little as ten minutes after the accident. In the past, it would have taken one or even several days, involving dozens of rescuers.

  Previously, the guides coming back home exhausted from a rescue had sometimes to set out again the next day. Now, as in other parts of the world, the helicopters have taken much of the drudgery out of the job.

  The detail of some tragic rescue is often vividly retained in the rescuer’s memory, though the media reports may make little of the tragedy. A major effort on the part of a skilled rescue team may be only a few lines amongst the news items: “The mountain strikes again: Two deaths in the Goûter Couloir . . .” leaving readers indifferent to the suffering of those concerned. For bad news is good news as far as selling papers is concerned.

  That’s why I’ve chosen to tell a happy story: a tale of two young people, not really aware of the dangers in the mountains, but fortunately everything turned out well in the end. It could so easily have been a tragedy.

  On Saturday 19 June 1976, Paul Vincendon and Didier Hendry set off to climb the South-West Pillar of the Dru. Though it wasn’t what they expected, they profited in experience and went forward to maturity. It was the kind of character-building adventure which is said to be so beneficial when you are in your late teens.

  Paul and Didier bivouacked in the open at the Rognon de Dru, ready for an early start in the morning. The Rognon de Dru is a wonderful place; one feels overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the West Face above. In daylight, if you’re lucky, you can spot climbers like coloured dots, seven or eight hundred metres higher, perhaps at grips with the difficulties of the American Direct, the West Face or the Bonatti Pillar. At night it is certainly one of the most beautiful “bedrooms” an alpinist can imagine. This cathedral of the Mont Blanc massif has attracted millions of people, both climbers and tourists, thanks to the cog railway from Chamonix to Montenvers, the station across the Mer de Glace. From there, with the aid of telescopes, they can fight, slip, sweat, or Walter Mitty-like, believe they are the heroes of an unfair struggle with the smooth and vertical rock of this giant above them.

  In the morning our two young men prepared to tackle the first difficulties. Before leaving the valley they had sensibly given their schedule to the OHM (Office de la Haute Montagne), as well as an intended return date from the climb. The OHM was the brainchild of the late Gerard Devoursoux. It supplies information on snow conditions and weather, and also informs the PGHM if a party is overdue.

  Though the night was mild, the snow grated under the boys’ crampons, indicating that it was freezing. At 5.00 am they crossed the rimaye with the aid of an étrier. They were making fast time. The Dru Couloir, which angles steeply up the bottom of the West Face, is a death trap down which rockfalls thunder unpredictably. Many climbers have been killed and injured here. The Couloir is effectively blocked off at the top end by the wall at the Flammes de Pierre. Here is the start of the Bonatti Pillar, probably the most majestic sweep of rock in the Alps.

  It was now 10.00 am. Crampons and ice axes were returned to the rucksacks, for the next few thousand feet would be rock climbing. Paul and Didier were relieved to be out of the Valley of Death. But their shoulders already ached with their large rucksacks, even the minimum is too heavy. Both boys had been training hard for this expedition; first at the climbing school, then on their own, wearing climbing boots on exacting rock routes rather than the specialised lightweight ones favoured by climbers for hard rock problems on lower crags. On such serious climbs as the Bonatti Pillar the axiom is let’s not get too ethical: if there is a peg in a crack you use it. There’s no one about to point an accusing finger. Time and storms are the adversary.

  If the telescope addicts were in position below they would be thinking in headlines. “Cheating Death by the Skin of Their Teeth”, watching them thrutching up a Grade IV athletic! They probably wouldn’t know that the IV of the Mont Blanc massif is often harder than a Grade V in the Vercors or Calanques.

  In the Mont Blanc massif guide, the route doesn’t seem frightening when you read the description “V, A1, A2” and so on. There never seems to be exceptional difficulty. However, the truth can quickly be felt in the arms, especially with the dead weight of the rucksack hanging from your shoulders.

  The two men agreed to lead alternate pitches. But after the second one, Didier, the weaker of the two, let Paul go first. It was soon clear to Paul that the climb was too serious for his companion who was making heavy weather of the difficulties and seemed to take ages.

  Time was slipping by, but they didn’t even eat, and in the afternoon, the weather became overcast, more like August than June. A violent hailstorm swept over them with devastating suddenness, followed by torrential rain. They were forced to bivouac where they were, soaked and frozen.

  Making the best of a bad job they settled down for the night on a minuscule ledge. Later the clouds cleared, giving way to a cold which seemed to settle into their bone marrow. There was no hot food to eat, they had left their stove behind to save weight. Even so, they were still in high spirits; such is the temperament of mountaineers.

  The stars glimmered that night, glimmered with cold. If only the sky could be overcast, Paul thought, it would be a bit warmer at least. Getting going in the morning was hard; they had had a sleepless night. And on this South-West Pillar the sun does not get round to thawing out frozen cracks and numbed muscles before the end of the morning. But the sky was now azure blue and the young men had no desire to retreat. They felt optimistic, despite the desperate night. So they pressed on, Paul still out front: he had already completed some major climbs in other parts of the Alps and was confident he could lead his friend to the summit.

  Each year younger and younger climbers tackle fashionable routes, especially rock climbs such as the American Direct on the West Face of the Dru, or the Dru Couloir. Their record times are evidence of this youth revolution: North Face of the Droites, three hours; West Face of the Dru (solo), three hours ten minutes; Grand Pilier d’Angle, three hours; each year faster and faster: now the Matterhorn North Wall, the Eigerwand and the Grandes Jorasses in a day! Paul hadn’t yet graduated to this elite band.

  Immediately after leaving the bivouac Paul had to tackle a testing pitch, made worse by the cold. The crack was graded IV athletic but it was hard. Didier, when it was his turn, climbed up the rope, assisted by Paul.

  An artificial pitch left them in a cold sweat. The wooden wedges inserted by earlier climbers looked as if they had been manufactured from offcuts left over from the Ark.

  Paul felt sure that they must be the first party to do the route that year. It was necessary to check every piton, every wedge. In 1976 aluminium wedges or chocks weren’t widely used by French climbers and they tended to use pitons whose regular insertion and removal from the cracks left permanent scars.

  After climbing for some hours, the two men found themselves at the bottom of the Red Wall. All the pegs were dubious and some positively insecur
e, and already half a day had vanished. They swallowed some nuts for lunch.

  Further up is the Austrians’ Crack and Paul started a new pitch which should take him to the bottom of this fissure which goes through a small dihedral at Grade V, then up a slab. But a peg at arm’s length looked unsafe. To avoid it, he decided to move right to a small overhang, then up an easy crack.

  There was a good wooden wedge in this overhang. Without thinking, Paul asked for some slack rope and clipped on to it with a karabiner. He realised as he continued that he did not have enough security, retreated to the wooden wedge and then clipped to a peg just below. He then attached his étrier to it and stood up – but not for long! Suddenly he was falling, rock was passing in front of his eyes; he struck a protruding piece of it and felt a stabbing pain in both thigh and ankle. After thirty feet he stopped abruptly and swung gently to and fro, horrified to see that a strand of the rope was cut just above him by the sharp edge of the rock.

  Didier, apparently more shocked than Paul, desperately pulled him in to the stance. Paul had a struggle because of his aching right ankle, also his harness was cutting into his thigh and he thought he might have broken his leg.

  There was nothing more they could do that day, it was 2.00 pm and Paul was stiffening up. He saw a small ledge below and they succeeded in getting to this tiny sanctuary poised high above the Couloir which they had climbed, what felt to them, so long ago. Gratefully they sat down. A short time later, in the middle of the afternoon, another storm blew up. They curled up against each other to keep warm, there was nothing else they could do. Lightning flickered round the Dru in a heavenly electrical display. Repeated shocks racked their bodies. Being soaked to the skin didn’t help matters either. Later the skies cleared and a biting frost enveloped the mountains. It was going to be another frigid night.

  Around 7.30 pm they heard the throb of a helicopter coming close. Having told the OHM that they expected to be down that evening, they thought it must be coming to see if they were in difficulties. But the helicopter didn’t arrive. It was on another mission.

  They decided to stay where they were the following day in order to rest and in case the pilot had seen them but couldn’t get close enough and would try again next day.

  This night between Monday and Tuesday was as cold as the previous ones. Their food had almost run out. When dawn broke, they saw the day was fine, but the sun, as ever, took time to reach them with its warmth. They could not face another day on that lonely ledge. There was still no sign of rescue, so they decided to try to get off on their own by taking the Weber route, a traverse which would allow them to escape across to the top of the Flammes de Pierre and then on to the normal route for the Petit Dru. Paul was unsure how his injuries would fare in this ambitious last-ditch bid to get back down to the Charpoua Refuge. A further short violent storm punctuated the end of the day, in which both climbers suffered more electric shocks and were again saturated. At 7.30 pm they heard a helicopter once more. This time it came closer and closer and hovered in front of them. Now they knew that they hadn’t been forgotten. They made the conventional signals of distress, raising both arms in a V, meaning Yes, we need help.

  Because it was so late, the PGHM decided to postpone the rescue operation till the following day, Wednesday.

  That evening a team of eight of the most experienced rescuers was selected, and a quantity of equipment prepared to get the two climbers off the Weber route to the Flammes de Pierre. An essential item of equipment, the Pomagalski winch, was put in a rucksack. Being both heavy and difficult to carry, it was usually the responsibility of the latest recruit.

  Very early on Wednesday 23 June the rescuers were warned by the Met Office that they would have a storm during the afternoon. But when? They could only hope they would beat it back before it broke. At first light, around 5.00 am, the rescue team were winched from the helicopter on to a small shelf on the edge of the Flammes de Pierre, some 250 metres above and to the side of the ledge where the two climbers were.

  The problem for the rescue team was not in the vertical distance but in the horizontal one between them and the climbers. It is easy to rope down or to use a cable from a point directly above an injured party. But when traverses are involved, the problems escalate. They didn’t know much about Paul and Didier, or if one or even both were injured. If it were a serious injury, evacuation was going to be highly technical.

  As soon as they landed, the rescuers started to fix ropes across the difficult face above the climbers. Their rucksacks were heavy and made this manoeuvre hazardous. Eventually they found a steeply angled ledge, almost directly above the boys. They were now about a hundred metres above. It was essential to find cracks from which to secure the winch to pitons. Here, however, the rock was very compact and they had to make the best of a bad lot of belays; it seemed impossible to get a good piton in. Finally around 10.00 am (five hours after having been landed from the helicopter) they got the winch in place.

  Even with the dodgy belays there was a volunteer ready to go down on the thin cable. It was Alan, one of the guides, who went down with a walkie-talkie. The lowering operation is fairly simple, just a matter of braking with the winch, which doesn’t require much effort. After about eighty metres Alan had to make a tricky pendulum to get round a rock edge. He made it and arrived at the two climbers, who hailed him as if he were the Messiah.

  Time was slipping away and they decided to winch up the three men together. Even though the winch can lift over a ton, the effort required from the rescuers was going to be considerable on the cramped and dangerous stance.

  They knew that it would take the six of them nearly two hours to get the three men to their ledge. Later they were to realise that it would have been better to do it in two operations instead of one. That would involve two men at a time because you needed to keep a rescuer on the cable to prevent it penduluming. Eventually, after much sweating, they got the three men up to that uncomfortable ledge at half-past twelve.

  The rescuers didn’t mutter about the incompetence of the two climbers. There was only the satisfaction of having completed a difficult and dangerous job successfully.

  From their lofty perch they could now see that the sky, which they had forgotten to look at, was getting darker. Another storm was almost upon them. Within a few minutes all hell broke loose, the same ingredients as the two men had experienced before. Lightning, rain and snow. They had to tie on to prevent themselves being plucked off the face.

  Everybody was soaked to the skin. The sodden ropes froze into steel hawsers and the rescuers realised what Paul and Didier had been through in the earlier storms. They were lucky to have survived.

  The problem now was how to get down. Just then it was out of the question to make a move. To untie from the safety ropes would have been suicidal. But if the helicopter didn’t return they would have to start considering the long and laborious way down the frozen rock, towards the glacier and the Charpoua Refuge. Just when they had decided on this drastic course of action, which would mean leaving their heavy gear to be picked up later, they heard the comforting beat of the Alouette through the cloud. What a relief!

  Over the radio the rescuers were told that both helicopters were hoping to pick them up. It was to be a personal challenge for the rescue pilots. The machines inched their way towards that exposed rocky outpost. The first helicopter hovered overhead. Didier and Paul were winched aboard. In minutes, they were borne from that harsh environment to the Chamonix hospital. The second helicopter managed to get a skid on to the granite edge of the rock and eventually all the team were taken off. Paul fortunately had only sustained severe bruising and was shortly to be climbing again.

  That night, the rescuers met in a restaurant to celebrate the success of the operation. They felt it was a call-out of considerable technical difficulty which doesn’t happen too often these days, and what was even more important it had a happy ending.

  An Airborne Avalanche

  Detective work in t
he Tatras

  Milo Vrba

  An avalanche to the layman is often simply regarded as a mass of snow shooting down a mountain, just like a load of sand or gravel being tipped off a truck. The word avalanche is an all embracing one conveying everything from rock falls to soggy messes of slithering mud and earth which can be a serious problem in some countries in the spring thaw. Then there are the thoroughbreds of ice, powder snow, wet-snow and an assortment of slab avalanches, or indeed combinations of all these.

  Avalanches are just one of many dangers sprung on the unwary by mountains. They can descend with devastating force, but they are not all in a hurry. A small wet avalanche can tumble down a slope as if it had all the time in the world, but its more flighty brother, the airborne powder avalanche can scour a face in a blast of destruction, reaching speeds of over 200 mph. It can rip reinforced concrete to pieces, leaving only a skeleton of steel and reduce villages and even towns to their foundations.

  Up till the early 1960s very little notice was taken of avalanches in Britain. It is true that climbers were injured and killed by them on occasions, but they were considered to be an act of God. Later, however, once the ice climbing revolution got under way in the mid 1960s, the number of mountaineers on the hills rose dramatically in winter; and so inevitably more were caught in avalanches.

  One of the earliest recorded avalanches in Scotland is shrouded in folklore and legend, but the bare facts are interesting enough. A certain Captain MacPherson was known as the “Black Officer”; he was a despised recruiting officer, with whom many felt they had a score to settle. At one time he was reputed to have given a ball at Ballachroan and sent invitations to all the young bloods of the district. Though it wasn’t a fancy dress ball, the wily captain had laid out a selection of smart red coats for the young men to try on, which they did with alacrity and laughter. Once resplendent in the uniforms they had signed their destiny. The captain’s soldiers descended and pressed them into the service of the King. But in the end it was the Almighty who took vengeance and so the people of the district considered his death a fitting judgment.