Chippings
Friendly Italy.—The closing of the high Alpine passes into Italy continues to cause much annoyance and criticism, and it is well that from time to time mountaineers should be reminded that the Italians are reasonable and efficient people, even if they have views of their own.
Last year a British party were forced by bad weather from a bivouac on Mont Maudit to descend the Brenva glacier, the only route open. The gendarme stationed at the Torino hut had warned them that a descent into Italy would lead to trouble. At a bad place Parry of the S.M.C. was involved in a fall of moraine and seriously hurt, though we believe no bones were broken.
Smythe made a risky descent alone to the road, and called up Courmayeur on the telephone. In three-quarters of an hour a rescue party, provided with a peculiarly efficient form of stretcher, came up by motor, and not only reached Parry and Harrison the same day, but brought Parry in by 9 p.m. No trouble was made for the party, and the gendarme from the Torino who would, under other circumstances, have quickly run them in, beamed affably upon them.
Two Narrow Escapes.—Two recent incidents have emphasized the need for the greatest caution underground. Solid as limestone may be where it is waterswept, it is often a treacherous material.
In August, 1929, the pioneers who had turned Swinsto Hole from an amusing bathe into a great cavern were tempted to hang their top ladder out of the water on very doubtful projections. Hainsworth of the Gritstone Club was badly hurt when these broke off, but most fortunately not entirely disabled. Both the landing and the short tunnel to daylight are such that otherwise we cannot imagine how he could have been extricated.
In Lost Johns’, in December, Lipscomb was apparently trying to traverse the wall from the ledge in the Cathedral to an interesting route which comes up from below when a huge block came away and he fell forty feet, being held by Kennedy and the others just above the floor. Lipscomb’s knee-cap was fractured when he grazed the opposite wall, but he too was able to get out with assistance.
We congratulate both men on their pluck, and on having made good recovery.
Those Underground Lakes.—Legends of any kind, historical or scientific, die very hard, and one of them is the idea that the streams of limestone districts go underground to swell vast subterranean lakes. The popular belief is confirmed for all time by Jules Verne’s thrilling story, in which all ends happily in an underground town of coal-miners by an underground lake somewhere in Scotland.
A delightful article appeared in the Yorkshire Weekly Post, September 28th, 1929, headed, “ UNENDING DROUGHT—WHAT ARE AUTHORITIES DOING ? ”. After referring to Ossett’s bold and successful move to use the water from a flooded colliery, the writer stated that no one knew how many huge lakes the limestone uplands contained, and said, in extra thick print, “ Has not the time come when the exploration of these caves and pot-holes should become the work of practical men and not be left any longer to the efforts of Ramblers and speleologists ? ”
Alas, the practical men we know of do not believe in subterranean lakes inside mountains ! They would pipe the water at God’s Bridge or Keld Head, or worst still, run a concrete trench round upper Ingleborough.
Alpine Hare.—The white hare occasionally seen on the moors and fells is not the ordinary brown hare in a winter dress, but the Scotch or Alpine Hare, The Naturalist (January, 1929), has an interesting article revealing that the white hares only occur in the Pennines between, roughly, Kinder Scout and Blackstone Edge, and that their occurrence at all is due to colonies released near Penistone and Greenfield as late as 1870 and 1880. The Editor can testify that with Ellis he saw them in extraordinary numbers on Kinder eight or nine years ago.