CHAPTER XVII.
THE COL DOLENT.
"Men willingly believe what they wish."—Cæsar.
Freethinking mountaineers have been latterly in the habit of going up one side of an Alp and coming down the other, and calling the route a pass. In this confusion of ideas may be recognised the result of the looseness of thought which arises from the absence of technical education. The true believer abhors such heresies, and observes with satisfaction that Providence oftentimes punishes the offenders for their greediness by causing them to be benighted. The faithful know that passes must be made between mountains, and not over their tops. Their creed declares that between any two mountains there must be a pass, and they believe that the end for which big peaks were created—the office they are especially designed to fulfil—is to point out the way one should go. This is the true faith, and there is no other.
We set out upon the 26th of June to endeavour to add one more to the passes which are strictly orthodox. We hoped, rather than expected, to discover a quicker route from Courmayeur to Chamounix than the Col du Géant, which was the easiest, quickest, and most direct pass known at the time across the main chain of Mont Blanc.[1] The misgivings which I had as to the result caused us to start at the unusual hour of 12.40 a.m. At 4.30 we passed the chalets of Prè du Bar, and thence, for some distance, followed the track which we had made upon the ascent of Mont Dolent, over the
- ↑ The view of Mont Blanc from a gorge on the south of the Italian Val Ferret, mid-way between the villages of La Vachey and Praz See, and about 3000 feet above them, is, in my opinion, the finest which can be obtained of that mountain range anywhere upon the Italian side.
