disappointment, that the rock ridge ended where it joined the arête, and our hopes of an easy rock climb vanished. Finally we arrived just under the first summit of our mountain. Here the same difficulty we had experienced down below again presented itself, but in a worse form. The arête was much steeper, sloping probably at an angle of about 55 to 60 degrees. Mummery tried the same tactics as before, but soon had to confess that he dared not trust the snow any further, for it was thoroughly sodden upon the surface of the ice, and we might bring the whole face off at any moment. On the arête itself the snow, where it had drifted and been frozen, lay curiously deep, so that even at the thinnest point it did not allow of steps being cut in the ice below. Our only chance, therefore, was to try the ice slope on the left of the arête. Mummery led, cutting the steps diagonally across the slope, where a thin coating of snow lay some two or three inches deep over the hard ice underneath. As he moved slowly upwards, I came next on the rope, and, to keep my hands employed, passed the time in cutting the steps deeper into the ice. The position was a sensational one--we were crossing the steepest ice slope of any great size I had ever been on; below us it shot straight down some 2000 feet without a break, till the angle became less in a small snow basin. The next objects that met the eye were the stone slopes far below in the valley, and unconsciously I began to picture to myself the duration and the result of an involuntary glissade on such a mountain-side.