I have failed to give the impression I wish if it has not been made evident that the ascent of the Pointe des Ecrins was not an ordinary piece of work. There is an increasing disposition now-a-days amongst those who write on the Alps, to underrate the difficulties and dangers which are met with, and this disposition is, I think, not less mischievous than the old-fashioned style of making everything terrible. Difficult as we found the peak, I believe we took it at the best, perhaps the only possible, time of the year. The great slope on which we spent so much time was, from being denuded by the avalanche of which I have spoken, deprived of its greatest danger. Had it had the snow still resting upon it, and had we persevered with the expedition, we should almost without doubt have ended with calamity instead of success. The ice of that slope is always below, its angle is severe, and the rocks do not project sufficiently to afford the support that snow requires, to be stable, when at a great angle. So far am I from desiring to tempt any one to repeat the expedition, that I put it on record as my belief, however sad and however miserable a man may have been, if he is found on the summit of the Pointe des Ecrins after a fall of new snow, he is likely to experience misery far deeper than anything with which he has hitherto been acquainted.(114) CHAPTER IX. FROM VAL LOUISE TO LA BÉRARDE BY THE COL DE PILATTE.(115) “How pleasant it is for him who is saved to remember his danger.” EURIPIDES. From Ailefroide to Claux, but for the path, travel would be scarcely more easy than over the Pré de Madame Carle.(116) The valley is strewn with immense masses of gneiss, from the size of a large house downwards, and it is only occasionally that rock _in situ_ is seen, so covered up is it by the débris, which seems to have been derived almost entirely from the neighbouring cliffs. It was Sunday, a “day most calm and bright.” Golden sunlight had dispersed the clouds, and was glorifying the heights, and we forgot hunger through the brilliancy of the morning and beauty of the mountains. We meant the 26th to be a day of rest, but it was little that we found in the _cabaret_ of Claude Giraud, and we fled before the babel of sound which rose in intensity as men descended to a depth which is unattainable by the beasts of the field, and found at the chalets of Entraigues(117) the peace that had been denied to us at Val Louise.