We started at 5.45 A.M. on June 21, and followed the route of the Breuiljoch(183) for three hours. We were then in full view of our gully, and turned off at right angles for it. The closer we approached, the more favourable did it look. There was a good deal of snow in it, which was evidently at a small angle, and it seemed as if one-third of the ascent, at least, would be a very simple matter. Some suspicious marks in the snow at its base suggested that it was not free from falling stones, and, as a measure of precaution, we turned off on one side, worked up under cover of the cliffs, and waited to see if anything should descend. Nothing fell, so we proceeded up its right or northern side, sometimes cutting steps up the snow and sometimes mounting by the rocks. Shortly before 10 A.M. we arrived at a convenient place for a halt, and stopped to rest upon some rocks, immediately close to the snow, which commanded an excellent view of the gully. While the men were unpacking the food I went to a little promontory to examine our proposed route more narrowly, and to admire our noble couloir, which led straight up into the heart of the mountain for fully one thousand feet. It then bent towards the north, and ran up to the crest of the south-eastern ridge. My curiosity was piqued to know what was round this corner, and whilst I was gazing up at it, and following with the eye the exquisitely drawn curves which wandered down the snow in the gully, all converging to a large rut in its centre, I saw a few little stones skidding down. I consoled myself with thinking that they would not interfere with us if we adhered to the side. But then a larger one came down, a solitary fellow, rushing at the rate of sixty miles an hour—and another—and another. I was unwilling to raise the fears of the men unnecessarily, and said nothing to them. They did not hear the stones. Almer was seated on a rock, carving large slices from a leg of mutton, the others were chatting, and the first intimation they had of danger was from a crash—a sudden roar—which reverberated awfully amongst the cliffs, and, looking up, they saw masses of rocks, boulders and stones, big and little, dart round the corner eight hundred feet or so above us, fly with fearful fury against the opposite cliffs, rebound from them against the walls on our side, and descend; some ricochetting from side to side in a frantic manner; some bounding down in leaps of a hundred feet or more over the snow; and others trailing down in a jumbled, confused mass, mixed with snow and ice, deepening the grooves which, a moment before, had excited my admiration.