An Alpine Disaster.

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 108, 3 November 1897, Page 4

An Alpine Disaster.

Two tourists and two guides have met with an accident while mountainBering on the Sallas, near Evolena, Canton Valais, and have, it is feared, been killed. One of them was Mr Bernard Swinstead, of London. He was one of a party of eight persons who started the other day from Sion, the capital of the Canton Valais, to make the ascent. At the head of the party was Pastor Gonin, of Sion, and with him went three younp men of the town, and some young men who were staying in his house as pensionnaires. They made the ascent in two sections, tbo first consisting of the three townsmen and a porter, while the pastor and his young companions formed the second. The first party bad reached tbo summit, when the second group, who were following them closely, were suddenly overtaken by an avalanche, and swept down a crevasse ICOOft deep. That they perished can scarcely be doubted, though all hope in not given up. The missing are : Pastor Gonin, two lads from Lausanne, and young Mr Bernard Swinstead. The remains of the four four victims (says Reuter) have been discovered in a terrible condition. Tho sarvivors relate that tho four men who were overwhelmed lost their footing under the avalanche, which was not a large one, and fell from a rock, a distance of 2000 ft. The advance party could not assist their companions, the only trace of them which was perceptible from the height at which they stood being a leg sticking out of the snow and a jacket.