GIRL CLIMBERS’ PERIL

Hokitika Guardian, 25 September 1924, Page 3

GIRL CLIMBERS’ PERIL

(iROI’K ACROSS OI.ACIKR IX STOICAL OHAAiOXIX, Aug. 11. A dramatic account of the terrible journey across the Trelalete I’a-s bv a par.v which included two girls ol 20. Allle. ' .Marguerite I’iekanl and Allle. Kielmaiin. was given me to-day by Al. .lac,pies di* l.opiney, who with AL bogarde guided their little party climbers to safety in tue face ol one ol the worst snowstorms that* have ever swept Aleut Rhine. Though almost all the time it was impossible to see more hail a few feet in trout, they avoided the crevasses ol the glacier and aft o o r, It of incessant ell'ort managed to reach shelter. “We left the Trehitet- Pavilion. AT. de Lepiney told me. “at 11.-ii p. 111., and, crossing the glaeiei ,we reached the slope which leads to the Col de Trelalete at about -I a.m. There I I of the climbers decided to return. Six of us miiliniied to climb. We were roped together in two parties. 1 was with Allle. Marguerite Rickard, a brave girl and an intrepid climber, and Air (I. AUj\endorff. AT. I.egarde was with Allle. Kielmnnn and Air R. Daure. - TKAIRKST OF S.XtIVA . “The weather, however, grew rapnll.v worse, and if was in a tempest ol snow that- we struggled up the slope, and at S o’clock reached the Iroitlier i idea at. a height of 11.5111) loot. ‘Tt did not seem possible to return the wav we had come. We pushed u.i to the Col itself, which we leach'd "t <) O’clock, and then began to descen I „„ the Italian side by the Alee Blanche glacier. “The blizzard prevented u- at most times from seeing more than a loot or so in front of us. We had. therein,-o. 1.0 move with the greatest rare, ao . the more so as the fresh soft snow suifaee was verv treacherous. “For hours we wandered aero-s Lie broken ridges and crevasses ol Ij glacier. It was dark long bob"'* " reached the valley at the end ol th glacier, and hy the time we arrived at the refuge hut at T.n \ isaille. Halt, it was midnight. NO FOOD FOR 21 TTOI btv “We had onlv had hall all hours rest all the way. and the last hours ol our descent along the glacier had heel, particularly tiring. AW !>«« « ’‘/ h ; 1 nothing to eat from 1 a.m. C> L l • ■ At- the refuge we had some hot dunk, and were able to rest. ’ Everybody in Chamonix ,s astounded at the endurance shown by .Miles. Rickard and Kielmaiin. The two girls were naturally roped in tho middle ot each little party, but they l ore no wonderfully well, and even at the end ot their terrible ordeal they still struggled along bravely and did all they cmihl " relieve the strain on their male cnin-