STRUGGLE IN SNOW

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 756, 31 August 1929, Page 33

STRUGGLE IN SNOW

DEATH TAKES TWO MEN ON MONT BLANC GUIDE’S HEROISM j A tragic story of how two French- * men lost their lives on Mont Blanc j one Sunday recently, in a desperate ; bid to reach shelter from a blizzard, ,is told by their guide, Coutet, in a | Paris paper. M. Santon (an architect of Aix-les-Bains) and M. Jaurier (an intelligence officer with the Rhine army) were met by a blizzard while coming down the mountain with their guide. Further descent was impossible. They decided to climb back to the Vallot shelter on the summit. “When we were getting near there —three-quarters of au hour away,” the guide said, "M. Santon lay down in the snow. It took all my strength to get him up. He collapsed again. I poured some brandy between his lips, and gave him something to eat, telling him to rest a little. After a quarter of an hour we started off again, but again M. Santon fell. For a brief moment he struggled in the snow, and then lay back dead. I stuck his alpenstock into the snow and tied the body to it, and we bade | him a last farewell. I “M. Jaurier and I resumed our ’ fight, but soon after we had got to ! the Arrete des Bosses he showed signs ! of collapsing, and I had to drag him ; through the snow. Twice he rolled j to the edge of the precipice on the ! Italian side, and I just managed to i hold him back. He kept on groaning. | When we reached the Rocher de la 1 Tourmette, he let go his alpenstock | and gloves, and began to slip down i the icy slope on the Italian side. Once I again I managed to hold him. I i fixed the rope firmly to my alpenstock and went down after him. I was | to drag him up a bit, and place | him in a less dangerous and more j sheltered place. But r then found, to my horror, that he too was dead. I j left his body tied by the rope to an j alpenstock.” When Coutet found himself alone, J the storm was raging worse than ever. ; He had despaired of reaching the re- ! fuge, and the furious wind hurled stinging blasts of frozen snow in his face till he had to make his way backwards. He could scarcely see where he was going until he found himself surrounded by precipices. A brief lull enabled him to take his bearings He was in a dangerous plight on the side of the Grande Bosse. Then, in a gust, he caught a glimpse of the rock on which the refuge stands, and again everything became white. Eventually he crawled to the top of 'the Grande Bosse and over it, getting j a hand-hold where he could to pre- | vent the wind blowing him away. As J night fell he reached the Vallot re- ! fuge, and lay down exhausted.