GREAT CLIMBER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 July 1938, Page 7

GREAT CLIMBER

MEMORIES OF EDWARD WHYMPER. There is one place in Europe where a remarkable film “The Challenge,” in which the great English climber, Edward Whymper figures, is waited with eagerness. That place is Chamonix, for it'is in the cemetery of Chamonix that Whymper lies buried. Whymper, the pioneer of British climbers, was one who made Chamonix and its mountains well known, and it is the Guides Corps of Chamonix who keep Whymper’s grave ever covered with flowers. Every peak that surrounds the valley in which Chamonix nestles was climbed by him or by another English climber. Chamonix has many English associations, and it is not unmindful of the fact that it was “discovered” by the English, when two young Englishmen set out from Geneva in 1740 to find a great glacier they had heard about, the famous Mer de Glace. They approached Chamonix, then a village, as one would approach a savage encampment and after pitching their tents near by and mounting sentries the first night, they found the inhabitants next morning hospitable and pleased to see them. Later, Ruskin spent much time at Chamonix, and the bench where he delighted to sit and gaze across the valley is shown, while Turner set the wild beauty of this lovely spot on canvas.