Grandes Jorcisses ; North Face. The tremendous Mer-de-Glace face of this mountain was finally conquered this past summer, after a siege lasting many years.

“On the 28th and 29th of June two German climbers, Rudolf Peters and Martin Meier, accomplished this feat under considerable difficulty. When they first arrived on the 26th, a spell of eight days of warm weather had melted off most of the snow and loosened the stones. The rocks were wet and avalanches were nearly continuous, so a delay of several days for cooler weather was made. The ascent was commenced at 2.30 on the afternoon of June 28th, but in spite of cooler weather they were thoroughly soaked from the wet climbing when they bivouacked at 6.00 p.m. A rock avalanche during the night destroyed their cooking utensils. During the next day’s climbing they were surprised by a stonefall on a steep ice face ; Meier was hit on the head and knocked out. Luckily he was held on the rope and came to quickly but suffered a two inch scalp wound. They reached the summit (The Punta Margherita) at 8 p.m. and bivouacked there as they did not know the way down the Italian side. They descended to Courmayeur the next day. Peters will be remembered for his attempt of 1934 when, only a few hundred feet from the top with his companion Rudolf Harringer, he was forced to retreat because of storm and Harringer was killed on the descent. Two other parties climbed this north face by the same route two days later in complete ignorance of the successful German climb. The Italians, Renato Chabod and G. Gervasutti and two Genevese, M. Lambert and Mlle Boulas made this climb on July 1-2, so that this impossible wall has now been climbed three times.”