LONDON: To an already long list of daring mountain-climbing feats Miss Constance A Barnicoat (Wellington and Nelson) has added yet another.
Already she had to credit the attainment of difficult achievements in the Pyrenees, the Russian Caucasus, and the New Zealand Alps.
Before Christmas Miss Barnicoat left London for Switzerland to take up some special journalistic work during the winter sports season there, and news has just come to London that she has made the ascent of the Great Schreckhorn (13,385ft), the most difficult peak in Bernese Oberland.
With two first-class Grindelwald guides, Fritz Amatter and Rudolf Purgener, both of whom have had considerable experience of winter climbing, she started last Friday morning on the first winter ascent in her mountaineering career.
She left Grindelwald at 7am for the new Schwarzegg Hut, which was reached about 4 o'clock on the afternoon of the same day. Plenty of wood having been left from last summer, a good fire could be made and hot supper cooked.
The next morning the party set out at 4.30 o'clock for the ascent of the final summit. Snow-rackets were worn as the snow was deep, dry and powdery.
The summit was reached at 2.15 on Saturday afternoon, and the party was down again at the hut at 8.30 o'clock somewhat tired. The second night was also passed in the Schwarzegg Hut, and the climbers returned safe and sound to Grindelwald on Sunday afternoon.
This dangerous ascent is seldom attempted in winter, and has only once before been made by a woman, and that was in the summer season. Fortunately the snow and weather were perfect, but considerable cold was encountered.
Miss Barnicoat says she has never before worn snow-rackets, but found them quite easy to manage; they are shaped like a large oval tennis racket, and are attached by straps firmly to the foot. They are useful in preventing a climber from sinking into soft snow.
The Westminster Gazette remarks: "A winter ascent of the Schreckhorn has been scored to the credit of Miss Constance Barnicoat, who learned to climb in the New Zealand alps. It would seem that winter climbing specially tempts feminine ambition, for it was a lady who first go the the top of an important snow peak at that season of the year. The heroine of that feat was Miss Brevoort, who climbed both the Wetterhorm and the Jungfrau in the winter of 1871. . . . Neither of the climbs, however, was as difficult as Miss Barnicoat's, for the Schreckhorn is, indeed, as its name implies, a Peak of Terror in the winter season." - ODT, 16.3. 1911
