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Show VENTURERS' CLUB NES FROM THE LIVES f0PlE LIKE YOURSELF! g "Mountain Doom' By FLOYD GIBBONS Famous Headline Hunter -rn EVERYBODY: c rnuel Johnson of Brooklyn, N. Y., has two hobbies, Sjthem was bound to get him into trouble sooner ' hh'es are skiing and mountain climbing and two more dan-l dan-l don't know of. You know what sort of a game skiing is. J h ever seen a news-reel of a bunch of ski jumpers doesn't Mil's a good idea to pay up your insurance before you try limbing is a 111116 more 0:13,1 twice as danSerous as skiing. 3i of mountain climbing with which Sam busts into the club ijahpd Adventurer. For a good many years, Sam has lived jjijy in Italy. day in Ju'v 1931, way up ,n the Ita,ian A,PS he had Venture that almost culminated in his living nowhere - to IUly nor anywhere else. Climbing the Doufoure Peak. My day. four Italians a doctor, a lawyer and two engineers a!h Sam himself, set out to climb the Doufoure the highest Tffirult'peak in the Monte Rosa chain of Alps. They started Professional guides, for all of them thought they were suf-!spert suf-!spert at climbing to get along without them. That, says Sam, jjt mistake. time out here to explain that it was absolutely necessary fTueak before eleven a. m. For from that hour to one in n the sun is at its height, melting the snow and letting loose uches that come crashing down the mountain-side carrying tons of rock, dirt and ice along with them. Linen climbed until daybreak. "And all at once," Sam says, dus work we had done climbing to this point, was well re-f re-f the magnificent spectacle that unfolded before our eyes. sun was shining on Monte Rosa and because of some phe-l phe-l whoie mountain chain became a deep rose color the hue 'toe peaks their name. We kept on going. By seven o'clock, "-.to make headway in snow two or three feet deep in places, id still to be a great distance from the peak. That didn't worry - the position we were in it was next to impossible to judge dis-:even dis-:even our direction. But by nine o'clock-" Lost and Cut Off by Avalanche. a o'clock that peak didn't seem any nearer than it had at "aey knew they were lost then and they were thoroughly frighten fright-en were at an altitude of about twelve thousand feet, and a "at in the intense cold at that level was pretty sure to be fatal. A terrific avalanche roared past them. 'i i fire," says Sam, "is impossible.. There is nothing to burn, sreany other protection from the sub-zero temperature, or from blasts of wind that sweep the mountain all through the night." Hkj climbed for two more hours and by that time they B but exhausted. They stopped to rest on a ledge of rock, suddenly a terrific avalanche roared past them not a hundred siwsy. It was eleven o'clock the deadline for mountain tws-the time when they ran for cover if there was any r tt run to. ; slide." says Sam, "crossed the path of the trail we had made II we had been delayed just a few minutes I rather believe a would now be reposing on some glacier under that thousand sck and ice. We didn't dare travel after that From then until t'Mkwe sat huddled on the ledge expecting every moment to ed away by another avalanche. At three we started out again, tod the lost trail. We didn't find it and to make matters sun was sinking rapidly and it was getting colder by the Took Refuge in a Cave. situation was serious. Sam and his companions decided some-;!inly some-;!inly should be done about it. But what? None of them knew. :i consultation and agreed to hole in for the night take a s being alive in the morning. Three men rose to find a suitable k in, but two of them lay still on the ice too exhausted to L difficulty the others got them to their feet. Practically W them, they moved on across a glacier, looking for a cave. '"A they didn't know it then, it was that move that saved it lives. found a cave and huddled into it They didn't dare go to sleep, to death. Their food supply had run out by that time, and Pains of hunger added to their intense misery. The suffer-' suffer-' Bight. Sam says, no one could ever describe. But at six in ''"I they saw five black figures moving across the ice toward lack figureS wore five professional guides. Down in Macugnaga "th a pair of powerful binoculars had seen them as they foss tnat last stretch of glacier. The guides men of remark-:ance remark-:ance had climbed all night long to reach them before it p They literally carried the five men down the mountain and '? to a hospital, where one member of the party had a leg ' another a hand, and a third, all the toes off both feet. But Johnson, the sawbones didn't have to do any work on him. Copyright. WNU Service. |