Page 96 - Gertrude Bell (H.V.F.Winstone)

8o GERTRUDE BELL
Fuhrer was published in the Alpine Journal in which he recalled
the climb and said: ‘The honour belongs to Miss Bell. Had she
not been full of courage and determination we must have
perished.’ Another distinguished mountaineer, Colonel E. L.
Strutt, who became editor of the Alpine Journal, wrote in 1926:
‘Her strength, incredible in that slim frame, her endurance, above
all her courage, were so great that even to this day her guide and
companion Ulrich Fuhrer —and there could be no more com­
petent judge — speaks with an admiration of her that amounts to
veneration. He told the writer some years ago, that of all the
amateurs, men or women, that he had travelled with, he had seen
but very few to surpass her in technical skill and none to equal her
in coolness, bravery and judgement.’
When Gertrude wrote to her father to describe an event that
was to become legendary among Alpine climbers, she began by
describing the flora of the region. ‘I was delighted by the ex­
quisiteness of the flowers ... Isn’t it odd how the whole flora
changes from one valley to another.’ Not all of her climbing
expeditions were recorded in her own letters or in mountaineering
publications, but one Alpine authority listed her new routes or
first ascents in the Engelhorner as best he knew them: In August
1901, Similistock, King’s Peak, Gerard’s Peak; September 1901,
Vorderspitze, Gertrude’s Peak (named after her), Ulrich’s Peak,
Mittelspitze, Klein Engelhorn, Gemsenspitze, Urbachthaler
Engelhorn; July 1902, Klein Similistock. That authority, W. A.
Coolidge, stated that one well-known climber had told him that
his most vivid recollection of Mont Blanc was the effort required
to follow Miss Bell. And he added, ‘They tell me she was the best
of all lady mountaineers.’ When she returned from the Finsteraar-
horn, she and her guides had frostbite of the hands and feet. It
was to all intents the end of her climbing career.